Even if you never had Mr. Robert Johnston has a teacher, you probably know who he is. Whenever the weather forecast called for snow, students would flock to his classroom and eagerly await his prediction: Will we have a snow day or not?

After 30 years of teaching and accurately predicting snow days, Mr. Robert Johnston is retiring so he can relax, travel, and spend time with his family.

“My wife talked me into retiring since she retired two years ago from Granby High School,” said Johnston.

When Johnston was first in college, he wanted to be a park ranger in a national park; however, the teacher in him came out.

“I’ve always worked with people  and in the back of my mind was a teaching career,” said Johnston.

Johnston was asked by Dr. Jim Cokkinias, a former LHS Principal, to come and teach at LHS. Johnston was excited to be asked to come back to LHS because he graduated from high school here. Johnston had been a teacher for 10 years at a private program called the Job Core Program, then spent 10 years at West Springfield High School, and finally finished his last 10 years here.

“Being asked to come back to where I started is one of my favorite memories at LHS,” Johnston said.

Johnston has been through many changes that have swept through LHS, including three Principals: Cokkinias, Gordon Smith and Gina Flanagan.

“[The change in principals] does have an affect on the school as a whole because we have to adjust to the new administration,” he said.

LHS will continue to go through changes but Johnston feels LHS is a “good school with great teachers who [can] train young people.”

“No matter what direction LHS is heading the teachers are flexible and are very able to adapt,” he said.

Johnston is looking forward to retirement because he wants to travel and take a cross country road trip, he doesn’t know where he wants to go, but he plans to just let the road take him. He also has many to-do lists at home and is happy that he no longer has to get up early in the morning to drive to Ludlow.

“[I] have the urge to go out on the road to wherever it takes me,” he said.

Johnston is going to miss the camaraderie of the people in the science department because they get along very well and are close-knit.

 “Working with Mr. Johnston all these years has helped shape me as a teacher,” said Mr. Hollington Lee, who met Johnston when they were both teaching at West Springfield High School.

Lee said he is going to miss their morning hello’s and going over what they have planned for the day, checking in with each other to see how their activities went, working together to develop curriculum, and awaiting his snow day predictions.

“I could not imagine a better, more supportive colleague,” said Lee, “I will miss his generosity, wisdom and calm demeanor.”

Johnston is very proud to have served the community of Ludlow. “Ludlow is a great school and the people of Ludlow should be proud of their schools. I am thankful to end my teaching career at LHS.”