Richard Bell Tucker – 50th Reunion Essay

Richard Bell Tucker

PO Box 640

Shepherdstown, WV 25443

g_dtucker@yahoo.com

304-876-6086

Spouse(s): Virginia McCullough Tucker (Ginny) (2000)

Education: PhD (Mathematics), University of Virginia, 1978

College: Davenport

After Yale, it took me about 30 years to settle down. In 1971, I began teaching math at an American high school in Rome. The school was St. Stephen’s, and I loved being in Italy for the next two years, learning the language and taking weekend excursions from time to time. In that bygone era, a salary of $2,000 a year got me all the trattoria meals, concert tickets, and train fares I could hope for.

In 1973 I joined the graduate math program at UVA, and five years later I had a doctorate. This qualified me for college teaching positions, which over the next 16 years I was lucky enough to obtain, first at Ole Miss, and most recently at Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I taught a wide variety of courses, from the basics to complex variables. Possibly my favorite was teaching computer programming (then Fortran or Pascal), despite my old-fashioned hands-on skills. All those theorems I knew didn’t tell me much about using a mouse.

The mid ’90s saw a major change, possibly brought on by a midlife crisis, though it certainly did not involve a sports car or a Vegas marriage. I decided to become an actuary. After passing several actuarial exams, I took a job as an actuary for the Social Security Administration in Baltimore. For 12 years, I was with the short-range actuaries, who project how much money they will need to pay you and me over the next 10 years.

Though I had a small apartment in Baltimore, my home base had remained Shepherdstown, 75 miles away, mostly because I had met Ginny McCullough there in the early ’90s. Ginny and I did more and more things together—hiking, music, beach trips—culminating in marriage in the summer of 2000. It seemed I was beginning to settle down.

We live in the country outside of Shepherdstown, where we both retired in 2008, I from SSA and she from special ed teaching. Ginny gardens, knits, and quilts, while I work on stamps, coins, or the baritone ukulele. We love to travel, with some long trips to Europe or the Caribbean, and many shorter trips to the mountains or the beach. The five grandkids live about a half hour away, three from Ginny’s son Tom and two from Ginny’s daughter Jiji.

My favorite hobby of all began about 25 years ago, and consists of creating geometric puzzles. I wrote a series of C++ programs to “solve” various puzzle patterns for the polyominoes and polyiamonds. With a planar and band saw, I converted many of these patterns into actual puzzles, some using exotic hardwoods and some using sheet acrylic of many colors. Many of the hardwood puzzles have been incorporated into tables, with the help of a furniture maker. See photos. Many more photos and some explanation may be found on rbt-puzzles.com.

In closing, I would like to encourage classmates to come to Shepherdstown. It’s a great place.