I am the webmaster for www.maybole.org, a privilege I have very much enjoyed since we began in August of 1999. Over the past year or more I have had the pleasure of exchanging messages with hundreds of visitors to the site and look forward to hearing from many more. One of the most common assumptions that many site visitors make is that I live in Maybole. This certainly is understandable and due perhaps to a failure on my part for not giving more details about myself. I hope the brief description below will help correct this.

I am 54 years old and live in Clearwater, Florida, USA. I have been happily married since 1983 and have two sons. My interest in Maybole and Scotland began a few years ago when I began researching my family history. Carefully tracing and documenting one generation at a time my search lead me to Southern Ayrshire and Maybole.

It was here that David Kiltie, Chairman of the Maybole Community Council, and I met in cyberspace. Since then we have had a unique collaboration in overseeing the on-going development of this site. Putting together here the contributions of photos, text and other materials from people all over the world has truly been a great experience. An ocean may separate me from my ancestral home in Maybole, but it is only a few keystrokes away on the Internet. In April 2001 I visited Maybole with my son. I was very honored to be presented with the Citizen of the Year Award while there. An account of our trip can be read here. My wife and two sons returned to Maybole in 2003.

I am employed as a bank accountant and have had no formal training in computers but enjoy them as a hobby and means to communicate with new found friends and relatives around the world. Some of my other interests include travel with my family, classical music and in general learning more about this fascinating world we live in. For more photos of me and my family visit my personal site at www.richpettit.com .