Matthew Ryley, ’15 has spent the last two and a half years living in El Paso, Texas as a zookeeper at the El Paso Zoo. Friends of his will fondly remember his love for and knowledge about animals and his aspiration to be a zookeeper. Presently, he takes care of Magellanic penguins, meerkats, radiated tortoises, red river hogs, zebras, and giraffes. His colleagues admire him for his humor, amiable demeanor, and proficiency during educational keeper talks. After graduating from BSHS, he took a gap year to learn life skills and get his first job at Party Pets taking care of exotic animals and teaching children about animals. He attended Canisius College (now Canisius University) in Buffalo where he majored in Animal Behavior, Ecology, & Conservation (ABEC) and minor in Zoo Biology, Anthrozoology, and English. Matthew’s love of theater never left as he participated in several productions of Canisius’ Little Theater in “The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Anatomy of Gray,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” among his credits. Other collegiate activities included visiting zoos and aquariums across the country, studying herptile populations in state parks, learning German, and having a poem and a short story published in the college’s Quadrangle literary magazine. The COVID Pandemic in 2020 cut his senior year short, cancelling unique experiences in favor of Zoom classes and essays galore. Undeterred, Matthew persevered, acing his classes, earning his Bachelor’s, and even attended a downsized commencement ceremony which was pushed back to May 2021. After completing his education at Canisius, Matthew bounced around the country doing internships, first in Florida at ZooTampa in 2021 then at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2022. He learned to work around elephants, rhinos, giraffes, antelopes, penguins, songbirds, macaws, and an assortment of small carnivores. Until Matthew moved to El Paso, he kept up his work at Party Pets during his school vacations and through COVID, tirelessly caring for the animals and presenting them to area parties, schools, and camps. Between the end of his Cincinnati internship in August 2022 and moving to El Paso in December 2023, Matthew took part-time jobs at the Bronx Zoo’s Children’s Zoo, Hofstra University’s bookstore, and Regal Cinemas in Lynbrook as he applied to zookeeper jobs across New York and the continental US. It’s a very competitive field in case you didn’t know! After a year’s effort, El Paso Zoo extended him an offer and it was a hop, skip, and a connecting flight at DFW away. Off zoo grounds, Matthew enjoys baking, participating in community litter picking events, drawing, watching hockey and baseball, snuggling his cat Gizmo, and travelling across the country (finances permitting). Matthew is eager to attend any reunion for the class of 2015 and hopes his friends, fellow classmates, and the teachers he met along the way are happy and healthy.