Expert volunteers help for city skunk problem
Expert volunteers help for city skunk problem
By ALLAN TINKER
With a down to business, professional attitude and a love for nature, Brenda Potts, science instructor at McClusky High School for just one year, volunteered her experience in wildlife pest control for the city of McClusky.
Potts, who trained and studied to earn a degree in wildlife and fisheries science at Penn State University, has loved animals and nature since she was a young child. “I found fossils and shells and put them in my pockets; I caught minnows for fishing and made my own tree identification book.”
She fished with her grandfather and mother. The wildlife science interest intensifies during senior high studies when the fascination firmed in her ‘things to do’ life list. She was a vet tech, then an office manager for a small medical clinic. Next she worked in a Penn State nutritional assistance federal program for young families where she helped them learn how to better feed their families.
With her job at Penn State came the opportunity to study the wildlife sciences, and she earned the degree.
A year of working for USDA in wildlife damage control followed; the experience then moved her to better apply her skills in the education field. She received her certification to teach in biology and her first job was in McClusky.
McClusky fit what she wanted: small, rural school, like the one in which she was raised. “I want to know my students,” she smiled.
She thinks she will stay for at least another year.
“I want to validate what I have been taught and was hoping to see things we don’t have in Pennsylvania,” she added. She is a fan of Patricia Cornwell books, which are based upon personal anthropology experiences. The author of the popular television show “Bones,” is like Cornwall, she said, “In the same area of study.” This lends more credence, she believes, to the program and the books, when the authors are well educated and experienced in the things about what they write.
