Thanks to the committee folks for all the hard work you have put into this reunion. I can't even imagine how many hours you all have spent - and those drinks that you owe people - well, I think they need to be buying YOU a drink!

I've attached my bio and a photo from my dad's 90th birthday party that we recently celebrated. Perhaps some of my classmates who attended South Minster Presbyterian Church will remember him; he’s still going strong at 90!  Thank you and see you in a couple of weeks.

I graduated from Allegheny College in Meadville in 1976 with a BS in chemistry and although I had wanted to be a veterinarian for many years, I loved chemistry too much to give it up and so became a high school chemistry teacher. (I know – my fellow classmates from AP chemistry are snickering, but I DID go back to talk to Mr. Jaklich – NOT Dr. Beck - about it and he was very supportive.) I started off in rural northwestern PA in Linesville High School and even though I really enjoyed the teaching, I decided I had to prove to my dad (who was terribly disappointed that his daughter wasn’t a cool vet) and myself that I could do something besides teach so I came back to Pittsburgh to work for the Gulf Research & Development Co as a research chemist for five years, 1981-85. It was twice the pay for half the work, but I knew I was supposed to be teaching – I tell my students that they all have internal job descriptions and that’s what they’re supposed to be doing with their lives. I’ve won several awards for my teaching, but the greatest reward for me has been when my students care enough to return to tell me about the paths they’ve taken since high school. I’m presently teaching Chemistry and Materials Science at Westerville South High School, a suburb outside of Columbus, OH, but I’ve also taught in an inner city, rural, charter, and Christian school, and even home-schooled my boys for a couple of years. (Their remark after two years was, “That was great, Mom – now can we go back to real school?”) I also joined ASM, the Materials Society, so in my summers I travel to various cities to run weeklong workshops to encourage teachers to incorporate Materials Science into their curriculum.

I met Terry Eddy at my first teaching job in his old high school, Linesville, - the city girl met the country boy and hoo-boy, it was a clash of the cultures at first, but I’ve now been married to my best friend for 31 years. Terry is a commercial building maintenance man, who is a mechanical genius and a beekeeper. We have about 600,000 bees and lots of raw honey for sale! We have two sons, Chip, 27, and Daniel, 24. Chip is a full-time Air National Guardsman, who enjoys being deployed but hopes to become an air traffic controller in civilian life someday. Daniel is an Army National Guardsman (who did NOT like being deployed for a year in Iraq) and is now finishing his degree in communications at The Ohio State University. We moved from Pittsburgh to Columbus, OH in 1987 to help out with a church planting, and at the time, I was sad that the boys wouldn’t be brought up in Pittsburgh, but Columbus turned out to be a great family town too – and our boys now have dual citizenship in both the Buckeye and Steeler nation. 

Looking forward to seeing everyone!