I’ve always lived with one foot in the past, with memories perpetually coloring my present. But lately, as retirement approaches, those remembered moments have grown more vivid — like photographs suddenly rendered in sharper focus. What were once gentle echoes have become clear voices, guiding me toward this next chapter.

In November, I officially announced my plans to retire in May 2025 after nearly 35 years as director of public relations for the UF College of Veterinary Medicine. As I write this, I am halfway toward that goal. The time is flying by.

There’ve been plenty of tangible steps to prepare for this transition, ranging from preparing files and writing up various processes and procedures for handling my job duties, from the periodic to the day-to-day. The goal is to have whoever succeeds me in the job onboarded to allow for an overlap so I can begin to train them. Those tasks are anchoring, in a way. Then there are the stories and publication jobs I must complete; my very last issue of Florida Veterinarian, the magazine I developed and have edited for almost half my life. Those “last issues” and final stories will always have some significance, but it’s revisiting the personal bio folders of faculty members living and long passed on, which still hang in my file drawer, that has brought on some of my strongest emotions.

Before nearly everything became digital, I kept news clippings and copies of printed stories from my own publications and UF Health’s old Friday Evening Post newsletter, filing them away under the faculty member whose work was being highlighted. As a “PR department of one” and the college’s only writer for most of my time at UF, those stories were all my stories. I have worked with dozens of faculty members across all of our academic departments, and all own a piece of my memories and history. I’ve often told people that one of the things I value most about my job is that I have had that ability to work with so many faculty with such diverse interests, whereas so many people, once hired into academia, tend to work primarily with people in their own group or on their specific teams. The spectrum of research and clinical interests and stories I have been able to highlight has helped me to learn so much about the profession of veterinary medicine — a profession I was barely aware of when I moved to Gainesville and began my new job at UF on Aug. 1, 1990.

Those file folders full of information and old photos have come in handy whenever I’ve been asked to provide an obituary to send out internally or publish in a college publication. My write-ups in these situations haven’t served as official obituaries, but there’ve been times when the family of someone who has passed away preferred not to do an official obituary and was more than grateful for the college to take that role of sharing an announcement with context about their loved one. While this doesn’t happen every day, over the 34+ years of my tenure at UF, we have lost quite a few faculty members — some who have left us quite young and unexpectedly, and others who passed away after living long and productive lives. All of those people were and are a part of the UF College of Veterinary Medicine’s history, and all were people I had some work crossover with, so I knew them. To be asked to write something up about these individuals has been a responsibility I have taken very seriously, and it has been an honor and a privilege to be able to fill that role.

When it comes to the exciting clinical discoveries in the UF Veterinary Hospitals and the research that continues to move the needle toward advanced care and treatment for a variety of diseases affecting animals and humans, there are so many examples of stories I’ve written that I almost don’t know where to start. Being able to occupy that role of storyteller has meant much more than transferring accounts into print or social media and sharing those stories with the world; it has meant cultivating relationships with animal owners from all over the country, celebrating their animal’s recovery with them and mourning their loss when despite everyone’s best efforts, an animal was unable to be saved. I feel I’ve been able to form deep connections with so many families by listening to their stories and by sitting with them in the hospital while they awaited a diagnosis or a welcome discharge.

Although I’m not second-guessing my decision to leave, and am fortunate to have my poetry and other deadlines to sustain me, these days are up and down as I peruse my old files and revisit the early milestones in the life of the college that I was a part of. One of the folders I’ve visited often belongs to Dr. Atwood “Woody” Asbury, who chaired the search committee for my job in his role as associate dean for alumni and public programs, (a position that went away when he left administration to return to his home department of large animal clinical sciences as chairman.)

Woody, as he always wanted to be called, was about the age of my parents (as were many of the senior faculty when I was hired, but we were all working together as colleagues) and was loved by everyone who was blessed to work with him. A renowned equine reproduction specialist, he was as down-to-earth a person as you’ll ever meet. I’ll never forget how during my visit — I’d been living in Tampa when I applied — he took me out to lunch at a hotel-based restaurant on 13th Street near campus that looked out on Bivins Arm. “You’re my candidate,” he told me. And when I got the job, while then-dean Richard Dierks officially hired me, I always knew it was due to Woody’s recommendation and faith in me. Dean Dierks is still alive and lives in Colorado now, but Woody passed away over a decade ago. And yet I can hear him now, still cheering me on and encouraging me as I prepare for the next chapter of my life, post-UFCVM.