So You Want To Be A Park Ranger Chapter 4 Part 2

Ed Note: Readers you are in for a treat as Tom Cervenak, Visitor Services and Marketing Manager for Virginia State Parks, weaves the story of how he came to work for parks and what his career has been like. This series will run nine chapters, with many of them split into two parts.

Chapter 4 Two Great Years, +3 (Part 2)

I went on for 3 more years at Ohio University, just 17 miles down the road from Hocking Tech to get my Bachelor of Science Degree in Field Biology.  Those years weren’t as fun, as you had to take those courses you know you’ll never use, but are still required.  I did take one of my favorite courses there though, Study of Fungi.  I got to learn a whole lot more about mushrooms, which ones you can pick and eat and which ones will kill you in a few hours.   It turned out that my grandparents and parents chose a good one for us kids to risk our lives on running up on strangers’ lawns. 

Did you know yeast is a fungus?  Well to prove its’ value in that class, we actually started a batch of beer at the beginning of the quarter and during final oral reports 8 weeks later, we were allowed to drink it.  That day I gave my report I had 2 beers before going up in front of the class.  I was pretty loose and gave a stellar report, receiving an A on it.  I could have been a straight A student if the rest of my professors had used this type of teaching.  

It turned out that I couldn’t stay in school forever and I had to enter the work force, again and again and again…