Thomas R. (Tom) Farley is a lifelong resident of the Hampton Roads area. and married to Tania Farley since 1976. He was a teacher for Chesapeake Public Schools from 1973-2004, and, an Adjunct Professor at Virginia Wesleyan University from 1986-2014. His Bachelor’s degree is from Va. Tech with a major in English and minors in History, Theater, and Education; his Masters in Education (MSEd) degree is from Old Dominion University. His 30 years of public school teaching were all in the Chesapeake Public School system. He taught Honors World History, World History, U.S. History, Honors U.S. History, AP U.S. History, English, Creative Writing, and Current Issues at Indian River Junior High, Indian River High School, and Hickory High School. He was the first Social Studies Department Chair at Hickory High School (1996-2004), has won Teacher of the Year at IRJHS (1988), DAR History Teacher of the Year (2003), and was renowned as a leader in promoting and implementing technology in the classroom. On the musical side, he was the owner of Alum Ridge Music (1982-2005) and Farley Music Services (2015 to the present)...music publication and services companies. As a local music artist, he has performed since 1975 as a solo artist and with several successful musical groups including The Herndon-Edwards Band; Cimarron; The Tom Farley-Cam Head Band, The Tom Farley Band, and The High Energy Acoustics Band. He has written, performed, co-engineered, published, and produced the following popular recordings: Songsmyth (1982), The Calm Before the Storm (1991), Songsmyth and the Basement Cuts (2000), Over the Falls (2006), High Energy Acoustics - The Tom Farley Collection (2006), Tom Farley - The Instrumentals (2016), By the Fence in the Sun (2016), The Calm Before the Storm: Remastered Silver Anniversary Edition (2016), Tom Farley: Fingers and Strings (2017), and the single Free Me - A Song About Addiction (2017)....all of which can be purchased and/or streamed through the Farley Music and Art web site, iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Spotify, Tidal, Emusic, CD Baby , Google Music, and other global download sites. He garnered two Hampton Roads Music Awards from Port Folio Magazine. He was the first ever to win the Best Acoustic Musician Award (1984) and followed that with the Best Rhythm Guitarist Award (1987) . Tom and his bands have opened for a variety of groups including Poco, Firefall, and Bruce Hornsby and the Range.