I’ve never been much of a literature reader. It’s difficult for me to concentrate my attention that long on one subject. Guess that’s why I found Cliffsnotes so helpful in high school. Thank God for the guy who founded that company! His name was Cliff Hillegass. He grew up in a small town in Nebraska and was determined to go to college so he financed his education with two paper routes and tended the cows. While a graduate student at the University of Nebraska, Cliff held a full time job as a college bookstore representative. During this job he made many contacts. One of them was a Canadian named Jack Cole, who owned a study guide called Cole’s Notes. Cole thought it would be a good idea for Cliff to start a similar product in the US. Cliff started working on the idea and started out with sixteen study guides on Shakespeare. Cliff sold the company in 1998 for buku-bucks.
