Richard “Dick” Jacobs was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1928. After graduating from Arizona State College in 1953, Dick, Arizona State’s first gymnast and original Sparky Mascot, began a fifteen-month journey hitchhiking around the world and has performed one-armed handstands in nightclubs on the continents of Asia, Africa, North America and Europe. Continuing his wanderlust, he taught for fourteen years at American International Schools with an adventurous wife and four children by his side. He and his wife of fifty-two years, Joyce, now live in Surprise, Arizona, close to where all four children have settled.