Life After Tappan Zee

Francis Rechtorovic - "Ratz"
   
1957 Graduation Picture
Recent Picture

Life after Tappan Zee High School has been good to me. After graduation I attended college for 1 year before realizing that school was not for me. I started working for the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and in my spare time I played basketball in the County League.

On November 19, 1960, I married Dale George (class of 1959). We have three children and ten grandchildren.

On November 20, 1961, I started my law enforcement career with the South Nyack Police Department, I was with them for 3 ½ years before transferring to the Nyack Police Department where I worked for the next 16 ½ years. In my spare time (8 years) I was a coach with the South Orangetown Little League Baseball and Mighty Midget Football programs.

I retired in 1982 at the age of 42 and we moved to Fort Myers, FL. After taking a month off, I continued my law enforcement career by getting a job with the State of Florida, Department of Corrections. I worked at Copeland Road prison for 3 years and then transferred to the Fort Myers Work Release Center where I worked for two years as Lieutenant and then was promoted to the position of Chief, running the facility for 12 years.

I then decided that 37 years in law enforcement was enough. So I then retired for the second and final time at the age of 59. During this time I kept in shape by running and in 1992 I started to run in road races. In 1995, after turning 56 years of age, I ran the New York Marathon with my oldest son, Frank and in 1997, I again took on the challenge of running the Walt Disney Marathon. I have since ran twelve ½ Marathons and many other races.

In our 23 years in Florida we have built three homes and our last move was to Lehigh Acres where we built a country home with a pool on the outskirts of Fort Myers in a very close proximity to our daughter, Nancy, and her children, and our son, Marty and his wife, Leslie. Our son, Frank is career Army (JAG) and is stationed at Fort Hood, Texas with his wife, Dana and six children. Frank just returned from active duty in Iraq.

Dale and I have traveled extensively visiting our son, Frank, and his family where he was stationed both here in the U.S., Germany and Japan.

Life in Florida is great. No more schedules, just what suits my fancy, playing golf, running, going to spring training games (Twins stadium is in Fort Myers as well as Boston Red Sox), and hanging out by my pool with Dale and the grandkids.

Contact Information

EMAIL: 4303 10th Street West, Lehigh Acres, FL 33971

Snail-Mail: Nyack14@comcast.net

Phone: 239.693.1526