Here we are in December. Temperatures have been well below freezing for nearly a month, and there’s snow on the mountain. We’re thankful for this true winter and how it helps our forests and the brook trout in the headwater streams that run down the face of the Allegheny Front. Like the seasons, our lives continue to change as we’ve entered our 60s and see retirement on the near horizon.
Todd will retire this coming June after 39 years of teaching, the last 23 years at Penn State where he loved his academic home in the Environmental Studies program. He’s enjoying making poems for his ninth poetry collection and has recently signed a contract for his first creative nonfiction book, Bloodlines: On Hunting, Fishing, Family, and the Grace of Wild Things, which Storey Press will publish in June 2027. He plans to spend even more time in the woods in retirement, and he and Shelly will travel to Montana this summer where Noah, Nikea, and Nathan will join them for a few weeks in a national wilderness.
Shelly will follow Todd into retirement whenever the spirit moves her, but for now she’s had another busy year at the Grier School, mentoring young girls and helping them on their path toward college. For the past twelve years, she has managed a rain garden near the Little Juniata River. Each year she involves Grier students in this conservation project, teaching them about the importance of native plants, riparian buffers, and ways we can improve water quality through these efforts. For this important work, Shelly was awarded “Conservationist of the Year” for 2025 from the Blair County Conservation District.
Although he’s only 27, this past September Nathan retired. After five years of professional basketball that took him to Germany, Albania, Ireland, and Australia, he concluded his playing career with a second championship for the McKinnon Cougars of Melbourne. While he was playing in Australia this past March, Lauren Stricek visited him. They’d been dating for more than a year, and while walking on a beach under a full moon, Nathan proposed. We are so happy Lauren will be a new part of our family. She’s from Tyrone, the village just north of us, and graduated from Juniata College where she majored in Spanish and Biology. She teaches Spanish at the Grier School and is kind and lovely and makes Nathan as happy as we’ve ever seen him. By the way, Nathan’s retirement didn’t last long. He has a new job in student services at Penn State Altoona.
Noah and Nikea had a wonderful first year in Pepperell, Massachusetts. Nikea’s postdoc at UMass-Lowell is going swimmingly, and we mean that literally. She’s now certified in scuba-diving and travelled with her research team to an island off Colombia to collect data and do experiments on a coral reef. Noah’s second book of poems, The Lasts Beast We Revel In was published by CavanKerry Press in April. He spent spring, summer, and fall giving readings at places like the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the New York City Poetry Festival. He also presented his little brother with a moving speech when Nathan was inducted into the Seton Hill University Athletic Hall of Fame in October. Nathan told the crowd that Noah ought to be in the Hall of Fame, too. We’ll see if that happens….
We look forward to hearing from you, and hope our paths cross in the new year!
Peace and Blessings,
Todd and Shelly
