Spotlight on Bruce “Steve” Neale (BA'72, MA'76)

Few people have the opportunity to enjoy two great careers in a lifetime, but Steve Neal of Titusville, Fla., has achieved this through his love of history and storytelling.

When Steve came to Marshall as a freshman, he had no idea about a major. A friend talked him into enrolling in Introduction to Education, even though Steve had no interest in becoming a teacher. “I loved this class,” Steve said. “The course included working with underprivileged kids at the Boy’s Club and observing teachers at Beverly Hills Junior High School. I had such an enjoyable time I decided teaching was what I wanted to do.”

Steve’s first job after graduation was at Barboursville Junior High School. “Going back to the school I attended and working with the teachers who taught me was quite an experience,” Steve said. “I saw them as humans instead of teachers and got to know them as colleagues.”

After 15 years teaching at several Cabell County junior high schools, he decided to make the move to high school. He joined the history faculty at Milton High School. When Barboursville and Milton high schools were consolidated, he became a part of the Social Studies Department of Cabell Midland High School.

“In 2004 I turned 55 and was able to retire from the Cabell County School System,” he said. “We knew exactly what we wanted to do. We were already in love with the Titusville, Fla., area because we had visited my grandmother there many times over the years. We sold our house and made the move.”

Steve’s wife, Letha, found a position as a registered nurse and Steve played house husband. That didn’t last long. “As much as I enjoyed doing house work and cooking, I missed teaching – not the paperwork, just the teaching.”

Steve applied for a position as a communicator at the Kennedy Space Center. His résumé, which included lifelong friend and former MU president Robert Hayes as a reference, greatly impressed the staff. Steve was asked to “audition” by giving a presentation about the space shuttle. He arrived at the audition only to find out he was making the presentation standing under the shuttle at the hangar. “This is the neatest classroom I’ve had in my entire life!” Steve told them. He later learned it was that remark and that enthusiasm that sealed the job for him.

Thus began Steve’s second career. His duties include the Dome Show, launch status briefings before liftoffs, PowerPoint presentations at the Kennedy Visitors Center and bus tours to the Vehicle Assembly Building, which includes the launch pads. He also has conducted tours at the International Space Station Processing Building. One of his favorite stints is introducing astronauts at the Astronaut Encounters and luncheons, and conducting Q&A sessions between the astronauts and the audience.

“I never dreamed my classroom would include a 54-seat bus, a space shuttle, and rubbing elbows with astronauts, all right on the cutting edge of technology,” Steve said. “I walk the same hallways the great astronauts have walked.”

Working for the Kennedy Space Center, Steve has had the opportunity to watch the workers mating the shuttle to the external tank and rocket boosters. His work has taken him to the top of the launch pad to the hatch of the shuttle Discovery. This is the most rewarding teaching experience – teaching right where history is made!”

Steve has not forgotten his connection to Huntington and Marshall. “I look at The Herald-Dispatch online every day,” he said. “And I look forward to news from Marshall. My colleagues here at NASA had never heard of Marshall, but now they hear about it all the time. I never miss an opportunity to say, “Let me tell you the story of the Thundering Herd!”

Steve lives in Titusville with his wife of 33 years, Letha, whom he met on the front steps of Old Main at Marshall while she was a student at St. Mary’s School of Nursing. Daughter Cara was graduated from Morehead State University and is currently finishing her master’s degree in nursing. Cara and her husband, Rodney, live in Titusville. The Neale’s son, Ryan, a 2002 Marshall graduate, is in the Navy, stationed in Norfolk, Va. Ryan and his wife, LeAnn, reside in Hurricane. The Neales also have two long-haired dachshunds that are very much a part of their lives.