Many high school graduates scale down their volume of activities in favor of more focused pursuits of degrees and career advancement. Not Robin Allen. Since her graduation from GCS, in 2000, she has helped construct, maintain, and organize tent cities in Turkey and Diego Garcia (an island in the Indian Ocean), driven a bus in Greenland, earned four college degrees, played two college sports, taught high school and won a state teachers competition.

Robin enlisted in the Air National Guard in 1999 and her service obligations led her to delay entry into the State University of New York at Cobleskill until January of 2001. She played on the intercollegiate basketball and softball teams at Cobleskill and graduated in three semesters, with an Associate’s Degree in Agriculture Business. Six days after her May graduation, she flew to Turkey, with the Guard, for a three-month mission to maintain a tent city.

In the fall of 2002, Robin enrolled at Cornell University. Her academic experience there included a class involving travel to the Caribbean, to study volcanoes. Robin graduated in 2004, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture-Science Education. She earned another Associate’s degree, this one in Construction Technology, from the Community College of the Air Force, in the fall of 2004, while enrolled in Cornell’s Master of Arts program in teaching. After one graduate semester, she volunteered to travel again, with the Guard, to the remote Island of Diego Garcia. She also spent a brief period in Greenland, transporting Air Force personnel in buses. She returned to earn her Master's degree in December of 2005 and left the Guard for the Air Force Reserves. 

Robin’s additional, “fun” travel has included Greece, Italy,
        Setting up tent city in Diego Garcia       Austria, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, and forty-six  
                                                       states. Next on her list is to visit the remaining four states.

Presently, Robin is in her third year of teaching Agriculture at Chinook Schools, in Montana.Among other activities, she officiates basketball games, coaches softball and advises the FFA. She continues to work with the Air Force Reserves, out of Great Falls, Montana, as a structural craftsman.

At Chinook Schools, Robin has organized the Agriculture program in a familiar way, with inspiration from her Agriculture classes at GCS. Robin teaches classes in Animal Science, Range Science, Environmental Science, Landscaping and Horticulture, Metalworking and Mechanics, Construction, and Drafting. As in Greenwich, Robin’s Agriculture classes participate in community service and recently planted flowers in an elderly woman’s yard.

Last year, having won the State competition, Robin represented Montana in the Region 1 Conference of the National Association of Agriculture Education, in Park City, Utah. Robin’s presentation involved preparing her students for real world success including the prospect of college credit and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) safety ratings.

Robin notes that the variety of classes she took at GCS helped prepare her for the future.“My Regents classes and electives were valuable- it’s a diverse world out there. Playing sports was also important: it taught me to work with a team. The GCS staff was excellent.  I appreciated the long-term commitment of the teachers and the continuity of the programs -extra curricular and academic. Jim McClay's classes were realistic, fun, and he had a subtle way of getting students to participate in activities and events. Other teachers who were especially inspiring to me include Janet Dupuis, Jen Baehm, and Steve Blake.”

Extra-curricular participation has always been important to Robin. She played basketball, soccer, and softball and participated in FFA and 4-H in her GCS days. In addition to sports at Cobleskill, she was involved with mentoring, Collegiate FFA and was Senior week co-chair at Cornell. She was a Resident Assistant (RA) at both schools. Robin’s favored activities today include travel, skiing, and hiking.

Robin believes that “…leading by example, patience, repetition, and adhering to a schedule are important qualities in her work. And “You have to like to work with people, especially teenagers.” Her personal philosophy is to “…live everyday to its fullest and never pass up an opportunity to travel or learn something new.”                                                                                              Robin in Rome
                                                                                                                                             
Like her GCS counterparts, Robin is organizing her FFA members in fund raising activities this season. Right now, they are selling fruit and Christmas trees. Soon, they will host “Poets and Pickers,” a gathering of mostly cowboy poets, with some fiddlers, and likely some yodelers.

Robin lives in Chinook Montana, with her two cats- Monday and Max. .She is the daughter of Eric (GCS Class of ’71) and Leslie Allen, of Easton and has three siblings: Eben (’02), Ethan (’04) and Clayton (’05).

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