Son of a Coal Miner’s Daughter

William 'Bill' Spencer Miller takes us on his journey of expansion and personal growth through his varied experiences as a farm boy in Brown County, Indiana to a Foreign Service Reserve Officer with the Peace Corps, a volunteer in Indonesia and Thailand, a Peace Corps director in the Kingdom of Tonga, and the Philippines. He went from attending a one-room school in Beanblossom, Indiana to Franklin College, to Eastern Illinois University where earned degrees in Biology, Kinesiology, and Sports, giving him a solid foundation to make his dreams come true. We learn about living in cultures different from our own as he shares his interactions living with and teaching the people of Indonesia and Thailand. Bill, always active, shares stories of playing basketball at the height of Hoosier Mania. His life-long love of running culminated in his participating in several triathlons, until a serious illness took him down, but not out of a productive life. He tells us of returning to the United States after ten years abroad and building a new life in Brown County with his wife and young family. We will learn about his new career paths and his work on the Deam Wilderness Project and his fight for landowners private property rights. Bill Miller’s experiences give voice to a life that has spanned (so far) a world that was still recovering from the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the assassinations of prominent leaders in our country, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, to our present day struggles around the globe.