Richmond Engelke, Richard for short, is a janitor at CHS. You may have passed by him before in the school hallways, but chances are, you didn’t give him much thought. However, in addition to being a janitor, he is also a self-published author.

Before Engelke began writing, he owned a video store called “Hollywood and Vine,” named after two famous streets in California. Even though he worked at a video store, he still wrote many things like gift certificates and short stories based off of movie titles. He’d also write the blurbs on the backs of DVD boxes to describe movies.

He would soon find that these small acts of writing would develop into a lifelong passion, thanks to one of his customers.

“A lady who came into my store, her name was Nancy Gleason; she was the head of writing at UMSL… one day she walked into me in the year, probably 1995, and goes, ‘You know, you can write a book,’” Engelke said.

Engelke’s first response wasn’t an eager one. “I said, ‘You’re crazy’,” said Engelke, chuckling as he recalled the memory.

“[Gleason] goes, ‘No… your short stories are so good.’ So she had me write some short stories and took them to one of her classes.” Two years later, Engelke had written his first book.

“It’s horrible, it’s not well-written, but it was a start,” he says. “Today, I have a copy of the book, and I want to rewrite it. The whole book.”

Engelke later wrote “Proof of Perfection”, a story following the investigation of a blonde woman’s strange death. This book would cause him to be recognized by John Lutz, an award-winning American mystery writer.

“He read my book, and he wrote what they call a blurb… he wrote a statement about me. And I was quite in shock… And he talked to me, and he says: ‘Just keep writing. You’ve got a good story… I like your style… As you keep writing, you’ll hone your skills, you’ll become better at what you do.’”