Blog #2

Hello All!

My name is Keith Mearns and I am a "super" senior undergraduate here at USC. I have a long history of events but I will try to make it concise enough to be interesting. I am was born and grew up here in Columbia and went to Heathwood Hall through tenth grade. For my Junior year of high school, I went to the SC Governor's School for the Arts - Oh yea, I used to dance ballet. After being at the Gov. school for just one year, I moved to NYC to study ballet at the School of American Ballet, in Lincoln Center. I finished high school through correspondence while at SAB and remained there a year after graduating. I then was accepted as a trainee at Pacific Northwest Ballet's school and spent a year in Seattle training and performing. Stay with me....I then found a "job" in the second company (read training company) of Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia. I say "job" because, while I working with and performed for the Pennsylvania Ballet, I was only paid $200 a week....  I continued to work there for four years before returning home here to Columbia. I danced here for USC's dance dept for a few semesters before "retiring" from the stage. I now teach ballet at a school in the vista. Last year I got married to my beautiful wife, Jessica and we are looking forward to our first anniversary in March! The picture I posted here is of us on our honeymoon in St. John (US Virgin Islands). I highly recommend St. John as a vacation destination for those of you seeking relative quiet and natural beauty.
I have very little in the way of career plans specifically, except that I want very much to be involved with plants/agriculture/horticulture and am currently the TA for BIOL 427 Spring Flora, taught by the curator of USC Herbarium, John Nelson. (He can be seen regularly on ETV's MAKING IT GROW) I also work in the Herbarium databasing plant specimens and mounting new specimens. He invites any and all visitors to the Herbarium on weekdays from 9:00 AM to about 3:00 PM.

P.S. - the background picture on this blog is from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, which my wife and I have been visiting annually for 2 years now when they have a festival.