Tom Tift retired in 2019 after a career split between work as a college theatre professor and a United Methodist minister. A lifelong lover of light verse, he has written poems and lyrics for a wide variety of projects and situations, including humorous editorial poems for a weekly Georgia newspaper and hymn lyrics to the tune of familiar college football fight songs. Tom and his wife Jana have enjoyed thirty-seven years of marital bliss; they have two sons, Madison and Nelson.