Alumni Spotlight: Philip Reedy

Written By Ann Huddleston, Alumni Relations

Every now and then, we may meet that one person whose stories and adventures are so fun and interesting that we will always remember “that one time when”… Phil Reedy is most definitely that person for his graduating EHS class of 1973. At Elkhorn, Phil had a perpetually curious mind and went on to nurture that curiosity by earning his PhD degree and then becoming a Chemistry professor in Stockton, California. He keeps himself busy with his hobbies, which include fly fishing and photography, which blend together nicely with some beautiful fly fishing action shots! In fact, in 2020 Phil was named California Outdoor Writer of the Year by the Outdoor Writer’s Association of California (OWAC) because of his photos published that year. 

Q: What were some of your best memories while at Elkhorn High School? 

A: My best memory from high school was acting and singing in My Fair Lady.  When I was in elementary school the high school often put on plays and musicals, but it had been many years since they had done one.  Thanks to the efforts of Band Director Herb Kaiman and Vocal Director Mary Sayre, it was a great success and so much fun for all of us who took part.

Q: What led you to study chemistry and get your PhD degree?  

A: I still have an essay I wrote in third grade where I said that I wanted to be a scientist when I grew up.  I didn’t know anyone with any interest or background in science at all, so my theory is that growing up at the dawn of the space age may have been the catalyst that set me on that path.  The next year my parents bought me a chemistry set and the rest was history.  I would take every spice and cleaning product my mom had and mix them with the chemicals in my set just to see what would happen.  As I like to tell my students, I was a nerd before Bill Gates made it cool (see below).  In 7th grade we had the most amazing science teacher, Dick Ackerson.  He used to take me and a few others out on weekends to work on science activities and was very inspirational.  A few years ago I tracked him down in Wyoming and showed up on his doorstep just to thank him for being such a wonderful teacher.

Like most boys ever, I mainly wanted to see if I could blow things up.  We could get pretty nice firecrackers back in the 60’s, especially from Missouri.  I always wanted to figure out how to make the explosive powder in those, and eventually succeeded in high school.  It’s a miracle I still have 10 fingers, but that was sure fun.  I was hooked on chemistry at that point and majored in it at UNL.  From there I worked at Dow Chemical for six years in Michigan, but a vacation to California had my wife and I yearning to move out west.  So, we loaded up the truck (U-Haul) and headed not to Beverly Hills, but Davis, a small town near San Francisco with a large university where I could work on my PhD.  It was a great four years and I hated to leave and venture into the real world.  Wanting to stay in California, I took a job developing laundry detergents at Clorox.  While there I convinced the company to fund a science education program where we went to local schools and did science demonstrations.  I found that much more rewarding that trying to create a detergent that did a better job than Tide at removing armpit stains from shirts and skid marks from underwear (I wish I were joking).  The thought of spending my entire career doing that gave me the impetus to pursue my real passion of teaching others about chemistry.  After two years at Clorox I landed my first teaching job at Monterey Peninsula College and never looked back.  The best decision I ever made. 

Q: What is it/has it been like teaching students at Delta College?  

A: I have been telling my students for the past 35 years that teaching at a community college has to be the best job there is, joking that you actually get paid to blow things up.  But seriously, it is a fantastic job.  People often asked me why I didn’t teach at a university instead of a community college, and the answer is very simple.  Any college student who took a science class at a large university knows that most of the teaching is done by graduate students whose skills are often marginal at best.  University professors have to worry about obtaining grants and publishing papers, but at the community college level, our only responsibility is teaching.  I retired two years ago, but still teach an online class every semester and will probably continue to do so as long as they need me.  Below is a link to one of my classes.

Q: Can you tell me about your family?  

A: My wife Jane and I have been married for 47 years now and have two sons.  Sean is an accountant and father to our wonderful 3-year-old grandson Owen.  We currently take care of him five days a week and love spending time with him.  He loves to watch my chemistry demonstration videos on Youtube and I look forward to the time he is old enough to chemistry experiments with me.  Our younger son Ryan is an Air Force pilot and currently a flight instructor in New Mexico.  He will be getting married next year, so we may have more grandchildren in the not-too-distant future.

