Hi Everyone,

Y'all have goaded me into writing this. Bless Jane for all of the time and effort she has put into coordinating our life histories. I cannot believe how similar so many of our life tales have been. I also cannot believe how many of us live in Florida!

I have spent my life after RLS (even though the varsity letters were "H") moving Southwest, but I have made it only as far as Southwest Virginia. First was New Brunswick, NJ. Then Newark, DE. Then the Washington, DC, suburbs. Now Willis, VA, which is so far from anywhere else that you can't find it on most maps. We are 50 miles Southwest of Roanoke and not close to anything else.

After graduation, I went through the Rutgers University College of Agriculture--without much in the way of plans about what I might do after graduation from there. While in school, like, it seems, most of us, I met a really neat woman. She prompted me to become a better student, so I graduated in the established four years. We married right after I graduated. This lasted 10 years and produced two daughters, both of whom have Master's degrees and both of whom live in Texas. Not long ago, I finally figured out that the University created a four-year major for me. It was General Agriculture, which provided lots of opportunity to take science courses in the College of Arts & Sciences without the ugly foreign language and humanities requirements.

Anyway, after graduation, I landed a job with a non-profit research foundation in Delaware. It was funded by an Atomic Energy Commission grant. Two years later, the principal investigator died. End of grant. I then went to work for Wyeth Labs as a Research Scientist working under a National Institutes of Health contract. Two years later, NIH advised that the contract would expire the following June. One learned two things from these two jobs: the federal government funds an awful lot of the total economy, and the government frequently changes direction. After being laid off twice, I decided it was better to join it than fight it for the rest of my life. Thus, in 1966, I was hired by the Food and Drug Administration. For
16 years, I put my technical college education to work at developing and improving analytical methods for the microbiological analysis of antibiotics. Well, even if one works inside the government, programs change. In 1982, all 110 of us who had been doing the antibiotic work were farmed out (to pasture?). I was assigned to a very small group that is the liaison between FDA and the U.S. Pharmacopeia, which is a non-profit organization of staff and volunteers that develops requirements of identity, strength, quality, and purity and labeling requirements for drug products sold in the U.S.

In 1967, my second wife joined the antibiotic staff. We were married in 1970 after having decided that it would be really great if we might be able to retire to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Southwestern Virginia. Well, here we are. Jeanne retired in 1996. I followed December 31, 1998. We produced two kids, one of whom has a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech and works as a Microbiologist for FDA(!). The other works for a Beltway Bandit (government contractor in or immediately outside of Washington) on Superfund cleanup data. Both of our kids live in Northern Maryland, which is another reason why we live here--no baby sitting!

We own 18 acres of a low ridge in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with small streams in the valleys on both sides of the ridge. About five of the acres are cleared. We bought the land in 1993 and built a garage apartment in 1997-98 so that we would have somewhere to live upon retirement. 2000-2001 were spent building our dream home, designed for full handicapped access--in case one of us ever needs it. My full time activity since the frost went out of the ground in March has been to shovel, rake, and grade the land cleared for the house out to grade in the woods; then to then to till, rake, seed and straw the graded ground.

We played a lot of bridge over the years. We were competitive until we got down here, where most of the players are retired VA Tech professors and their wives. We averaged making one fewer trick per hand than all of them do, which soon became discouraging. My recreation is working on the place, which our classmates who live on farms or in remote places understand, and playing badminton. I work out once a week with a bunch of senior interstate and international tournament players. I don't think I am exactly on their level, but it is great exercise!

I have really enjoyed reading all of your bios. I think we have done fine for ourselves as a class.

Y'all take care.

Bob Rippere