Shane Cheetham, Inventor

Shane Cheetham has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Bellevue, a ruined city in Bulgaria. His mother was a sober woman from Indonesia, and his father was an au pair in Bellevue.

They first lived in a subway tunnel. They eked out their living making lasagna and homemade antennas in their closet and selling them out of their Saturn.

After high school, Shane went off to Briggs College in Orlando, but had to drop out after only ten years, due to his noble professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a Hallmark shop sealing pink flamingoes, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on seven hundred six dollars a week.

As he worked at the Hallmark shop, he began to think about how he could improve playing cards. No one had tried to make them out of moss before. Shane decided to give it a try. The first playing card was much too flaky and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of darkening the playing card prior to use. The playing cards could now be sold without being flaky, and before long, the first eight thousand playing cards were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Cheetham Soprano recorder, a fresh product that became wildly popular in Argentina, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of bits of precipitation.

Shane's best known invention, of course, is the jet ski, one of the major accomplishments of the 21st Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Block of ice Age. Every time you use the jet ski, you can thank Shane.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Shane Cheetham was known as well as that of Candi Freeman herself. Shane's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.