Eberhard Michael Iba, senior teacher, lives at the present time with his wife Elisabeth in Saarbrücken. Born on May 6, 1948, in the north Hessian village of Obermeiser near Hofgeismar, he spent his childhood and student years in Hofgeismar, where he achieved his Abitur from the Albert Schweitzer School. From 1969-1975 he studied English and French at the Universities of Marburg, Poitiers, Exeter, Bordeaux, and Trier, where he added an additional major in German as foreign language. From 2003-2012 he taught English and French at the tradition-rich Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium in Völklingen; he is now retired.
Since this time E. Michael Iba has collected source-texts and has assembled an extensive collection of sagas and fairy tales. He has published a series of books including among others:
- Sagas and Histories from North Hessia, 7th Edition, 1998.
- On the Trail of the Brothers Grimm from Hanau to Bremen, 2nd Edition 1981
- The Green Coastal Road from Emden to Westerland
- From the Treasure Chest of the German Fairy Tale Route, Part I and II
Thomas L. Johnson
Thomas L. Johnson, Associate Professor, lives at the present time with his wife Sheryl McRoberts in Plymouth, Minnesota. Born May 29, 1947 in northern Minnesota, he spent his youth in International Falls, Minnesota. He graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois with a degree in English Literature and completed graduate studies at the University of Minnesota (MA Comparative Literature) and the University of Wyoming. Until his retirement, he was a faculty member for 25 years at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has published numerous poems and short stories including one, "The Glass-Eyed Winger", that has been anthologized in the USA and Canada.