“Seize the day but also keep yesterday in your rearview mirror, as well as your sights on what lies at the end of the road.”
That is just a sample of the advice Dr. Bonnie Gasior, Stowe Township native and published author, has for Sto-Rox students.
These days, Gasior is a Spanish professor at California State University Long Beach. It’s a long way from Broadway Avenue in Stowe Township, but Gasior still fondly remembers her upbringing and schooling at Sto-Rox.
“In the (19)80’s and as a young person, school for me was my happy place,” she said. “I had friends; I played a sport; I respected and liked my teachers. Academically, I was a good student and had parents who instilled the importance of education, even if they themselves were not college graduates.”
Gasior remembers seeing how her parents’ financial struggles helped put the benefits of higher education into perspective.
“I don’t remember ever being fond of homework or taking exams, but I knew that putting in the effort as a high school student would have short- and long-term rewards, many of which I continue to reap today.”
Dr. Bonnie Gasior.
The classroom wasn’t the only place Gasior excelled. You may remember her as the pitcher from the 1989 state championship. In fact, her first full game start as a sophomore was auspicious: She struck out 20 of the 21 batters she faced. For Gasior, though, statistics and wins became more about a parallel journey.
“Ironically, playing a sport taught me very little about being an athlete. Rather, it’s how the experience has translated, what I gleaned and honed from all those years of practice and competition: drive, determination, persistence, work ethic.”
In fact, it was a chance encounter that put her on a path to success on and off the field.
“I’m thankful every day that Coach (Bill) Palermo stopped me in the hallway as an 8th grader to ask if I was interested in being a pitcher because that instigated a ripple effect I could have never imagined as it related to life beyond Sto-Rox: college, graduate school, and then to my current job, which I’ve held for over 20 years.
Upon graduation, Gasior scored a softball scholarship and made the leap from Sto-Rox to St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She kept striking out batters, but she had much more to learn away from the diamond.
“I went to college thinking, ‘Ooh, jackpot! Nothing but smooth sailing.’ But honestly, it was challenging,” she recalls. “I wasn’t academically as prepared as I thought. To add insult to injury, my peers were top-notch students, many of whom had gone to Philly prep schools.”
That reality hit home with a comparison that still sticks in her mind.
“I often make the joke that my classmates would arrive to campus in their BMWs and I would arrive to campus in a car that didn't start when it rained. Imagine the stress of planning your day around the weather!”
She eventually spun whatever hardship she faced into a positive.
“Reframing situations in times of adversity is important. Part of that is focusing on possibilities rather than limitations. I think people from ‘The Rocks’ have grit and that was some of my cultural capital that I was able to take with me,” she said. “Finding the right mentors and working extra hard was paramount.”
Gasior entered St. Joe’s with a focus on pre-med. But that was short lived. She then had a chance conversation with, of all people, her optometrist.
“As a first-generation college student in the 90s, mentoring and advising were foreign territory” she explained. So, instead, I confided in my optometrist: “‘I really like psychology, and I really like Spanish.’ She advocated for Spanish, and the rest is, as they say, history.”
It made sense to her, even if Spanish wasn’t part of her German and Polish ancestry. Her Spanish teacher at Sto-Rox, Connie Lucas, gave her the “base” for her studies. Eventually, Gasior hooked up with a meaningful mentor, Dr. Robert Shannon at St. Joe’s, who gave her “wings.”
“He was just wonderful and encouraging, and I think he saw potential in me, which is all that mattered at the time to my 19-year-old self,” she confessed. “I remember he showed up one day to class dressed as an author that we were reading. I was hooked.”
From there, she gained a different sort of confidence from that which she had on the pitching mound - and a new path.
“I went from, ‘OK, I am not going to be a physician, but I think I can be another type of doctor.’”
Gasior worked her way from the East Coast to graduate school at Purdue University. There, she hit her stride, attaining her Master’s and Doctorate degrees, thanks again to the support of great mentors
“Imposter syndrome is a real thing, especially for first-gen students. But by the time I finished my M.A., I started to believe in myself. I persisted. Working hard became my superpower. Even today, I pride myself on tenacity and good follow-through.”
Several years later, in 2001, the West Coast beckoned.
“I’m very much a Californian in many ways,” she said. “But I will always be a ‘Rocks Girl.’
Maintaining ties to the community matters to her, even if she has now spent more time living outside “The Rocks” than she did living there. When Gasior visits family and friends, she always makes a point to reconnect with the high school. In fact, she was in the district in March, as a guest speaker in Ben Engelhard’s Spanish classes at Sto-Rox Jr./Sr. High School. She even traveled with her students in 2016 to engage in a weeklong community service-learning opportunity with the CDC. “It was surreal to walk through McKees Rocks proper on a cold April day with fifteen Californians as their professor recalling what those days were like for me as a teenager.”
Gasior’s role as Spanish professor at CSU, Long Beach is one she truly treasures.
“Learning and then teaching in a language that is not your first is at once challenging and exciting. And because the students change from year to year, the experience is new every time. I’m never bored in my classroom!”
“I have great life and a satisfying career in one of the best places on earth. I get to travel and do all kinds of fun things, she reiterated. “But none of it would have been possible had I not made investments early on and connected with people who helped and guided me.”
Those investments have paid off and manifest in her quality of life. “I have a lot of time to read and to do things that are meaningful to me as a human being and to pursue other things that bring me joy. I can spend the first two hours of my day - when most people are just getting behind the desk - in my garden getting my nails dirty.”
Gasior also found a way pursue her psychology interests from her undergraduate years: as a certified Mental Health First Aid instructor. She has been working with the CSU Chancellor’s Office, the entity that supports her team, to train and certify faculty in mental health response. “We’ve certified almost 500 faculty members across the 23-campus system since 2020. It’s incredibly meaningful and rewarding work!”
“I revel in my mental health paraprofessional work,’ she said, “as well as my efforts as a faculty advocate in College Corps@ The Beach, which, on our campus, provides paid internships for select students. Students are always at the heart of what I do, in part because I see myself in so many of them.”
In case you are wondering, the athlete in Gasior still gets to “come out and play”, although these days she has traded her softball cleats for cycling ones: she’s a certified spinning instructor at the campus gym. “I hope Sto-Rox students, whether they be athletes or not, realize that you are the designer of your life. Putting in the effort increases your chances of being successful and living a life brimming with opportunities. I’m proof of that.”
Gasior puts things into further perspective: “Let’s say I was the best softball pitcher in the world, and the Olympics came calling or I was invited to play in Europe. The reality is that athletes have a shelf life; I can only do that for 5 or 10 years beyond college,” she said. “But then what?”
“My professional life is the rest of my life until I retire, and that's a long, long time, so I needed to make decisions that matter.”
The key, she stresses, is to try to stay or get ahead so that work pays dividends later. For Gasior, it’s a creed she lived and continues to live by.
“Run the extra mile now so that you can walk easily later on,” she explained. “Internalize the idea that education is the means to an end. It will be what sets you apart in the world.”