RTC Second Act
Dancing to his own drummer again
When Roy Fialkow retired in 2019 after a 29-year career as an adaptive physical education teacher, his life came full circle: He returned to Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, where he had been a dancer in his 20s, as the nonprofit’s education manager.
Easing tension and defusing pain as a chaplain
Susan Kramer has always been the type of person that people gravitate toward when they are struggling with a life dilemma or need advice and support. After retiring at the end of the 2020-21 school year, she saw an ad for a course with the United States Chaplain Corps and applied.
Former Queens teacher spends retirement on the run
Retired special education teacher Patricia Garone took her athleticism to a whole new level after she retired in 2016 at age 59. Since then, she has completed eight Half Ironman triathlons, two Full Ironman triathlons and dozens of other races.
Filling a void with novels about her heritage
Retired educator Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa has sought refuge in libraries and books her whole life, and now she is contributing her own works to libraries — historical novels that reflect the richness, complexity, beauty and brutality of her Afro-Puerto Rican heritage.
Training her sights on cancer research
Retiree Peggy Keyes establised a model train museum to raise money for pancreatic cancer research in honor of her husband, who died of the disease.
Visual arts career draws on teen dream
Gail Postal, a 26-year teaching veteran, is relentless in the pursuit of her second career, constantly exhibiting and selling paintings, entering hundreds of juried art shows and putting her boundless energy into making her teenage dream come true.