A native of Wyomissing Hills, Pennsylvania, Vernon Trollinger has BA's in Theatre Arts/Communications and in English from the University of Iowa. In 1986, he earned a Master of Arts in English from the Expository Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
This naturally led him into a career in Archeology...
While living in Richmond, VA from 1989 to 1994, he took part in the Virginia Penitentiary Excavation of the "Latrobe Arch" and the Virginia Penitentiary Burials Excavation. He also participated in excavating the workers' quarters site at the Tredegar Iron Works during its operation as "Valentine Riverside" by the Valentine Museum. Tredgar is now part of the National Park Service's Richmond National Battlefield.
Through these diverse projects, he pursued his interests in human osteology, prehistoric North American archeology, 19th century American ceramics, The American Civil War, American railroads, and industrial archaeology. He has extensive phase I, phase II, and phase III experience as well as some field director experience. Some site survey locations include the FBI Academy, Ft. Lee, and NASA Langely Research Facility.
All the while, his primary career passion has been writing. He currently is a freelance marketing web-content writer with expertise in deregulated energy markets, renewable energy, and energy efficiency in the home.
Other skills include typography, desktop publishing, web site design, and digital image manipulation in Adobe Photoshop.
After returing to Iowa City, he later co-founded Third Eye Over Iowa in 1996 with Fred Norberg, Todd Ristau, and the intermitantly evil Hans Abbadon (who yet maintains a truly lovely orchid collection). The Third Eye Over Iowa website dates from 1999.More information on the origins of 3rd-i can be found in
The Third Eye FAQUA: Frequently Asked Questions Usually Answered.
Other names Vernon has written under for Third Eye Over Iowa:
Staff, Morton Charnel, Jeff Hodson, Murphy Giberson,
Addelle Chevalier, Mac Bowery, & Dr. Wesley Abbingdon-Hyde
Other Projects:
CivilWardrobe
Vernon created the CivilWardrobe Catalog for a friend's small business from 1992-1994. Some of the actual uniforms produced by CivilWardrobe can be seen in the Turner Pictures films, Gettysburg (1993) and The Rough Riders (1997). Sadly, CivilWardrobe is no longer operating. However, as it is a quirky but historically accurate catalog of uniforms for Civil War Reenactors as well as other US and British 19th century uniforms, the last re-tooled issue can be downloaded as a .PDF here.
HAUNTED IOWA CITY
In September, 2011, Vernon's first book, Haunted Iowa City, was published by The History Press. The book recounts the histories behind many of the most popular ghost stories in the downtown Iowa City area:
The Haunting of Currier Hall, The Wandering Cadaver, Maude the Ghost, Black's Gaslight Village --and of course, the Black Angel.
It is available at many local Iowa City bookstores and from many online booksellers, as well.
...and you can "like" it on FaceBook by clicking here.