Ann Prowda:  

I spent my entire professional career in education, starting as a 2nd grade classroom teacher (loved that grade!) and ending as a reading teacher in a K-2 school. During the years when my children were growing up, I was able to work part time as a reading teacher, and occasionally as a math teacher. My two children are married and have children of their own. Jeff, 48, is a lawyer (corporate) outside of Boston and lives in Wellesley with his wife and two daughters, 12 year old Alexis and 18 year old Madison. Dori, 46, is a stock analyst in the hospitality field, and lives in Tallahassee ( too far away) with her 14 year old daughter, Riley, and 10 year old Julianna. Yep, 4 granddaughters...apparently, we only make girls! I've been divorced 14 years (August, 2010) and moved to Winston-Salem, NC following the divorce. My daughter was there for 2 years with her family, so I moved to a house about 10 minutes from them and spent much time getting to know my granddaughter, Riley. I also volunteered at a stable where I led horses around the ring with developmentally disabled children on their backs, really enjoyed working with the horses (and the children,too, of course). Unfortunately, the stable closed for the winter, so I looked for another animal related activity and found the Humane Society, became a foster parent for some dogs. (I'd had dogs all my life except for recent years, was comfortable without one, knew I wouldn't be tempted to keep one of them. You know how a dog can tie one down.) Of course, you know the rest of the story....I fostered Baxter, a Cairn terrier like Toto from the Wizard of Oz, just couldn't leave him behind when I moved back to CT in June of 2011. Dori and her family moved to Tallahassee 3 days later. So, I'm here in Simsbury, CT. Baxter was wonderful company for 5 more years, came a very long way from the wild, untrained little fellow he was at first. Unfortunately, he died 7 years ago, lymphoma. I'm still very involved in the ABC Program, something I've enjoyed since 1991. ABC stands for A Better Chance and Oprah donated $10 million to the national program some years ago. It's an educational program for minority students (the Simsbury program is a boys' program, but Fayetteville-Manlius has a girls' program). They are very bright and motivated, but come from large urban schools and are not being challenged in those schools. So we enroll them in Simsbury High School as freshmen, support them financially, educationally and e...Expand for more