This is a short biography on Donald J. Beaulieu, educator and writer
Donald Julian Beaulieu is considered to be a Christian spiritualist, an educator, a writer, an artist, a writing consultant, and a coach. He was born on September 19, 1946 in Lewiston, ME to Julien Beaulieu and Lorraine Rousseau. He had one sibling, a sister named Sandra, who was four years his younger. Since their father was a career man in the U.S. Air Force, the family spent a lot of time traveling from assignment to assignment. Donald also served in the Air Force during the Viet Nam era (1967 to 1970). He has five adult children, two boys and three girls, through a previous marriage to Sandra L. Bird of Ashland, PA. He is presently married to Karen Beaulieu, nee Cochran, and is the step-father of her son John Leakway. Don and Karen reside in Newmanstown, PA.
As an educator, Donald has been a guide to individuals from age five to 86. His primary form of teaching was as an Enslish teacher at Tri-Valley junior/senior high school (1972 to 2005) where his primary concentration was writing and speech. He was also an adjunct instructor at Elizabethtown College, (1984 to 1986) Elizabethtown, PA where he taught Advertising Design and Layout. Presently, he is an adjunct writing instructor at Harrisburg Area Community College in Lebanon, PA.
His value as a writer lies mostly in short story and poetry but especially with the short stories “Angels & Mice & Men,” “Elvin the Elf Owl,” and “Tormented Silence.” These tend to be the more popular. The poetry works that follows suit in popularity are: “A Eulogy,” “A Lover’s Prayer,” and “Cameron is My Name – Autistic is My Pain.” Many of these can be found in his self-published anthologies as well on Author’s Den.com. He has been writing for over forty-five years and has tried most genres. As noted, he finds poetry and the short story to be his main format. However, his work in philosophical/thematic essays can have a powerful twist. The poetry is eclectic, romantic and often deals with many concepts/ideas in, of, and about life’s journey. The short stories tend to be dynamic and very enjoyable. He has a ritualistic style and tends to plunge head long into the story or essay. Most of the essays fall into the metaphysical and philosophical realm and typically are very optimistic about man’s/woman’s relationship to ourselves; his/her fellows; the earth and our journey to life everlasting. He has, at times, been known to dwell on language, communications, learning and the realm of theoretical physics not to mention spirituality and the trinity. Some of his works can be very abstract such as his essay, “The Spirit of Gossamer Wings.”
Several other domains have also dominated his horizon as he journeys through life. He spent sixteen years coaching springboard diving, swimming (North Schuylkill Jr./Sr. High School) and eight years coaching girl’s softball. In addition to this, he owned and operated and art and sign studio as well as furniture repair and refinishing studio for over thirty-three years. He was also honored three times in "Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers" (student oriented, colleague approved).
He was educated at Delhaas High School, Bristol, PA; Bucks County Vo-tech, Fairless Hills, PA; Bloomsburg University (BS in Secondary Education, English and an MS in Education/English), Bloomsburg, PA and FRNM/Duke University (PhD work in Parapsychology), Dhuram, NC.
|