Beth Allan ’01 balances a teaching career that she loves with a passion for chasing and capturing storms in photographs.
Eyes on the ground
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Beth Allan ’01 credits Pickering College with giving her the confidence to try new things, without fear of failure. She says Pickering College provided her with “that foundation of ‘you’re safe and you can experiment and explore without feeling like you’re going to screw things up beyond all reckoning.’”
students in Grades 10 to 12 who are contemplating their own futures as she helps them to discover what they are passionate about. “It’s about seeing them go from a scared Grade 10 [student] to seeing them years later doing something exciting and living a really good life—it’s just nice to be a part of that growing up experience.”
It’s a philosophy she has carried over to her full-time teaching career as a school counsellor at a high school just east of the city of Calgary. There, she counsels
But teaching isn’t Beth’s only passion— she likes to live life on the edge with a hobby that few people have the stomach to pursue. During her summers off, you’ll
find Beth criss-crossing the prairies in pursuit of the next storm supercell. Her fascination with storms did not come naturally—in fact, as a child she found them completely terrifying, often hiding in the basement at the first sound of thunder. To help her to overcome her fear, her parents gave her books about storms. As her curiosity grew, they gave her a storm-chasing tour in the US Midwest as a university graduation gift. The experience was life changing.
