She has been an author, editor and educator; a lecturer and consultant; and she has appeared on national television. But ask Cheryl A. Deep about her proudest achievement in life, and she's quick to respond.

"My children first and foremost," said Deep, a 1974 graduate of Charleroi Area High School now living in Northville, Mich., about 20 miles west of Detroit. "They are the most important creations I will leave behind."

Those children are Chelsea, 17, Chance, 15, Faith, 12, and Hope, 9, Miller. Deep and their father, Lance Miller, of St. Louis, are separated.

Deep credits her first job as public relations supervisor and manuscript editor (1980-83) at the Masters & Johnson Institute in St. Louis with helping to prepare her for her role as a mother and also for life in general.

"I feel fortunate about the turns my career has taken," Deep said. "When I was in my 20s, I worked for Masters & Johnson learning good information about human sexuality, psychology, relationships -- everything a person in her 20s needs to know as she heads into marriage and family. I got to co-write a book on raising teenagers, which is coming in very handy right now."

Today, more than 20 years later, Deep, 49, operates Deep Communication, a firm she founded in September 2003, in Northville, and many of the basic lessons from her time at Masters & Johnson continue to guide her. She provides freelance writing and editing services, as well as a variety of student and adult workshops. Recent projects include multi-session middle school workshops for the Novi Public School District, a team-building in-service for Dearborn teachers and assertiveness training for Northville middle school teachers. Deep also is consulting in media relations for the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University in Detroit.

"I find the field fascinating," Deep said about her assignment with Wayne State. "It's especially significant now that I'm middle-aged and working for the Institute of Gerontology -- a group of professors and researchers who investigate all aspects of aging, from body changes to behavior changes to brain changes. It's forcing me to think about my own inevitable aging and the type of old age I'd like to have. Again, the right career at the right time."

Deep's consulting work at Wayne State is to get media coverage for the Institute's research and events.

"This is challenging but fun," she said. "I get to meet the local media celebrities and get them excited about senior citizens. It's working, too. We boomers are marching in, and the media is having to take notice."

Association with the media has been a big part of Deep's professional life.

In April 1994, she wrote an article, "A Second Chance for Chelsea," for Guideposts magazine, which recounted her infant daughter's battles with a rare, genetic immune deficiency. The story was selected for reprinting in Guideposts' hardback book, "His Mysterious Ways" (Volume IV, 1995).

Deep also appeared on national television -- "The Gordon Elliott Show" and "The Caryl and Marilyn Show" -- in 1997 to discuss "the inspiring recovery of my daughter." Re-enactments of this story, based on Deep's magazine article, appeared on the syndicated cable television shows "It's a Miracle" and "Beyond Chance" in 1999.

Writing apparently comes naturally for Deep, who earned a bachelor's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in 1978 and a master's degree in writing from Washington University in St. Louis in 1980. She attended Washington University on a full academic scholarship.

In addition to the article for Guideposts, Deep also has authored a nonfiction book, "How to Survive Your Adolescent's Adolescence" (Little, Brown, 1984) with Kolodny, Kolodny and Bratter. It has sold throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. She also was the co-author of "Bulimia-Anorexia Self Help Manual" at St. John's Hospital in St. Louis. She worked with the chief of staff of the hospital's Eating Disorders Treatment Program to write the manual and also edited "A Parent's Primer on Eating Disorders" and "Facilitator's Training Manual." Deep also created a public service advertising campaign to increase awareness of eating disorders.

Deep is proud of the books and articles she has written, saying, "They will outlive me, and I like that." She also finds satisfaction with the workshops she does for young boys and girls "to help them communicate better and feel good about themselves."

"We do what we can, try to make a little difference in others' lives and hope the positive ripples will expand and touch others," Deep said.

Deep serves as a workshop instructor for Girls Empowered in Beverly Hills, Mich. Starting there in 2002, she designed and has taught the curriculum for more than 200 interactive workshops on fitness, nutrition, conflict, communication, etiquette and assertiveness for middle and elementary school students throughout metropolitan Detroit.

Deep's career has included work as a columnist for Aware magazine in Melbourne, Australia, where she wrote a popular, monthly humor column in question and answer format called "Ask Ms. Know-It-All." She also has served as editor-in-chief of MidWeek magazine in Oahu, Hawaii, where she managed a staff of 15 writers, photographers and graphic artists to create an award-winning, weekly entertainment paper with a circulation of 270,000 households.

And there's more to this versatile, creative and talented woman's resume.

