Katrina Hill ’02 believes it’s every English major’s dream to either write a book or own a bookstore. But as a 7th and 8th grade teacher at Community School in Roanoke for the past 21 years, the longtime educator and mother didn’t have a chance to pursue either of those dreams – until COVID-19 came along.
“During the pandemic, all I thought about was how am I going to help my students get through this?” she said. “I needed an outlet or something to think about that was not school.”
In summer 2021, with encouragement and help from her husband, Jason, Hill launched Rainy Day Reads, a pop-up bookstore based in Roanoke. The business was recently featured in Virginia Living magazine’s Best of Virginia 2023 issue.
Book lovers can find Hill’s micro-store at locations around Roanoke, such as the West End Wednesdays makers market at Golden Cactus Brewing or Sweet Donkey Coffee House. She also has a presence on Bookshop.com, an online retailer that supports independent bookstores.
Hill said she feels strongly about exposing customers to books they might not normally read – books that represent different voices. “I try to bring in stories that might be windows for some people learning about others and mirrors for others where they can see themselves in the stories,” she said. Her Bookshop.com presence even offers a category for challenged or banned books. “Book bans come from the fact that people don’t understand what these stories are about,” she said. “It has just become fashionable in a way and so politicized.”
Hill also created a book club that meets monthly at Crystal Spring Grocery in South Roanoke, and anyone can join the conversation. The club has read books such as “Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island” by Earl Swift and “Demon Copperhead,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Appalachian author Barbara Kingsolver. Hill has even hosted a Readers’ Retreat for the past two years at Wilderness Adventure at Eagle Landing in New Castle, where folks spend time just reading good books and eating delicious food. Anyone interested in her 2024 retreat should keep an eye on the Rainy Day Reads Facebook page.
Hill credits her time at Roanoke College, especially the faculty in the English Department (including Anita Turpin, Mike Heller and Melanie Almeder) with helping her build the confidence to pursue her passions.
“As a first-generation college student, I often felt very overwhelmed,” she said, “and it was those three professors that said, ‘It’s OK to feel overwhelmed, but let’s find a path.’ I think that is what I took away most from Roanoke College was that if things were not going the way I thought they should, I could shift my path; that failure wasn’t an end but a redirection. And having those professors who went above and beyond to mentor the students they had – that’s what made the difference.”
My undergraduate experience was really fulfilling. I learned a lot about myself, and a lot of doors opened.
~ Ryan Tucker '23
Ryan Tucker ’23 just graduated from Roanoke College with a degree in environmental studies, but he already has some exciting post-graduation plans: In September, he’ll head to Senegal as a volunteer in the Peace Corps environment sector.
In Senegal, Tucker will assist with agroforestry implementation, environmental education and natural resource management. That work will include planting trees; teaching lessons about the environment to school students, women’s organizations, NGOs and other local groups; and conducting conservation assessments to help communities protect their natural resources.
“I’ve always been really curious about outside cultures and what they’re like,” said Tucker, who has never traveled outside the United States. “I’m looking forward to promoting environmental citizenship and stewardship in the country I’m assigned and getting to expose myself to Senegalese culture. It’s one of the most diverse countries in West Africa.”
Tucker packed a lot of preparatory work into his four years at Roanoke. In spring 2022, he interned with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network as part of Lutheran College Washington Semester. His supervisor there had been a Peace Corps volunteer, as had Tucker’s great uncle, who was a sanitation volunteer in Belize. They both helped inspire him to apply.
Tucker also conducted public transportation research under Laura Hartman, associate professor of environmental studies at Roanoke, for two years. In addition, he interned as a GIS technician for Appalachian Voices and as a geospatial intern for SkyTruth, a nonprofit that uses satellite and computing technology to detect pollution around the globe.
Tucker, who won the Environmental Studies Leadership Award and participated in the environmental service fraternity Alpha Kappa Chi at Roanoke, will serve in Senegal for two years. After that, he plans to attend graduate school and work in geographic information systems or remote sensing.
“My undergraduate experience was really fulfilling,” he said. “I learned a lot about myself, and a lot of doors opened.”
Elizabeth (Higginbotham) Marshman ’06 has been named director of trusts, estates and private clients at the Palm Beach, Florida, office of Hindman, a leading fine art auction house with a global reach. Marshman holds a history degree from Roanoke and a master’s in art business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Previously, Marshman spearheaded event sales at The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach after beginning her career in the gallery sector, most notably as marketing and social media director with DTR Modern Galleries.
Razan “Rosie” Hamed ’21 was recently awarded the Teaching Academy Graduate Teaching Award for Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University. The award honors graduate students for their dedication to students and outstanding contributions to teaching. Recipients are selected based on course evaluations and teaching performance.
Hamed, who earned a degree in physics with a minor in mathematics at Roanoke, is pursuing a Ph.D. in physics at Purdue. Her research focuses on using non-traditional tools such as video games to teach physics in a way that is more fun and relatable for students. She has even created her own physics card game to help students retain important equations or make connections between different variables in the equations. After earning her Ph.D., she plans to work at an educational games company or a university.
Do you have news to share with fellow Roanoke College alumni? Whether it's a career update or family news, we would love to hear from you! Please email us at rcmagazine@roanoke.edu.