Keith Perkins III is associate professor of biology at the University of Sioux Falls, having been appointed in October 1975. His family comes from Colombus and Richland, Neb., and Perkins was born in Freemont, Neb., but he grew up in Sioux Falls. He graduated from Washington Senior High School in 1965. He served in the U.S. Army from 1969-71, including one year in RVN and attained the rank of Sergeant, E-5.
Perkins earned his bachelor's degree in English from then Sioux Falls College. He received his master's degree in biology from the University of South Dakota, and he is a doctoral ABD in zoology from The Ohio State University. Throughout his master and doctoral programs, he served as lab, researching and teaching assistants in vertebrate anatomy and development histology, malacology and physiology. He also was a visiting associate professor in zoology at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.