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Today's Featured Biography

 
Valerie Keller Schmidt

Hi all!

After graduating from CASHS, I attended Albright College in Reading, PA, pursuing an accounting/finance degree. During my four years there, I was very happy to have a work study assignment shared between the English Dept. and the Concert Choir. If you remember, I could never really escape the music department at CASHS. I continued to be very active as a pianist on campus and participant in the Theater Group. Somehow, my BS in Finance had a minor in Comparative Literature blended in, which may have befuddled the public accounting arena?

After graduating Albright, I was hired by Prudential's Investment Corporation and moved to New Jersey 6 weeks after commencement - I would be working in Newark, NJ. Quite a different setting from Franklin or Berks County, PA. In the fall of 1987, I met a very generous, smart, heroic person, David Schmidt, and we both played our corporate roles, climbing up the ladder and enjoying hikes and time outdoors on the weekends. We joined an Isshynrhu Karate dojo in 1988 and worked through our rainbow of belts, achieving brown belt on the eve of our wedding in 1991. We both earned our black belts in May of 1993. We enjoyed living in Clinton, NJ for 9 years.

I spent my 7 years at Pru working with Portfolio Managers investing in the High Yield Bond Market. I measured their investing performance and enjoyed the excitement of the markets, but something was pulling me toward different endeavors. I joined Pru's community outreach program and found myself volunteering to read to primary students in the Newark Public Schools an afternoon a week.

In Jan. of 1995, I left Prudential and began a graduate program at The College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State) where I worked through 48 credits to transition into Elementary Education. This was possible due to my earning a graduate assistantship within the School of Education at TCNJ. I was hired by Hopewell Valley Regional Schools (just outside Princeton) to teach 6th grade English and Social Studies right after completing my Student Teaching experience. I enjoyed very much teaching from 1997 to 2001.

Our daughter, Emily Marie, was born in Nov. 2001 and I was very happy to be able to be at home and participate in Emily's growing up. When Emily was 3, we moved to Chester, NJ in 2004 when Dave's career movement to the greater NYC area brought us northward. When Emily began Kindergarten, I decided to return to teaching on a part-time basis as a substitute and have grown this into a part-time position teaching Basic Skills reading and writing across the K-5 grades in our district. I'm also working from home for a non-profit ed. company in NYC as a free-lance math assessment writer creating models that help inner-city students practice for standardized math tests administered according to the Common Core Standards.

We enjoy living in Chester very much - it's a nice balance between rural living with access to cultural experiences across New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Manhattan. Our Shepherds, Elsa and Erik, passed on over the last 4 years, but we're comtemplating a return to puppy-hood one of these days soon. Dave and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary this year.

Dave and I joined Tony Horton's P90X "movement" this year in terms of exercising. I highly recommend it. You would be amazed with the results, especially if you're 40 - blah- blah- blah like me :-)
It helps us keep up with our yard work, but more importantly keeping up with our now 12 year old swimmer, fencer, drama-club-dancer, soccer player, lacrosse warrior Emily Marie. We though of the good-ole-days at Emily's 12th birthday party this year, the theme - an 80's party - seriously!

I would like to thank my piano teacher and mentor, Winifred Ross, and Mr. Tim Gotwald, musician extraordinaire and mentor. If not for Winifred and Tim, I would never have had the courage and confidence to embark on the new worlds of college and life after college in New Jersey. I'm so grateful to them. I'm sure that there are people like them in your lives as well. Be sure to thank them!

Would love to hear from everybody, esp. Glee Club and Bank folks. You can keep up with younger brothers Tim and Dave in years 1986 and 1987, Paul and Vagel in years 1974 and 1977.

Dad passed on in 2009, at almost 86. So many Scouts in attendance at his memorial service. Mom is still keeping her own with Paul's pup, Oreo, at 34 Glen.

I'm still playing the piano and am involved in little music projects here and there when time allows. (Billy Joel still rocks!) As a family, we spend a lot of time outdoors and are active in fun and fitness activities.

'Hope all is well with everyone in receipt of this. Merry Christmas and many wishes for peace, good health, and happiness in the New Year.

p.s. Unlike Dave and Emily, I have not given in to the i-phone thing. A New Year's resolution is to start a blog writing about people and their phones from a sociological perspective. Look for it!

Peace to all - love, Val

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