Chuck Soderquist     I was born in Pasco and grew up mostly in Richland. My parents were Christian and we attended Bethel Baptist Church when I was a teen. I was active in the youth program there, but the church was tiny and there were just a few teens.

     Science and technology always looked like lots of fun, so I read all about it. I read constantly. That would have been fine in school, except what I read was rarely the assigned material. I scraped up enough material to make a small laboratory in my bedroom. The family got used to the unusual smells after a while and they eventually stopped commenting about my experiments.

     Karen [Edwards] and I met at Northwest Nazarene College, in a little on-campus coffee shop called the Fireside Inn. I had already heard about her from mutual friends, but I didn't have a face to put with the name until that night. Several of us were sitting in the corner booth, and I didn't know everyone at the table. Karen was sitting across the table from me.

     I graduated that year and re-enrolled in the fall for graduate school. Karen went to NNC for two more quarters and then ran out of money. She transferred to the school I was attending because it was cheaper, and we were married just before she graduated. We moved to Richland because I was able to get work there, and we've been here since.

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