Norman Gibat

Against the advice of his parents and teachers, Norman dropped out of Fostoria High School during his freshman year, but that did not deter him from continuing his education later.

He also taught radar and antenna courses with the Federal Aviation Administration at Will Rogers World Airport after taking night classes at Tinker Air Force Base.

[2] In 1973, he started the information technology services company Noguska Industries in Fostoria, Ohio.

[4] From 1968 to 1971, he owned a printing company in Norman that published the Selenby Digest advertising flyer.

Selenby was a small want-ad digest distributed free and was available at Safeway, TG&Y, and other stores.

According to Gibat's stated puzzle rules, the hidden words could run up or down, diagonally, and be read forward or backward.

The puzzle type was not patented, which is also the reason why word searches spread so quickly around the world.