Steve Browne, something of myself

To introduce myself, I’m Steve Browne and I’m the new guy at the Marshall Independent.

I moved here from Valley City, North Dakota where I worked as a news reporter and columnist. Lately I’ve been driving a truck for harvest while looking for work at a larger-circulation newspaper. I’ve worked at a number of jobs throughout my life, including bar tender, teacher, and operator/lab tech in a sewage treatment plant.

As a journalist I get to combine two of my favorite pastimes, talking to people and writing.

I’m married to Monika (Lukasiewiz) Browne and we have two children Jerzy Waszyngton Browne (9) and Judyta Ilona Browne (4.) The reason for the unusual names is my wife is Polish. We met in Warsaw where I was teaching English, writing for magazines, and copy editing for the English-language publications of the Polish Academy of Science. My family will be joining me in Marshall after the school year finishes.

I lived in Eastern Europe (Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, plus a year in Saudi Arabia) from 1991 -2004. My son was born in Warsaw two weeks after 9/11 which is why we named him Jerzy Waszyngton - that’s Polish for George Washington. Monika had to fight the bureaucrats at the registry office because they have laws about what you can name your children.

My daughter was born in my father’s ancestral homeland of Oklahoma when I was doing post-graduate study in journalism and mass communication theory. She is named for my son's late English godmother Judith Hatton who was the widow of a KGB agent who defected after World War II (and that's not even the most interesting thing about her!) and our dear friend in Lithuania, Ilona Daukene who died in the mushroom epidemic in 2003. We miss them both.

There’s a bit of historical irony here, my children have grandfathers who were military officers on opposite sides of the Cold War. My father retired a Captain in the Navy Medical Corps, my father-in-law was a Major in the Secret Chancellery of the Polish Army. When they met, my father-in-law presented my father with a Polish officer’s saber which now has pride of place on his office wall.

Education: I have a Master’s degree in anthropology from Oklahoma University. Monika will no doubt be transferring to SWSU from Valley City State University where she majors in English with a minor in theater. When I met her she was attending Warsaw University, which is older than the United States. She loves American universities!

Hobbies: martial arts and exotic exercise. I am a ranked instructor in Wu-wei Kung Fu and Filipino Kali-Escrima with intermediate to advanced training in a few others. I exercise with the Russian kettle-bells and Indian clubs and am planning to record a demonstration of Indian club exercise for the public access TV channel. Monika's passion is theater and learning to cook new dishes.

I came here because I was looking for a town bigger than where I was living, but not too big. Near enough to the big city, but not too near. And a university was definitely a must-have.

People in the office and around our coverage area have been very friendly and welcoming. I look forward to getting to know the area and its people.