Michael Francis Ryan's Obituary
Michael Francis Ryan Obituary
Michael Francis Ryan was born on March 22, 1942 in Buffalo, NY son of Francis A Ryan and Marjorie Carroll. Six months after his birth, Michael's father was killed on 9/11 by an airplane that flew into the Curtiss Wright Aircraft building in Buffalo.
Michael attended Bishop Fallon High School and Buffalo State Teachers College with a major in Physics and math minor. Upon graduation in 1964, Michael moved to Florida and taught Physics at Miami Edison Sr. High School. Seven year later he moved to Central Florida and became the Physics teacher at Eustis High School. In the spring of 1972, Michael was selected to participate in a 6-week graduate level, astronomy summer institute at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, Funding for this training came from the National Science Foundatiom The next summer Michael was asked back to serve as an assistant instructor running labs, the observatory, the planetarium and darkroom.
For 25 years, Mike was the voice of the Panthers in the announcer's booth at Eustis High for varsity football games, In 1976, Michael applied for and was selected as planetarium instructor at the star theater in Howey In The Hills, a field trip opportunity for Lake County Schools' students. During that employment he•saw over 12,000 students a year who came to Howey. He held that posiäon for 15 years until the planetarium closed in 1991 due to a Florida recession when schools were forced to give money back to the state, Michael also served as the science fair contact for the Lake County School Curriculum Fair and accompanied science students to the State Science Fair for several years.
Mike also served as an adjunct professor at Lake Sumter Community College teaching a course in Introduction to Astronomy. Toward the end of his career, Michael worked for the school system Technology Deparment as a computer insü«uctor for teachers. He was also involved in grant writing that brought in millions of dollars to Lake County Schools as part of the Federal E-Rate program to wire schools for network computers and oversaw the requests for technology purchase, Mike retired in 2006 after teaching 42 years •In Florida public schools.
In retirement, Michael has been active in the Winter Garden Historical Railroad Society that runs a museum of railroad memorability. As a volunteer, he digitized and visually corrected 35 mm slides that had been donated as well as created descriptive signs to be added to displays in the museum.
In retirement Mike has enjoyed several hobbies, among them creation of over 200 hand painted coats of arms for family and friends, over 60 sets of hand painted Christmas ornaments each year-for several years that he gave away- Michael is survived by his wife Sherri Renee.Ryan and his daughter, Diana Suzanne Ryan.
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