Sullivan, Luke Longstreet, 1954-

Luke Longstreet Sullivan was born on October 7, 1954 in Rochester, Minnesota, the fifth of six sons born to Charles Roger Sullivan, an orthopedist at the Mayo Clinic, and Myra Longstreet Sullivan, the only daughter of a Florida educator, ornithologist, and bibliophile. Sullivan's father died in a hotel on July 3, 1966 at the age of 44 while in Augusta, Georgia to interview for a faculty post at the Medical College of Georgia. The autopsy report assigned pneumonia as the cause of death; however, Sullivan attributed the primary cause to alcoholism, a disease to which Sullivan himself succumbed as a young adult and successfully learned to manage in his late thirties.

Prior to high school, Sullivan had used cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. As a student at Mayo High School, Sullivan's cigarette and marijuana use became habitual. An active participant in extracurricular activities, Sullivan wrote feature articles and cartoons for the high school newspaper, played one of the leading roles in Tea House of the August Moon, and competed in freestyle and trampoline events as a member of the gymnastics team.

...