Bridal path leads back to campus
Published 09.14.2022
by Tom Wilson, writer/PCToday editor. Photos by Cindy Davis Meixel
Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Schneebeli Earth Science Center holds such a special place for Elizabeth M. Getchen that, when it came time to arrange her wedding flowers, no other venue could come close to honoring the occasion.
Getchen holds associate degrees in floral design/interior plantscape (2007) and ornamental horticulture: landscape technology emphasis (2009) – and obtained permission to return to the Allenwood-area campus in advance of her nuptials.
She married Ian J. Mowatt on May 21 near Salladasburg.
“When it was time for me to graduate (from South Williamsport Area Jr./Sr.) high school and start college, like most people, I had no clue what I wanted to do. Also, my dad was not well, and I needed to be close to home to help him,” Getchen explained.
She flipped through the Penn College catalog “what seemed a million times.”
“I am so thankful that I went with the floral design program. The ESC is just what I needed in my life. Who else can go to college and be outside all day long?” Getchen said.
She fondly recalls horticulture faculty members Dennis E. and Christine A. Fink, and Dennis P. Skinner, for their student-centered passion and empathy. Dennis Fink, the college’s 1997 Master Teacher, retired in 2012 and passed away the following year; his wife was a part-time instructor. Skinner retired in 2019.
“Like I mentioned, my father was ill, so I had missed a lot of class to take him to doctors’ appointments, but they were understanding,” she said. “Mr. Skinner was great, always having so much fun in his classes and labs.”
Getchen returned to one of those labs, the floral room, over several days in May, along with bridesmaid Vanessa R. (Atherton) Harman ’08, who she met in floral design class.
“Words will never describe how the ESC actually makes me feel. Life wasn’t easy for me while I was going there. It was my comfort blanket, a safe place where I didn’t have to think about what was actually going on in my real life.
“I met a lot of wonderful people from the different programs there, and I couldn’t have asked for a better college experience.”
Smiling through her pre-wedding to-do list, Elizabeth M. Getchen ’07, ’09 makes a sentimental return to the Earth Science Center to arrange her wedding flowers.