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January 2005 JWR Has Another Author Ashley Riley has written and published his first book, Damon Hall. Ashley is a 20-year employee of JWR and is Manager of Quality Control at the Central Lab. Ashley, 50, was born just north of Savannah, Georgia and graduated from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro majoring in biology. After earning his degree, Ashley took a job in Tuscaloosa managing a commercial coal lab where he worked several years before coming to JWR. Damon Hall is the story of Cole (it's no coincidence the main character's name is Cole -"Coal"), a middle-aged butcher living in Fredericksburg, Virginia with his wife and their two children. When his wife leaves him for another man taking the children with her, Cole is devastated. His grief soon turns to joy when he wins a multi-million dollar lottery, packs his bags and begins a new life. Cole finds himself in the middle of nowhere Arkansas and builds his dream home, Damon Hall. He then settles in and starts the process of regaining custody of his two children. "The book is pure entertainment and not at all autobiographical," says Ashley. "The characters in the book are a combination of people we all know in our everyday lives. Damon Hall is a humorous look at Southern life and is totally fiction. I want to add it was written for mature readers. My mother said the book was so bad that I would sell a million copies. I hope she's right on the million copies part," he adds.

Ashley said he has always been interested in writing and wrote short stories while attending high school. "I always thought I would write a book," Ashley recalls. "I just didn’t know when." Ashley said it took him about three months to write his first book. "I go through three stages," he explains. "I would come home from work, fix a drink and start writing in long-hand. The next step would be to put it into the computer and the third step was to do the final edit." Two Central Mining Office employees who have read Damon Hall had this to say: "I was very impressed for this being his first book," says Sarah Mitchell, Director of Sales Accounting. "I'm a voracious reader and couldn't believe how well his book was written. It has all the things I look for in a book, mystery, romance and a few surprises." "He did a good job," says Joanne Lane in Accounts Payable. "It was very interesting and had quite a twist at the end." The 324 page Damon Hall is available from Ashley for $18.00 (softcover) and from any online bookstore in hard or soft cover. ariley@jwrinc.com