John Allen Small was born in Oklahoma City in 1963, lived in Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony), then returned to his native state in 1991 and has lived there ever since.

He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, in 1991. The years between finishing high school and starting college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of local legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.

His newspaper work, both as columnist and reporter, has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association and the Oklahoma Education Association. He began writing his weekly column “Small Talk”..