July 22 Speaker: Portsmouth Historian Dean Burgess

     Born in Niagara Falls, NY, his undergraduate degree is an A.B. in English from Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. He did graduate work in theater at The Stella Adler School of the Drama in New York City, and in management at Old Dominion University, The University of Maryland and others. His graduate degree is a masters of Science from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was the first recipient of the Paul Newman Awards for drama. He has won several Awards from the American Library Association which published his first book (now out of print), is a life member of the Virginia Library Association, its past president and past editor of the Virginia Librarian, founding member of the Friends of Portsmouth Public Library and its Second Tuesday Forum, past president of the Portsmouth Torch, the 20 Club and the Downtown Kiwanis, United Way Chair for Portsmouth City and served on several allocation panels. He is the past chair of the Tourism Committee of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, on the Bicentennial Committee, Portsmouth history presenter at the Vann Lefcoe Institute, Portsmouth history consultant for Tidewater Community College Master Teacher-Institute, taught continuing education courses in local history for Old Dominion, author of the first walking tour of the Olde Towne, founding member of the Olde Towne Ghost Walk, Historian of Trinity Church (1762) where he published Surviving Gravestones at Trinity and produced for the library the television series Lower Tidewater in Black and White under a National Endowment for the Humanities grant (shown on PBS).

     He worked in the professional theater in New York City and elsewhere, directed and performed at the Little Theater of Norfolk, worked at the Old Dominion Library, taught speech, drama and English at Norview High School. He was on the staff of the Portsmouth Public Library system for 36 years (9 as Assistant Director and 21 as Director). He is now a novelist. His novel An Unclean Act was published in 2002. His poetry has been published in many small magazines and in the anthology of member poets of the Virginia Poetry Society. An anthology Battle On an Inland Sea is available.

     His latest work is the History of Portsmouth, Virginia which is one of the project of the Portsmouth History Commission in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the landing at Jamestown in 1607.¨