Dr. Ronald Stephen Knapp

Dr. Ron Knapp has over thirty-seven years of experience as a history teacher, writer, and traveler. He has hitchhiked throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Western Europe.

He grew up outside Detroit before graduating from Central Michigan University. After student teaching in Southampton, England, during his final semester at CMU, he put out his thumb to see the world. In Israel, he lived on a kibbutz, climbed Masada, and swam in the Dead Sea. He worked building hotels in Greece, picked grapes in France, labored as a roughneck and roustabout on a drill ship off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula and was hired as an extra in a movie titled The Big Red One.

After returning to the United States, he taught in the Detroit Public Schools and earned his second degree Black Belt in Tang Soo Do, before he and his wife, Lou Ann, accepted teaching positions at Union School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. During their second year, they witnessed the ouster of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier from power and people killing Tonton Macoutes in the neighboring streets.

From Haiti, Ron and Lou Ann moved to Miami, where Ron taught in Coral Gables, and then Dade County Public Schools. As a Law Studies teacher, Ron coached his students at Miami Central High to excel in the countywide Mock Trial competition, winning first place in 1990. Ron also earned his doctorate in Education from Florida International University.

Accepting teaching positions in the Ivory Coast took them to West Africa for the next seven years. Travels included countless trips to African villages and a voyage down the Niger River to the remote city of Timbuktu. The turbulent political upheavals that brought down President Bedie and General Guei also ended Ron and Lou Ann’s time in West Africa.

After two years of working in Pensacola, Florida, Ron and Lou Ann set off for Surabaya, Indonesia, where the story for Ron’s book, Quallah Battoo, first took hold. Trips to Malacca, Borobudur, Prambanan, and Bali, as well as to other Asian countries, provided endless enjoyment and inspiration.

Their final years of working were spent in the Philippines at Brent International School Manila, with Ron as an admissions director and middle school principal and Lou Ann as an English teacher. Aside from their frequent travels, they were rewarded by working with some of the best students, parents, and teachers that one could hope for.

Now retired in Pensacola, Florida, Ron and his wife live a quieter life with their cat Carter.