08/16/2025
For all of you Schuyler Municipal Swimming Pool friends out there anxiously awaiting the Pooch Plunge pictures, I’m sorry it has taken so long to post. I guess it is just a very hard post for me. The 2025 Pooch Plunge ends my 46 year run at the Schuyler Pool. Beginning as a Lifeguard when I was 15 years old, I knew I LOVED the work. I could watch swimmers swim for hours and never feel I want to leave. Scorching hot weather was never too hot. Having the opportunity to climb down off the Lifeguard stand and hop into the water was a dream come true. I feel like a mermaid that never got her tail.
The time has come for me to start adulting ALL year long. My husband has been so VERY good and understanding of my love for the water and the Schuyler Municipal Swimming Pool. He understood my desire to return to the pool year after year. But now is his turn. He now needs me more than I need the pool. The pool can and will function without me, he cannot.
Summers will be hard from here on out. It will ALWAYS bring my mind back to the Schuyler Pool. The smell of chlorine will bring my mind back to here. Even the smell of wet cement will bring me back. Heck, I think my blood stream is made up of chlorine.
I love EVERYTHING about our pool, the hard work as well as the floating in the water. I selected to teach school so that I had summers off so I could return to the pool each year. Look for me next summer, I won’t be at the pool every day, but I’m sure I won’t be able to stay completely away.
A heartfelt THANK YOU to all of our pool friends that have entrusted their families to my care, all of the Lifeguards I have had the pleasure of working with over the last 46 years, and to the City Administrations that have put their trust in me over the years, for making my “job” the best job ever. I have ALWAYS told people, when you love your work, a job is not really a JOB.
🩵 Veronica Nepper, former Schuyler Municipal Swimming Pool Manager 🩵
