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John Spragens (August 8, 1944 -2013) was born in Fulton, MO. He was a staff photographer for the Mountain Retreat Association, Montreat, NC and for the Louisville, KY, Southern Patriot before going to Vietnam in 1966 with the International Voluntary Services to teach Vietnamese hight school students in Tra Vihn, in the Mekong Delta. In November 1968 he worked as a Field Representative for the Committee of Responsibility in Saigon helping with children injured in the war. In late 1969 he briefly taught English in Hong Kong before going to Japan where he took a position teaching English as a second language at the high school attached to the Japan Women's University. In 1974 he worked as a freelance journalist and interpreter in Vietnam and then as a research associate and then Director of the Indochina Resource Center, Berkely, CA. and as a freelance translator (Vietnamese to English). From 1977-1979 he worked as a reporter/photographer for the Athens (TX) Daily Review and the Corsicana (TX) Daily Sun. He spent a year reporting on the Mitchell family farm in Barry, TX while working for the Corsicana newpaper. He has worked as a photographer, writer and editor for various newpapers and companies since then. He has traveled back to Southeast Asia a number of times including a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in 1988 sponsored by the Daytona Beach, FL News Journal and the Cox News Service. He also reported from Hiroshima in 1979 about the effects of the bomb on the city after 34 years. His work is currently shown on his website, Enigmaterial.