Down on the Ranch

Nancy Fowler grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, and attended the University of Oklahoma, where she met her husband, Douglas Pyle. Shortly after their marriage, they had no better sense than to go to England and buy a small and lovely, elderly sailboat, on which they traversed France by river and canal, sailed for a summer in the Mediterranean, then crossed the Atlantic. When they reached the U.S. Virgin Islands, they taught for a year at the new St. Croix campus of the local college. After a year Nancy went off to library school, and then worked for a time at the OSU library. Later she rejoined her husband on a small farm in Maryland, where they raised two children. Returning to Oklahoma in 1993, they happily found themselves raising cattle, and now own a ranch in rural Pushmataha County.

David Barrow spent his happiest hours in the elementary school library. It was there he read books about famous people and learned how to draw. After working as a graphic designer, camera man, and video editor, Barrow embarked on his lifelong dream of illustrating children's books.