Author Prentiss spent his lifetime playing many parts: Graduate of three universities; Dean of a Boys Military School; Intelligence Officer in the USAF; Professor and Administrator at Valencia Coll...view moreAuthor Prentiss spent his lifetime playing many parts: Graduate of three universities; Dean of a Boys Military School; Intelligence Officer in the USAF; Professor and Administrator at Valencia College in Orlando; Central Florida Coordinator for George McGovern Presidential Campaign; Founder of Operation Comeback for Troubled Teens; Founder of Talako Indian Dancers youth group; Recipient of President Reagan’s Volunteer Service Award. He and his wife, Sallie, raised their three children and also opened their home to seven troubled teens who lived with them for periods of four months to three years. For thirteen years, they also took two Operation Comeback boys each year on their annual fishing trips to Northern Canada. Although coming from a fine, loving home, Prentiss experienced a troubled early adolescence which helped prepare him for a successful experience in helping other troubled youths.
He is the author of “Secrets of a Boy, Lost,” a novel billed as “a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age” story which is heavily based on his own experiences as a youth. The book is laid in the Midwest (Prentiss was from Sterling, Illinois) among the states of Illinois, Missouri, Florida (briefly), Wisconsin, and Iowa. It covers a time span beginning during WWII.
His present Memoir contains the incidents described as fiction in the novel plus a great deal more. In both books, Prentiss writes with the sure hand of an author who knows first-hand what he is writing about since they are his own experiences. The Memoir, “One Man In His Time,” is mainly based in Florida where he has lived since 1953.view less