Criminology professor reflects on his humble beginnings
By: SPENCER GLEASON
Editor-in-Chief
A few years ago, Dr. Michael Hepner got a laugh out of sitting-in on former STLCC-Meramec counselor Christina Jackson’s College 101 course, when she asked the students to stereotype him.
The wide-eyed 18 and 19-year-old college students sat in the classroom as Hepner stood in front, dressed up in his suit and tie and they would guess where he was from.
“’You’re probably from Clayton, [Mo.] or Ladue, [Mo.],’” Hepner said the students would guess. “’You had a good upbringing.’”
That was the funny part.
“Then I would just drop the bomb on them,” Hepner said.
Hepner’s upbringing was not as they had guessed.
“I had nothing growing up. I had absolutely nothing,” Hepner said to the students. “But if you just work with what you have, you can have a pretty good life. It’s like the ‘American dream.’ I grew up as impoverished as anybody. And now, here we are.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Born in Feb. 1978, and the second of four kids, Hepner grew up in Bishop Hill, Ill., a town with a population of 80 that sits in the northwest corner of the state.
Bishop Hill, Ill. was an “all-white” town. Hepner’s mom was Mexican and they were the only Mexican family in the area.
“It was kind of rough growing up,” Hepner said.
His mom worked as a waitress at her parent’s Mexican restaurant, while raising Hepner and his three sisters. Hepner’s dad was a handyman who suffered from alcoholism and a gambling problem.
“There was really no stable income,” Hepner said. “I think he made money. But it was all drank away by the end of the day.”
Money was tight and many nights, dinner consisted of saltine cracker sandwiches with mustard.
“We were just poorer than dirt,” Hepner said. “Just as poor as could be.”
ROCKY ROADS
Hepner’s dad had alcohol issues, he said.
“That reared its head a lot,” Hepner said.
And he said his mom shielded the four kids from experiencing that.
“There would be times when he would come home early, before we had gone to bed, and he’d be drunk,” Hepner said. “She would try to get him out of the house because she didn’t want him there around us. You can imagine what kind of battle that turned into, sometimes.”
The domestic violence was heated with knives pulled and items thrown, he said. “Some really scary stuff happened when I was a kid,” Hepner said.
That’s when Hepner’s “calming force” would show up at the door.
“I always liked the policeman every time they came. Everything would be going to hell and then they would step in. My dad would walk away and go wherever he’d go. My mom would calm down. There was no more yelling. No more screaming. All growing up, I wanted to be a [policeman],” he said.
RISING ABOVE
Hepner began working on farms when he was an early-teenager. His father had a small farm with some crops. He would go back-and-forth owning pigs and cows.
“It was nothing really stable,” Hepner said.
Hepner said he spent every Saturday and Sunday on farms. Some nights after school would be spent on farms, all the while working at McDonald’s and keeping up with a paper route.
He wanted a car. So he worked.
“I think I got my work ethic from my mom’s dad, my grandfather,” Hepner said. “He worked at a scrap yard during the day and then he’d have an hour or so off before he went to work at a foundry. Then he owned the Mexican restaurant on top of it.”
Hepner has always had multiple jobs, he said.
His list now — four.
On top of being a college professor, Hepner is an officer with the St. Louis County Park Rangers, teaches hunter education courses for the Missouri Department of Conservation and teaches CPR and First Aid classes through the American Heart Association.
Those — on top of being a husband and father to two baby girls.
BEATING THE ODDS
Hepner acted out in elementary school and spent many days in detention. Although, from the get-go, there was never a question that Hepner and his sisters would go to college.
Hepner’s parents paid the $100 for him to take the ACTs.
“I don’t think I scored a 20. It was pretty low. But my last couple of years in high school really kicked in,” Hepner said. “I went from a pretty solid ‘D’ and ‘F’ student to starting to get an ‘A’ here or there, especially in the sciences. I liked that kind of stuff. Growing up in the woods and fields all of the time, that’s what we did.”
Hepner said he met with his guidance counselor his senior year of high school to get his plans together for the following year.
“He had no faith in me going to college,” Hepner said. “I remember he handed me stacks of applications for factories. He kind of laughed when I told him that I wanted to go to college. He laughed and said, ‘I think these are more appropriate for you.’”
Hepner was accepted into college — barely, he said.
“’Congratulations, you’re accepted. But you only have one semester to prove yourself,” Hepner said his Southern Illinois University-Carbondale letter read. “I suppose I did [prove myself]. I don’t know what my GPA was that first semester, but I did end up with a degree.”
Hepner ended up with more than a degree, he said.
If Hepner sees his old guidance counselor now, “he has to call me doctor,” he said.
LOOKING BACK
The Mexican restaurant is gone, now. Hepner’s parents have divorced. His mom lives in Detroit, Mich. His dad still resides in Hepner’s hometown.
Although his dad still frequents the bar, he “drinks a lot of Diet Coke,” these days, he said.
The first 18 years of Hepner’s life and the second 18 years are two told stories.
Hepner now makes more money in a year, than his parents made in two or three years — combined.
“I don’t know if that’s a measure of success. But financial success, I guess,” Hepner said.
He can now afford his suit and tie.
“I don’t reflect on [my past] often. I should do more,” Hepner said. “Just thinking of where we came from and where we are now — it’s just amazing.”
