Berry Simpson

As a petroleum engineer, marathon runner, backpacker, aggressive reader, teacher and writer, Berry Simpson has an avid love for learning. His experiences of a life lived for a purpose of teaching, can be easily identified by all ages in his writing and speaking style.

Berry is a published writer in Runner Triathlete News, Inside Texas Running, Rundown, Footnotes, Runner’s World, Baptist Standard Online, and Successful Marriages Online. Berry also writes a weekly essay entitled Journal Entries.

Born in Big Spring, Texas, Berry has a degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma. He served on the Midland City Council for 13 years and is a deacon at First Baptist Church Midland, where he teaches a young-adult newly-married Bible study class, leads a weekly men’s study group, and plays trombone in the church praise band.

He has been in love with his wife, Cyndi, for over 30 years, and has a son, Byron, a daughter, Katie, and a son-in-law, Drew.

Want to know more? One morning in June 2009, Berry was thinking about Psalm 90:12 (“So teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.”) He went to work, numbering his days, and came up with this list:

19,366 = days I have been alive

16,800 = days since I was baptized

15,000 = days since I first picked up a trombone

11,900 = days I have been (verifiably) hot for Cyndi

11,300 = days since I was first certain I was in love with Cyndi

11,323 = days since I started running.

10,901 = days I have been married

10,489 = days I have been a father

8,976 = days since my first marathon.

8,552 = days since I first started tracking the books I read

7,839 = days since my marathon PR

6,800 = days since I first started teaching adult classes at church

6,784 = days I’ve run at least two miles.

5,494 = days since I was laid off for the first time

4,600 = days I have spent reading through the Bible

4,539 = days I rested from running

4,399 = days I served in city government

3,800 = days since I published my first Journal Entry

1,451 = days I have been a father-in-law

177 = days I have lived in our new house

17 = days I have spent on solo backpacking trips

11 = days I have spent hiking Guadalupe Peak

7 = days I’ve spent running marathons.

2 = days I spent conceiving children

1 = days I spent getting married

1 = days since my last run.

0 = days since I read my Bible

0 = days since I slept next to Cyndi