My parents passed away in 2010 and 2012, but I have to give them, especially my mom, credit for letting me do all of the crazy things I did in my youth.  In the 60’s parent let kids take chances and explore new things.  Some of those things I neglected to mention to them until I was much older, like the time I accidentally ignited a rocket I was building.  It flew wildly around the basement, but luckily they weren’t home.  By the time they returned I had aired out the house and they were none the wiser.

Q: How often do you get back to Elkhorn? Do you still have family here?  

A: Since my parents passed, I don’t get back so often anymore.  My wife still has her mother and brother living there, but that’s all the family we have left in Elkhorn.  I do try to make all of our reunions and the 50th last year was a great time.  I really enjoyed touring all of my old schools.  Our kindergarten class of 1960 was the last to attend the old brick school which is now the administration building.  When I do get back, the first thing I do is order a La Casa pizza, followed by a Little King #11 and a Runza.  Can’t beat that Nebraska food.

Q: You clearly have an adventurous spirit, please share some stories with us! (hang gliding, fly fishing, etc..)  

A: In that 3rd grade essay I mentioned before, I also said that I wanted to fly like Superman.  I haven’t achieved that goal but was always fascinated with flight.  I began building hot-air balloons in my parent basement when I was 14, and used to let them fly over Elkhorn in the evenings.  More than once people thought they were seeing a UFO as the flame of the alcohol burner floated over town.  From a humble beginning using dry cleaning plastic bags, by friend Mike and I eventually built a balloon 60 ft tall and 30 feet in diameter.  It was so big that we convinced Larry Dlugosh, the high school principal, to let us use the gym to assemble it.

Back in 1972 the Readers Digest had an article about this new invention called a ‘hang glider’ that was being flown in Australia.  Mike and I immediately ordered a set of plans from an ad in Popular Mechanics and set out to build one.  Given our limited financial resources, we gathered what materials we could afford and set to work.  By some miracle it actually flew and we managed not to kill ourselves over the next few years as we flew off the bluffs in Iowa.  Until wingsuits came along, that was the closest one could get to soaring like a bird. It was amazing!

Q: How often do you go fly fishing? Where have you traveled to fly fish?  

A: Over my lifetime, I have enjoyed many different hobbies and activities, including fly fishing.  And when I began a new activity, I was passionate about it.  Fly fishing was no exception.  After catching my first fish on a fly back in 2003, I was hooked (pun intended).  By myself or with a buddy, I would hit the water 50 times a year.  I mainly fished in the Sierras but have travelled to many states from the Rockies to the coast.  Fly fishing is a very peaceful pursuit, and I love the solitude of standing in a mountain stream watching my fly drift along, waiting for a trout to rise and take it.

Q: When did your interest in photography start?  

A: A buddy and I drove to Colorado on spring break back in 1976, and I took along a borrowed Nikon Camera.  It turned out that I loved taking pictures of nature, so immediately bought my first SLR camera and enrolled in a photography class at UNL.  That was followed by a decade of landscape and wildlife photography in locations from our home in Michigan, to national parks all around the Western US, and farther afield to Europe and Australia.  Like fly fishing years later, I was totally committed to it.  When our first son was born in 1988, my focus (another terrible pun) was on taking pictures and videos of him.  I didn’t get back into nature photography until I got a nice Canon digital SLR in 2013.  Photography and fly fishing were a perfect combination, and I began to photograph friends fly fishing in the many gorgeous locations we have here in California.  I had been reading fly fishing magazines for a number of years and admiring the beautiful photos gracing the covers.  One day I decided to submit some photos, and to my amazement, the editor wanted one for his next cover.  From that time on I spent less and less time fishing and more on fly fishing photography.  Now my fishing trips consisted of dragging fly fishing buddies to the mountains to pose for me and I spent most of my time behind the camera.  My 50th magazine cover photo was published the same month as my 50th high school reunion last year.

If you’re interested look at more of Phil’s photography, visit the links below: