We’ve all heard the ‘from rags to riches’ stories. We see them in movies, read them in books, but seldom does one ever get to meet a person who has truly gone ‘from rags to riches.’ However, SPC has one of its own.

Dr. Bill Ritchie, professor of psychology and sociology, has a most compelling story, which began during his early childhood in Renton Wash., near Seattle.  He began his career as a professor almost 12 years ago, SPC.

He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University and Washington State University, where he obtained his master’s degree and Ph.D.

Ritchie is dyslexic. However, when he was a child, there was no diagnosis for this disorder, so he was labeled mentally retarded. He said he spent most of his childhood confused, because he could feel extremely intelligent at times and completely stupid at other times.

He remembers telling a friend in junior high school, “Sometimes I feel like I’m really smart.” He says it felt as though his brain was crossed, and he was just waiting to get hit in the head to straighten it out.

“It was always strange, because my friends were honor students”, Ritchie recalled. “Bright people were attracted to me, and I always thought that I had good ideas. It was perplexing to come across utterly stupid at times and then be hailed for my street smarts other times,” he said.

It wasn’t until the age of 30 that he was actually diagnosed with dyslexia. Having seen a neurologist for nose problems, he learned of his disorder. With no knowledge of what dyslexia was, he was worried that it might be contagious or that it would kill him. Amazed that Ritchie didn’t know what it was, the neurologist refused to enlighten him on his condition. Rather, he wrote the word “dyslexia” down on a piece of paper and made him research it on his own. Once he figured it out, everything else began to make sense.

With high school long behind him and being a married man, he began work as a janitor before “figuring out the system” and making his way to supervisor of the Skilled Department at King County Parts Department. It was a high-paying job, and in being the youngest person to ever obtain this position, Ritchie was living the high life.

“I was ‘supervisor’ and couldn’t even spell the word,” he says of his position.

He drove a Porsche and lived in an upscale apartment. Though he possessed all the things that many dream of having, Ritchie was still unhappy. He hated work and wanted to go back to school. He told his wife of his plans, and she filed for divorce. She took absolutely everything and he was left with nothing—no money, no car and no house. But all that didn’t bother Ritchie because he wanted an education.

And so began his college life as a “bona fide bum.”

For a period of six years, he lived in borrowed trailers that had no electricity or water. With no money to pay to park the trailer in a lot, he was forced to park in an unplanted wheat field.

Once, the Internal Revenue Service wrote Ritchie to inform him that they couldn’t work without his physical address. He responded with an explanation that he had no such thing and gave descriptive directions to the wheat field in which he lived. Needless to say, the IRS never bothered him again.

During summers, he found work to help pay for school. One job entailed moving his trailer to a mountaintop to help care for an elderly man. With no water or power, he had no place to clean up, so by the end of the job, he looked like a rugged mountain man.

“I was driving an old pickup with the trailer on the back down the mountain, and there was a couple picking berries or something and I popped out of the window and said, ‘Hello.’ They jumped back; I suppose I scared them,” he said.

Another summer job landed him in Arkansas, where he lived in an unfurnished, one- bathroom house with 12 other men. During this adventure, he stumbled upon an old dishwasher box, which he recycled into a bed and made the other men envious.

He recalls many cold nights in his trailer in Eastern Washington. Often, he slept with his clothes on and with what few extra outfits he had stuffed into his sleeping bag to keep him warm. Other times found him waking up with his hair frozen to the side of his trailer.

He also was forced to go without a shower for periods of time. While attending Eastern Washington University, however, he discovered some abandoned laboratories.

“I found them down a winding hallway and set up office there,” he said. “I used them for three semesters until I got caught and had to leave.”

Ritchie had been told his entire life that he would never succeed in college, and having been labeled mentally retarded, he had no support from his parents.

“I think my parents may have actually thought I was retarded and just felt I was lucky to have attained that good job,” Ritchie says. “They didn’t expect much of me, so they didn’t help me out while I went to school,” he said. “Half way through graduate school, they realized I wasn’t retarded and when they came around, they came around completely. It took time, but I got their total support when they decided to give it.”

He had to find creative ways to learn the material and says that he can memorize almost anything with creative pneumonic devices. Because of the dyslexia, Ritchie understood that he would need more time than most others to study. So to work and go to school was, to say the least, impossible.  This sacrifice of material things was OK because, “I knew what I was working for,” he said.

“I can remember having no money and being hungry,” Ritchie recalled. “So I would eat out of dumpsters. I knew the people who ran a seafood restaurant, and it was fresh, good quality garbage—right off the top. It wasn’t as though I was eating rotten garbage”

Light-spirited and charismatic, Ritchie persevered where many others would have faltered. He recalls these times of his life with candor and a smile.

“Often times people would judge me because of my appearance and my inability to spell and read well,” Ritchie said. “But I felt worse, perhaps, for them than they did for me because they didn’t know the real me, how truly intelligent I am,” he said.

In his first speech class, he was assigned to give a “how to” speech. He opened an encyclopedia, saw a kaleidoscope and decided to make one. In his three-minute speech, he demonstrated the creation of a kaleidoscope and its ability to make what others perceive as garbage into a thing of beauty.

After attaining his associate’s degree, he wanted to quit school. But his advisor wouldn"t let him because his grades were too good. He worked through his bachelor’s, degree and then with one application he was accepted to graduate school.

By this point in time, he had designed his own kaleidoscopes and was selling them to make money, so being accepted to graduate school was a little disappointing for him because that meant he had to stop selling and making his kaleidoscopes.

Graduate school, however, was a turn of events. He was given a job, and for the first time in six years, Ritchie had a toilet. Of his previous lack of a commode, he says, “I knew who my true friends were, because they would pee in a bucket at my house. That’s a sacrifice.”

He recalls almost being kicked out of graduate school because of his inability to take notes.

“The teacher stopped class and glared at me, as if to intimidate me into taking notes,” Ritchie said. “But there was nothing I could do; I couldn’t write that fast. I had to sit there with a tape recorder and then transcribe the lecture after class. It may have taken me a while, but I had perfect notes,” he said.

He finished graduate school with a PhD and began teaching at SPC.

“Ideally, I should be doing research and teaching at a big university, but I didn’t think that I could that well,” Ritchie said. “I saw that as a stressful lifestyle and decided that that isn’t the way to live.

I want freedom, relaxation and creativity. I wanted to do one thing well, rather than split my time over two things.  And I’m happy just teaching.”

Ritchie says he actually never saw himself as a teacher.

“Originally, I had just wanted to get my associate’s degree in art,” he said. “I had avoided academic areas of study as much as possible.”

But all that changed in graduate school.

“I had to teach in graduate school,” Ritchie said. So I stood up in front of the class, and I thought it was exhilarating. I could feel my adrenaline rushing. And that’s when I knew that I wanted to do it,” he said.

Ritchie seems to love teaching and his classroom setting is always fun.

“If I can’t have fun when I’m lecturing, I’ll make it fun,” Ritchie said. “I don’t care if the students like it at all, just as long as I’m having fun.”

Currently, Ritchie enjoys spending his time with behavioral animal studies. Most recently, he achieved what many other pet owners only wish to accomplish. Through operant learning, he has taught both of his pet cats to do their business in the toilet—now that’s impressive.

Ritchie is certainly a man of redeeming character. He is the epitome of a ‘rags to riches’ story, and he is by all means an example that one can go from absolutely nothing to reaching their dreams.

With drive and determination to overcome every obstacle that has come his way, Ritchie is an excellent teacher, willing to do whatever it takes to make the classroom a more enjoyable environment for him and his students.