University High School Class of 1980 Reunion

Dave Sutherland Update 5/02: Nothing earth-shattering has happened in our lives, luckily. I'm still loving my job, my family, my garden. I got selected to present a bunch of workshops at the Colorado Environmental Education conference, which was great but also time-consuming. Jen may try to switch to a new middle school, but will continue teaching Spanish. Ana is becoming am awesome fullback on her soccer team, is conversational in Spanish now, and still hasn't grown out of her love for horses. Maybe she never will, so I've arranged for her to help clean and care for the three ranger horses stabled at my office. I hope life is good for you in your neck of the woods or prairie or swamp or desert or mountain or whatever ecosystem you find yourself in.   Spouse's Name: Jennifer Spouse's Occupation: Spanish Teacher Children and ages: Ana María, age 9 (see cute photos below) Address: P.O. Box 791, Boulder CO 80306 Phone with area code: 720-564-2057 E-mail:sutherlandD@ci.boulder.co.us   Employer: Open Space and Mountain Parks Department, City of Boulder, Colorado Occupation: Park Ranger Naturalist (I have the best job in the world!)   Leading a group of first graders up Gregory Canyon on an autumn nature hike. Cool Suggestion: Please visit the website I manage for Open Space and Mountain Parks (just click here). There's a photo gallery with some stunning scenery pictures plus a lot of fun information. You'll see what I do (and probably want to visit Boulder. . .)                   The girls playing around with desert rocks, 4/02.   Ana Maria gets cosmic in Canyonlands Nat. Park, 4/02. Education and Degrees: BS Biology, Pomona College, Claremont CA. MS International Environmental Education, U of Idaho, Moscow ID Hobbies and Interests: Doing things with my family, nature and conservation (bird and wildlife watching, insects, astronomy, etc.), backpacking and hiking in Colorado's spectacular high country, native plant and wildflower gardening, listening to music of all sorts, playing Classical piano, fooling around with computers, cooking.     I got so turned on by the tropical rain forest in Central America that I specialized in International Conservation and Education in Grad School. Great Achievements: I think just living, trying to do your best each day, is a great achievement. One the whole human race can share. For me, that has included climbing Mount Ranier, four years on the Pomona College fencing team, watching Halley's comet from the Mayan ruins at Tikal in Guatemala, getting lost in a tropical rainforest, being able to bike or walk to work during nearly all of the last 13 years, not owning a TV, surviving a couple of hair-raising electrical stroms in high mountain country, and other adventures detailed below. Life Since Graduating: Perhaps a real turning point in my life was spending a semester abroad in Costa Rica as a Junior in college. I fell in love with that country and its people while I lived with host families of farmers in the remote countryside (I was researching the biology of pocket gophers). I came back pumped on Spanish, the jungle and international travel. Then I joined Peace Corps - Honduras 1984-1986. I was a fish culture extension volunteer, helping very poor farmers build fish ponds and raise crops of fish. I also met my sweetie, Jennifer, a volunteer who taught villagers how to build wood-conserving cook stoves and organized a women's cooperative of artisans. We came back and got married in Montana, in a mountain meadow under a huge blue sky.   Meeting with a group of Honduran fish farmers after riding a "moto" for two hours in the rain. I was so skinny but at last I was taller than everyone else! I started my Master's program in International Environmental Education at U of Idaho while Jen taught Spanish. I was able to travel back to Latin America and conducted my thesis research in Costa Rica, studying environmental education in the public school system. I was chosen as the outstanding graduate student for my college in 1991. Right after graduating I had the good (or bad?) fortune of landing a job in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, as the Head of Environmental Education. Jen and I packed up and moved to the Equator. From a naturalist's point of view the Galapagos are everything they are cracked up to be: a crucible of evolution, a haven for unique and spectacular flora and fauna, a showcase of scenery ranging from jagged lava cliffs and beaches pounded by waves, to forests of tree cacti, to lush green jungles. But the work and social environments were as harsh and brutal as the lava coastlines. Island life is fraught with uncertainty, vicious gossip, backstabbing, and maybe just a bit of craziness. The place tore us up pretty badly.   Snorkeling with penguins was one of my favorite parts of life in the Galapagos Islands. They are incredibly quick and graceful under water.    A Galapagos washing machine. I finished my two year contract in the islands, and we decided to gut it out for a third year for two reasons. Reason one: Jen and I were writing a book in Spanish, a natural history of the Galapagos Islands for junior high students in island schools. There was nothing about the islands in Spanish (tourists with money were English or German speakers) and most island residents had no clue why their islands were unique and special, so they were trashing them out of ignorance. We finished the book and it's still being used as a school text down there.     Jennifer working on our book, Gálapagos: Nuestras Islas. Reason two: we were enmeshed in a difficult international adoption. Since we lived in Ecuador, we thought it would be easy to adopt there. Wrong! After many disappointments and set backs we gave up and prepared to return home. Just as Jennifer was leaving to pick up our plane tickets in Quito, the phone rang. "Would you like to adopt a little girl?" Her name was Ana María, she was an Otavalo Indian born high in the Andes, and she was 14 months old. We became an "instant family" (just add water). There were additional struggles to get her out of the orphanage and back to the USA, but that's all history. Ana María on the soccer team, 2002. So now we live in Boulder, Colorado. I'm a ranger naturalist in an extravagantly beautiful wildland park. I lead public nature hikes, manage the nature center, live-trap prairie dogs for relocation, help with prescribed fires, do the web page and so forth. I love my job very much. I feel like the work I do makes a difference, that it promotes my core values of love for the natural world and its conservation. Jen teaches Spanish at a middle school in Boulder and likes it most of the time, but young people at that age can be annoying. Ana María is a wonder kid. She's smart, beautiful and outgoing and very funny (I suppose all doting dads say this stuff). She goes to a Spanish / English immersion school near our home and we all speak Spanish at home sometimes. We're very happy and we're here to stay.   Morning alpenglow on the snow-covered Flatirons, in the park where I work. Click the photo to see more scenery from my park. Words of Wisdom: Have a lot of fun because life is fragile.   Favorite memory from your days at You High: "Remember when, you were falling over? Fall on your face. Must be having fun." --Talking Heads   OK, I'm a sucker for the cute sleeping kid picture.

E-mail comments / suggestions / updates to Dave Sutherland at sutherlandD@ci.boulder.co.us