Most people wouldn’t consider the smell of formaldehyde and mothballs very romantic, and wouldn’t consider dissecting fly brains and catching bugs dates, but it worked for the Niedermanns.
When Melissa Bechtel (now Niedermann), graduated with a degree in general agriculture from Mizzou in 1997, she was eager to stay in CAFNR to continue her education with a master’s in agronomy. Passionate about entomology, she got began her master’s degree with Marc J. Linit, professor of forest entomology, where she shared an office with a quiet graduate student from Iowa.
“The first day I walked into the lab she came bounding in,” said Allen Niedermann, who had completed two bachelor’s, one in entomology and one in forestry, from Iowa State University and had come to Mizzou to study forest insects.
“Dr. Linit was our professor and he said ‘He’s new, I need you to get him involved, so he’s going to help you plan the entomology fall picnic,’” Melissa said.
While Allen and Melissa were thrown together at the beginning, they soon found a large group of friends, who they still talk to today. While Melissa wasn’t technically in the entomology department, she was passionate about the subject and took every entomology class she could, many of which were with Allen. They were both part of the C.V. Riley Entomological Society and paved the way for agriculture majors to be officers on the Mizzou Graduate Professionals Council.
After being just friends for about a year, they started dating in December of 1999 and got married in 2001. While she completed her master’s Melissa gave birth to their first child, Bonnie, now a communications major at Mizzou, and when she defended her thesis she was pregnant with twins Heidi and JD. JD attends St. Louis Community College, while Heidi followed in her parents’ footsteps as a CAFNR student.
When Melissa came to Mizzou for her bachelor’s she began as an occupational therapy major. Having participated in Science Olympiad in high school, she had some experience with entomology but didn’t know it could be the focus of her studies. After taking an entomology course as an elective, she was hooked. Her parents were unsure of their daughter pursuing a career in agriculture, but after a meeting with Darryl Sanders, Associate Dean of Extension and professor of entomology, she received their blessing to transfer into CAFNR.
“My switch to CAFNR was the happiest moment in my college career,” said Melissa. “I felt more like myself. I never felt like I really belonged in occupational therapy, but then I got to take all ag classes, I got to be outside all the time — I was just so much happier.”
While Melissa was a suburban kid from St. Louis, Allen literally grew up on a university research farm. His father worked at Iowa State University as a farmer and they lived on crop science research farm, where Allen collected his first insect at age 3 — a cecropia moth that his parents saved for him between two pieces of contact paper, that he still has today. Allen worked on the farm starting in high school, doing summer labor for a project on corn borers. By the time it was his turn to go to college, he decided he had had enough of corn research, and came to Mizzou because he could study forest insects.
Allen is a high school teacher in St. Louis, where he uses his background in entomology to teach biology and ecology and coach Envirothon teams, a science quiz bowl that focuses on conservation and nature topics. Melissa was a stay-at-home mom for several years after completing her master’s, and in 2013 began working with Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, where she uses her love of nature as the Director of Camping Services, overseeing three camp properties in eastern Missouri and their programming. As members of the C.V. Riley Entomological Society, Allen and Melissa both gained youth outreach experience working with programs like 4-H and Girls Scouts, and both served as teaching assistants during their time in graduate school.
“Working in labs and greenhouses at Mizzou I think you learn perseverance. You get huge confidence boosts from working on your own; you learn how to be a self-starter, how to initiate work on your own, be ambitious,” said Melissa. “You have big responsibilities, even as a young person, and that carries over into your future career, whatever it may be. But I learned everything I know about conservation and nature here at Mizzou. I was a suburban kid and now I’m overseeing three large camp properties, and I learned everything I know to do that here in the Ag Building.”
When it came time for their children to choose colleges, Melissa and Allen gave them a personal tour of Mizzou. Bonnie wanted a big school where she could get involved and fell in love with Marching Mizzou. Heidi, however, was resistant to going to Mizzou just because her parents went there, but after touring CAFNR she had her parents cancel her remaining visits to other colleges. When Heidi was looking for an on-campus job, her parents suggested the Enns Entomological Museum.
“The kids grew up with a love of insects,” said Melissa. “They had to — we had pet cockroaches in the house. I thought she might really love the lab here.”
“During the cicada outbreak 17 years ago, I taught Heidi how to sex cicadas,” said Allen. “She was very young and would pick up the cicadas and tell everyone if they were a boy or a girl, so we knew she would love this.”
Heidi now works for Robert Sites, Enns Entomological Museum Curator and professor of entomology, in the Division of Plant Science and Technology and is changing her major from animal sciences to natural resource science and management.
“It means so much to me that I can carry on their love of science and nature,” said Heidi. “It is cool that I inherited that love of nature, insects and forestry. I don’t think I would’ve ever found out how much I enjoy working at the museum if it weren’t for them pushing me to at least try it, and I am so lucky that it is something that I really do find happiness in. It is also a treat to me that attending Mizzou helps me relate to them much more about their time in college because we have all worked and found our passions in the same buildings and on similar projects.”
Heidi also regularly sends her parents pictures of insects in the Enns Museum that were collected and pinned by her dad, some of which he caught on dates with her mom.
“Mizzou, and especially CAFNR, is such a great place to make and keep friends,” said Melissa. “Our friends were in our wedding, we still talk to them, and we just met all our core people here. Also, so many of the faculty that were here for us when we were students are here for our kids now, even if they aren’t in CAFNR. It’s just phenomenal, and I don’t know if that would’ve happened in any other college.”