RUFUS MCGAUGH
Traveler, Author and retired Brownell Teacher
The scheduled speaker for today cancelled yesterday due to an out of state death in the family.
Fortunately, sought-after speaker Rufus McGaugh was willing to squeeze us in this morning between speaking yesterday at Macomb Community College and Thursday at the SCS Friends of the Library Annual Meeting. He last spoke to the SMC four years ago (March 2018) on his lifelong quest to see the world. Today will be Part II of the topic.
The last time Rufus was with us he had completed his goal of visiting every country in the world and had published Longitude & Latitude with Attitude: One Man’s Quest to See the Entire world. Since then, he has published two more books: 1) Joyriding with a Terrorist in Yemen: and Other Travel Tales and 2) Drowning in all Seven Continents.
Rufus was born in Detroit. He grew up wanting to be a marine, a spy, and a teacher. Rufus enlisted in the Marines and fought in Viet Nam (1970-1971). He was wounded in 1970 and earned the purple heart.
After graduating from Wayne State University, he taught in Grosse Pointe Middle Schools from 1974 to 2010.
Mc Gaugh describes his two favorite trips as to Russia in 1966 to pick up and adopt their oldest son, and in 2006 to 11 Mile and Van Dyke to pick up their foster son, whom they later adopted. He and his wife live in Grosse Pointe.
His favorite activities are backpacking, mountain trekking, mountain climbing, and travel.