Terry Don Schwab was born July 14, 1953 at Dodge County Hospital in Fremont, Nebraska. He is the third child of 6 and oldest son of Donald Kenneth Schwab and Maralee Anna (Janssen) Schwab.
He grew up in Hooper, Nebraska and where he attended grade school and junior high school . He attended high school at Logan View High School just outside of Hooper, Nebraska. After graduation in 1971, he attended Kearney State College from 1971-1975, majoring in chemistry. He was accepted into medical school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska and graduated in 1980. He was accepted into the orthopedic residency program at Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando, Florida and completed his residency in 1985. He practiced orthopedics in Orlando until 1997, when he returned to Nebraska to practice orthopedics in Norfolk, Nebraska. He then relocated to Joplin, Missouri in 2001. From there he relocated to Ft. Scott, Kansas and has been in practice there since 2009.
He was married in October 1987 to Kim Leslie Beasom from Media, Pennsylvania. He met her in Orlando in 1985 while she was performing with the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes at Disney World. They have 4 children, Zackary (25), Ethan (23), Savannah (21), and Abbey( 16).