Many Thanks! (Jill Alvarado Skinner)

Dr. B,

I am so sad that I was not able to go to your farewell party in Oregon, but I am near the end of a pregnancy and the doctor said no travelling.  I enjoyed working as your TA for a semester and going to OIMB the first year you took BYU students.  I remember coming into your office very timidly in 2004 as a brand new returned missionary to see if possibly/maybe/by some chance you had a job opening.  Thank you for offering me the job and for inviting me on the marine biology trip.  Some of my favorite memories from the trip were:

- Eating homemade ice cream with you and sister B.
- Getting some roses delivered to me in the field house while we were looking at sand dollar embryos under the microscopes (I'm sure I turned very red) (It's ok, because the flower sender became my husband the following spring)
- NOT throwing up and NOT falling down on our first trip out in the bay on the Pluteus (the boat).
- Spending hours semi-upside down in wadeboots looking at tidepools.
- Finding and keeping Diego the baby octopus and catching young crab to feed to him.  He couldn't catch them on his own at first, so we had to "injure" the first one.  After that he got it, and it was so cool to watch him hunt.
- Meeting some interesting characters at the floating docks who wondered why we were always poking at those squishy things down there.
- Singing "summertime" at our first OIMB talent show:  Summertime, and the livin' is easy/ fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high/ your daddy's rich and your momma's good lookin'/ so hush little baby don't you cry  -became- Summertime and the semester is easy/ illustratin' and our tideboots so high/ open up MAH, identify those limpets/ 'cause we love Dr. B and happy birthday Hillary!

Thanks again Dr. B.  You were a great professor.  I learned a lot from you.  I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

With lots of Love,

Jill Alvarado (Skinner)


(Jill wanted to attend the Celebration for Dr. B at the OIMB, but the birth of her 3rd child [due date is in Aug.] prevented her from traveling.  She has 2 boys ages 4 and 2 and the newest addition will be a girl.  Jill just finished her second year teaching biology at an urban high school in Las Vegas.)