Early in her career she was a business writer and lecturer with McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co. in St. Louis and also was assistant to the superintendent at Crane Elementary School District in Yuma, Ariz.

"I'm proud of the humor column we started in Australia and wrote for a few years," Deep said, smiling. "That was an edgy stretch for me but helped me to become more honest and authentic as a person."

Deep also drew enjoyment from the "Reunion Reflections" column she wrote for the Charleroi Area High School Alumni Web site a few years ago leading up to her 30-year class reunion.

"I reconnected with distant memories and feelings and felt a deep unity with the life experiences of many of my former classmates," Deep said. "We were more similar than we ever knew."

Deep, a native of Upper St. Clair, Allegheny County, came to Charleroi Area in ninth grade. But the four years at CAHS had a lasting impact on her.

"From as early as I can remember, I enjoyed two activities more than any other -- acting and writing," she said. "I had training at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in elementary school and became heavily involved in forensics competitions in high school thanks to Mrs. (Thelma) Caruso, who was a gracious, petite dynamo and an excellent drama coach. From there I got to play Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker" alongside Janey Potts and with my good friend Debbie Simala as Helen Keller. Every aspect of that experience, mostly due to the top-notch direction of (teacher) Juliana Van Arsdale, matured and enlightened me. I also emceed our Senior Fashion Show and the Variety Show, and those also were excellent confidence-building experiences."

On the writing side, Deep wrote for the high school newspaper and was "strongly encouraged" to write creatively by Ruth Schrag, "who was one of the most insightful, deep-thinking teachers I had."

"Mrs. Schrag's analyses of great literature rivaled most of what I learned in college," Deep said. "I felt so fortunate to have received a first-rate education at a small public school."

Deep said her acting experiences helped her realize she preferred to write "because writers have the ultimate control over the content."

"Actors have to memorize someone else's words," she said. "The presentations I now give are a perfect blend of the two things I love: I get to write the content and then perform the presentation in front of a live audience."

Two other teachers at Charleroi Area High School also are prominent in Deep's memories, the late legendary football coach Rab Currie, who was recognized as an excellent biology teacher, and Jean Anderson.

"He is definitely on my list of life-changing teachers," Deep said of Currie. "He accepted nothing short of excellence and perfection and, though he scared the heck out of me every day, I achieved my best for him. He also inspired in me a love of biology which I still have and which helped me enormously when my children were diagnosed with a genetic ailment and I had to oversee their medical treatments. Of all that we learn in high school, we never know what will be important to us later in life. I tell my children to learn it all."

Anderson, meanwhile, provided a warm welcome to Deep as "the new kid in town."

"Mrs. Anderson was my Spanish teacher for four years and always had a kind word or a warm hug for me, too," Deep recalled. "When I came to Charleroi in ninth grade, I knew no one and was overwhelmed and afraid. My biology, Spanish, English and math classmates were those big, scary sophomores, so I was completely intimidated most of the day. Mrs. Anderson saw my anxiety and reached out to me, working hard to help me be accepted in her class. That meant a lot."

Deep perpetuates those qualities of caring and compassion in her work with the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University.

"I was recently contracted to help one of our board members write a book about caregiving," Deep said. "She set up a hospital in her parents' home to give them a better quality of life their final months and allow them to be together. This was a huge undertaking, but she sees it not as a burden but as a gift. Her parents passed away last year, in their home, within three hours of each other. The book will tell a beautifully moving story."

Deep also recently volunteered to coach three young women through a speech they will give for winning an award.

"These 15-year-old-girls each had severe emotional and behavioral problems -- assault, larceny, drugs, sexual acts -- but turned their lives around during the past year in a local Vista Maria program," Deep said. "So they are winning an award for their transformation and I'm helping them write their speeches and get over those public speaking jitters. This is the first time I've done this and it's very satisfying."

Chances are Deep draws on her own experiences to teach valuable lessons in life to those three girls and others who benefit from her presence.

"There was a time, long ago, when I was embarrassed about having come from a small town in Western Pennsylvania that no one had hear of," Deep said. "I got tired of all the coal and steel and hick jokes and didn't talk much about my roots.

"I have since learned that we had something pretty darn special going on in Charleroi, intertwining bonds that can never be broken. We survived tough times and learned resiliency from that. Many of us packed our bags and went out into the world to find our fortune and did darn well for ourselves. We're scrappy and smart and self-sufficient. No one handed us much of anything, but we made it anyway. I'm not embarrassed anymore. I'm proud.

"I hope my own children, and others, will learn those same lessons: Be you. Work hard. Fear not. This is your life; you get one time through. Make the most of it."