James Wesley "Jim" Etchison is a Vietnam vet, educator, and businessman.

Since childhood, Jim's ambition was to become a farmer, following in the footsteps of his uncle in North Carolina. As happens with many people, somewhere, somehow along the way, fate changed his plans.

Not comfortable with college life after high school, Jim dropped out and joined the U.S. Air Force in Little Rock, Arkansas as civil rights movement swept the South. Three years later, in 1966, he found himself guarding the perimeter nightly as a sentry dog handler at Phan Rang, Vietnam for a year. Still restless,...