User:John Spencer Yantiss

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

Born July 1st, 1949, in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in Jacksonville, FL, John Spencer Yantiss is a writer, songwriter, singer, musician, and artist. He has written poetry, fiction, lyrics, witticisms, and history and sociological essays since childhood, his great-grandmother and mother fostering this expression. Also encouraged by his mother was an early and abiding interest in music. When he was three years of age he climbed up on the stool of an old upright Steinway, and began to play around at playing, actually taking lessons beginning at the age of five. Guitar was added at age eleven. Taking to the nightclub circuit while still under-age, he takes satisfaction from a statement made to him by Dickey Betts, soon after formation of the Allman Brothers Band, during a return visit to Jacksonville, FL, where all of the ABB members met. Dickey handed him a newly acquired acoustic guitar, saying, “Here, you play it; you always played a better box guitar than me.”

With no degrees, but enough credit hours for a Masters and at least two bachelors, Yantiss attended St. John’s River Community College, in Palatka, FL; University Of Florida, in Gainesville; Liberty University, in Lynchburg, VA; and Appalachian State University, Boone, NC. Indeed, before dropping out of App State to go into business for himself, he was tentatively accepted for admission by Benjamin Cardozo School Of Law, NYC.

Beyond the early-years-career as a modern-day Jongleur, Yantiss has had an extensively varied professional life encompassing: 1) retail sales and management in men’s and women’s shoes, fashions, and accessories; Christian and secular bookstores; and fine writing implements and other incidental items; 2) title insurance abstracting & examining; 3) academic library IT & statistical work; 4) Web design & Internet marketing; 5) and business analysis consulting, and consultative sales in the Enterprise Content Management/KM/IS arenas; and more.