Greetings and welcome to Arapahoe Ridge!  My name is Mrs. Ryan.   I work part-time in the library with Mr. Lefebvre plus I sub in various classrooms from time to time, so you’ll see me pop up pretty much all over campus.   I like to think of myself as the “stem cell” of Ridge – just plug me in wherever there’s a need and I’ll try to start working.

This is my second year at Ridge and I must say I enjoy students and staff alike.  I find the students quite entertaining and count as supreme privilege every (non-disruptive…) opportunity that arises to engage in either lighthearted banter or conversation of substance.  With neither of my own offspring living full-time at home anymore I think of the Ridge kids as “mine”.  And the staff has been great to work with -- my experience has been that each and every staff member genuinely cares about the well-being of each and every Ridge student, both as a student and as a maturing young adult.  It makes for an enjoyable working environment for all of us.

As for a little about myself – I originally hail from Bartlesville, a town in northeastern Oklahoma 700 miles from here, which, thanks to the advent of Interstates, is only a right turn and a left turn away.  One of the more interesting and life-altering happenings of my growing-up years was that at the age of 17 I sailed alone (without my family) to Europe to live with an American family in Waterloo, Belgium for eight months.  I’m not sure how much I learned about Belgium but I enjoyed many “one of a kind” experiences.  After earning Bachelor’s degrees in Elementary Education and Psychology from a college in Oklahoma City I moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho where the most interesting and life-altering happenings of my adult years occurred:  I met and married my husband, Kevin, and had our two kids, Jordan and Melissa.  Jordan is now 24 and working as a mechanical engineer for Northrop Grumman in Los Angeles, and Melissa is 22 and a senior at Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana.  Melissa is busy applying to medical school, so just in case you’re wondering, some people enjoy school so much that they actually try to prolong the experience.  My husband is a chemical engineer and works at the Denver Tech Center for Washington Group, International.

Guess that’s about it.  I hope you’ll visit the library soon and introduce yourself to both Mr. Lefebvre and me.  You can even come have lunch with us – the library and adjoining computer room are open for your patronage as an alternative to the lunch room.  You can even catch up on your class work if the spirit so moves you.