Sheep farmer (and teacher) seeks greener pastures at high school

AMESVILLE — One of the best known educators in Falls Village is moving on — but not very far.

Alan Lovejoy, who has taught math and science to elementary school children at the Lee H. Kellogg School in Falls Village for two decades, has accepted a position across town at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, where he will teach physics and forensics beginning in September.

“I never dreamed of staying in one place for 20 years,� Lovejoy said in an interview at his Sugar Hill Road home. “This will be a new and exciting challenge.�

Still, Lovejoy says it is with some regret that he is leaving the 100-student school where he has spent the bulk of his professional career. Over the years he has developed close relationships with hundreds of students and dozens of members of the faculty and staff. Math teacher Jane McDermott was hired the year before Lovejoy, social studies teacher Amy Lake the following year, and language arts teacher Paula Rogers the year after that.

On his last day, Lovejoy was presented with large homemade goodbye cards signed by practically the entire school, along with a book about one of his family’s favorite getaway spots (Costa Rica) and a gift certificate to Berkshire Bike & Blade, where he can buy goodies to feed one of his other passions (cycling).

For Lovejoy, 47, it was a fairly long journey to the field of education. He grew up in Dover, Del., but moved to Long Island halfway through high school. From there, he went to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, eventually receiving a bachelor’s degree in forest engineering. Then it was on to a stint with the Peace Corps in Ecuador, where he set up forest nurseries for two-and-a-half years.

After six months working for the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico, Lovejoy decided teaching was his future, so he headed back east to a certification program at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. After landing a job at Kellogg, he went to Housy for a meeting before the first day of school and met all the other Region One teachers, including Jennifer Law, who was then a sixth-grade teacher at Salisbury Central School.

The two began dating, and eventually married and had two daughters: Hannah, who will be a senior at Housy this fall, and Molly, who just graduated from Kellogg and will join her sister and father at the high school next month. Law is still at Salisbury Central, where she currently serves as enrichment coordinator and director of SOAR, the privately funded after-school enrichment program.

It’s a curious situation geographically for the family. They live over the Amesville bridge, across the river from the Falls Village hydropower plant, not much more than a mile as the crow flies from Falls Village’s Main Street and Kellogg itself. They have a Falls Village telephone number, a Falls Village address and both their daughters attended Kellogg — one of the fringe benefits of Lovejoy’s employment there. Their neighborhood is typically served by the Falls Village fire and ambulance companies, where Lovejoy has been a volunteer EMT since 1999. But they pay taxes on their 6-acre farm in the town of Salisbury, of which Amesville is part.

“When I first moved here I was a little confused,� Lovejoy confessed. “But I got used to it.�

Law and Lovejoy are fond of animals, and not just the common domestic pets (of which they have a few). Lovejoy also keeps 10 to 20 sheep in pastures just past the barn at the rear of their property. A walk out that way brings several of the woolly beasts bleating and running out of the shed toward Lovejoy on a recent torrid day. The family raises the animals for wool and mutton.

There are also about a dozen chickens, as well as a guinea pig named Lucy.

But Lovejoy is focusing for now on the change of scenery when he goes to the high school in September. If it’s true, because of the lack of adult interaction during a typical day, that teaching is the loneliest profession in the world, then it must be especially so at the tiny Kellogg, where most academic departments are comprised of one or two faculty members.

“I was the only science teacher there. It can be difficult to bounce ideas off one another,� Lovejoy observed. “It will be exciting to work with other teachers.� In addition, the more advanced subject matter will bring new challenges for the veteran teacher.

Lovejoy was hired to teach science at Housatonic just as the legendary David Lindsay announced his retirement after 41 years at the school. But Lovejoy was quick to point out that he is not exactly replacing him since he will not be assuming Lindsay’s exact portfolio of classes.

Meanwhile, Lovejoy, a summer youth sports coach and sheep farmer, has plenty to keep him busy until opening day at the high school.