Michael Andrew Kukral is the author of one of the few published books detailing the experience of an American student during the 1989 Velvet Revolution in what was then communist Czechoslovakia. From 1988 to 1991, Kukral was a doctoral student in geography at the University of Kentucky and among the first small group of Fulbright Scholars in Prague.
Contents |
Born in the rural town of Richfield, Ohio to Clarence and Ada (Nemer) Kukral, he first graduated from Ohio University with degrees in Geography, Environmental Science, and Political Science. He attended Revere High School in the same class as Jeffrey Dahmer.
He later appeared as an extra in the Holiday Classic "A Christmas Story", appearing in the crowd outside when the main character's father receives the "leg lamp".
Kukral is also the author of several best selling study guides for college students of geography as well as articles on Czechs in America. Since 1999 Professor Kukral has been on the faculty at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he is also faculty advisor to his fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha.
In addition to publications on Czech topics, Mike Kukral is a noted authority on the player piano, especially regarding the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano, and is editor and publisher of the Bulletin of the Automatic Musical Instruments Collectors Association (AMICA).