By Mary Jekielek Insprucker

Silvio D'Ignazio

Silvio D’Ignazio is an internationally renowned educator, author, and television commentator. He has written 25 books on science and technology, and has conducted multimedia training workshops in Australia, Brazil, Taiwan, 49 states, and all the provinces in Canada. He developed Classrooms Without Walls, which is a Web site featuring lessons on creative uses of computers. He speaks Spanish and has done storytelling in Argentina, Australia, the Dominican Republic, and Tunisia.

It is hard to say what the 57-year-old, who lives in Apex, is best known for, because he has worn so many hats. Many will recognize him as the gadget guru from television. “I worked on Good Morning America in the eighties,” said D’Ignazio. “I also did nationwide shows for PBS and the Discovery Channel, and was a local host in Virginia and Alabama.”

In 1977, D’Ignazio started work on his first book, Katie and the Computer. The inspiration for the book came while driving on I-85. “I stopped at a Pizza Hut in Virginia with my wife and baby daughter, Catie,” he said. “The idea for the book was playing in my head like a Hollywood movie. I ran into the Pizza Hut and asked if they had any pens or pencils. All they had were paper napkins and a red magic marker. I grabbed the marker and the napkins, dashed to an empty booth, and began writing down the story.”

Submitting the manuscript for publication became a more daunting task than writing the story. It took over a year and 106 attempts before an editor accepted it for publication in 1979.

During this period, D’Ignazio became a storyteller extraordinaire. When he would drop his daughter Catie off at the Victory Village Daycare in Chapel Hill he would hang around the school and tell the kids stories. “It is not enough for me to tell stories; I also need to act them out. When a character in the story leaps, I leap. The kids see that I believe my story is real, and they believe me and they trust me.”

In the 90s, his fame led him to giving speeches and holding workshops. He was hired by the Michigan Department of Education for a program instructing teachers how to creatively use computers in the classroom. The same was true for five years in Florida and one year in Texas. “I was traveling five days a week including two trips to Australia and two trips to Italy. I just got burnt out,” said D’Ignazio. “I’m not a self regulating person; I go for it until I almost fall asleep. I’m really intense. I got burnt out and lost my heart and gusto.”

D’Ignazio lightened his schedule until it eventually phased out in early 2004. By August 2004, still needing a break from his regular routine, D’Ignazio took up working in the bakery at the Whole Foods Market at Waverly Place in Cary. “I needed to try something different to shape myself up. As a writer, I spent lots of time at the computer. I needed stimulation, and to get out with people.”

However, that was not his fate. “I would still be working in the bakery if it wasn’t for an accident that made me unable to. I guess it was God’s plan that I use my resources.”

D’Ignazio, who has participated in the New York 26.2-mile marathon for the last five years, is referring to an accident where his bicycle locked horns with an automobile. “I had two operations and my time off allowed me to get back in touch with my writing,” D’Ignazio said.

Whole Foods Market in Cary had offered him a storytelling gig in the past, but D’Ignazio originally refused it. “I wasn’t feeling creative at that point and I was still enjoying the bakery job, but God took the decision out of my hands with the accident.”

So, for a time D’Ignazio was back to performing what he is known for worldwide at the Whole Foods Market in Cary. His sessions involved having his audience play detectives in determining such edge of your seat mysteries as how does food get into stores, and what’s the best way to shop for food.