My friends call me Ted. I was born Wednesday, March 23, 1949, at 11:09 AM CT, in Oklahoma City, OK. We lived there for a couple of years while my dad was serving in the Navy during the Korean War. My first sister, Karen Susan Dodson Litsey, was born October 4, 1951.
I was raised in the Lake Highlands area of Dallas and I attended Victor H. Hexter Elementary School from 1st through 5th grades. Our family moved to Spring Valley Rd., Dallas, TX, in 1960. I went to the 6th grade, Jr. High and High School at schools in the Richardson School District, which included the area of far north Dallas where our family lived. I also attended the Oklahoma Military Academy for most of my high school junior year (1965-1966). My second sister, Karla Jean Dianne Dodson, was born September 30, 1961.
I was a rebellious teenager and spent a lot of time in trouble. I liked to party and left home several times before I was 18. I attended El Centro College in Dallas, but dropped out after the 1st semester. I became a “hippie” and in 1968 I co-founded one of Dallas’s very first “communes” located on Junius St.
I was a lead singer and rhythm guitar player in several bands. I moved to San Francisco during the last of the hippie days and started writing my own songs. I moved back to Dallas and was playing solo when “discovered” by Kent Mathias from Elektra Records. He sponsored my audition in New York City where I met Jim Morrison of the rock group The Doors. While I was in New York City, Elektra Records was acquired by Asylum Records and I came back to Dallas.
My son, Noman North Dodson was born in 1971. His mother was Deborah Jane Nichols whom I had dated during high school. We were divorced after about 3 years of common law marriage. I attended SMU and was enrolled in a special program where I completed certification in Multimedia Production. Soon after, I moved to Oklahoma City and started Ted’s Flowers . We sold flowers on the street corners and from retail locations starting in 1972 until 1985.
I married my second wife, Pamela Sue Delaney in 1974 and we were divorced in 1979. I also owned several restaurants and bars in OKC including: The Hobbit House, The Rose; Razzle Dazzle, The Okie Smokehouse and The 16th Street Deli. I became involved in theater and produced plays including Whistle Stop Goodbye and The Book of Joel. I founded a Psychedelic Rock band called The Apes of Wrath and recorded a vinyl record in 1982 by the same name.
In 1985, I sold my Oklahoma businesses and moved back to Dallas to attend El Centro College where I earned degrees in Computer Science. I also taught there for 50 semesters from 1987 until 2007 as an adjunct computer science professor. While attending El Centro College, in 1985, I also began working with my dad (James K. Dodson), helping to digitize his oil and gas industry database.
I married my third wife, Tommie Lou Nipper Hjort Dodson, in Las Vegas Nevada. While working in our family business as an analyst, I helped develop the Mechanical Risk Index that is utilized to benchmark drilling performance by most of the oil industry’s major operators. I also helped market and sell our services to the petroleum industry, (in addition to helping design our database and programming the analytical applications). Our business was acquired by IHS in 2012, about the time our dad died, November 29, 2012.
I retired in 2015 after successful transfer of intellectual property from our company, Dodson Data Systems, to IHS. I went back to playing music and produced a CD/Digital Release in 2015 called “Something For Everybody”. My autobiography,”Theodore is Open”, was published October 16, 2018.
Tommie and I have eleven grandchildren counting five of my son’s children and the children born of Tommie’s three sons from her previous marriages. We raised Nichole Ann Hjort, daughter of Tommie’s youngest son, Phillip, and we helped to raise my son’s and his first wife’s daughter, Destiny (DD) Dodson.
I am blessed to add that I found another son through DNA and geneology research. He was born March 10, 1978 in Oklahoma City. I will have to keep his name private until we find a way to announce the findings to his surogate family.
We are like one big happy extended family.
“Man is but the sum of his ancestors”. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson