Don was born in Fairmont, WV in Jan, 1950.  He was the second of ten children in his family and he was raised in the small community of Whitehall outside of Fairmont for seven years until he was moved to the outskirts of Akron, OH.  Living in the village of Canal Fulton for most of his early years, he graduated from Northwest High School in 1968.  Don was an avid athlete in his younger days, he could usually be found hard at a game of baseball or basketball.  If the chores were done and there wasn't a game in the works, he could usually be found beating on an old hollow body electric guitar a neighbor had given him.  That beater served him well untill his parents got him a new solid body Silvertone, which became his mainstay for two or three years.  Don grew up listening to just about every kind of music, but snuck in as much Rock & Roll as he could.  His favorite guitarists and idols in those years were undoutably Don Rich and Duane Eddy.  Don started playing in his first band around 16 years of age, "Don & Jerry & the Ghost Riders".  Don and two other members of the band wrote most of the music for the band, if they weren't playin' a gig, he could usually be found out playing with his father's country band.  Over the Years he played in several cover bands, undoubtably the 2 most notable were the "Nimissilla Creek Band and the Coyote Junction Band".  He also played in three different bands during his tour of duty in Germany with the US Army.  Even though he thought he had retired from playing in bands when he moved to KY in 2002, KBCB kept the pressure on and after several attempts to get him to go to a KBCB practice, he was finally persuaded to attend one.  Don was immediately impressed with the fact that KBCB did mostly original material, and with the message left on his answering machine by the band before he even had a chance to return home the evening of that first jam session, a bond of friendship was made that has become the history of KBCB.  Now every new step is only a new chapter in that history as Don continues to reinvent himself each step of the way.