I was born Mark Christopher Lofton on October 1, 1970 in Dallas, Texas. Realizing she had married the wrong man, my mother was incapable of getting a divorce under Texas law during her pregnancy. When I was two years old my mother remarried and my father, John McPhilimy, adopted me. I grew up in a wonderful little neighborhood in Dallas where everyone knew everyone. In fact, we lived on the same street as my grandparents and family was most important to my upbringing. My parents added a sister, Erin, and a brother, Michael, as well.

When I was 15, I moved to Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. I was already familiar with much of Ohio as my other grandparents lived in Dayton where I would visit during the summer. I was excited about the move to Ohio which had huge green trees, big flowing rivers and snow. We lived in a beautiful neighborhood called Muirfield where the Memorial golf tournament is played every Memorial Day.

In high school, I was very involved in theatre and became an honor thespian as I performed in over 30 plays. After graduation, I attended a year at Ohio University in the hills of Athens, Ohio. Ohio University is the oldest college west of the Mississippi river and was designed by the same architect that built Harvard. It was a beautiful college town and I had a great time but unfortunately my partying outweighed my studies.

After dropping out of school, I moved back to Columbus and rented my first apartment with friends from high school. For the next 5 years I delivered pizza and partied the nights away. My only redemption was that I became a prolific reader and converted to Christianity during these times. A good friend of mine and I decided to move to Dallas where I hoped the change would bring out more opportunities for me. Unfortunately, I had a difficult time finding work and ended up broke. My parents had moved to Phoenix as my dad had become the President of a small computer company and I decided to follow them in hopes that I could start to learn a career that would better myself.

Every day I went with my parents to the office (my mom was the secretary) and tried to learn as much about computers and software that I could absorb. This lead me to getting hired with MCI as a support technician and gave me the confidence that I could earn a real wage with no end to the  possibilities for what I could achieve in life. I learned how to design websites and even had my own small web design business. This allowed me to get a job as a graphic designer where I worked for a company that made three-dimensional images. It was very cool and my first design job ended up in  a major hotel chain all throughout the country. In November of 2000 the economy was really starting to slow down and the company was on its last legs. I was told the news that I was laid off, yet I never felt any doom or gloom for I immediately knew what to do. I would return to college and get a degree. Furthermore, I would become a political scientist as politics had become a great love of mine. I attended GCC for 3 semester, made the Dean's list and found college easier and much more enjoyable this time around. I am now attending ASU West, still on the Dean's list and have one year left. The future now looks bright and life is good.