Jim Gregory is the author of World War II Arroyo Grande (The History Press) and Patriot Graves: Discovering the Civil War Heritage of a California Town (CreateSpace Publishing). Jim grew up in the Upper Arroyo Grande Valley. He attend a two-room country school and graduated from Arroyo Grande High School. He studied history and journalism at Cuesta College and at the University of Missouri and later received his teaching credental from California Polytechnic State University. He was an editor and reporter before he began a thirty-year teaching career at Mission Prep in San Luis Obispo and at Arroyo Grande High School, he now teaches a seminar in writing for young people at the Cuesta College Writers Conference each fall. He also performs with the South County Historical Society Readers Theatre. Gregory lives in Arroyo Grande with his wife, Elizabeth, a teacher at St. Joseph High School in nearby Santa Maria, and his sons, John and Thomas. The family also includes a Basset hound, two Irish Setters, a platoon of cats and one tortoise named Lucy.
