AVC Profile: Rich Sim and Eugenie Trow

Two young college graduates with a passion for teaching found careers and – more importantly – love for each other at Antelope Valley College.

While some couples like Rich Sim and Eugenie “Genie” Trow have achieved 44 years of marriage, there are doubtless few, if any, who can claim to have taught full-time at the same college for a combined 96 years. In the history of AVC, no professor can claim to have taught longer than Rich, who marked his 50th year teaching at the college in 2017.

And neither Rich or Genie have any plans to stop teaching any time soon.

“The students are why I’m here,” said the 82-year-old Rich. “That’s my passion about teaching. I want to die here. I’m serious about that.”

Rich is dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans, both covered with splotches of gray clay that testify to his work in the ceramics lab. Outside his classroom in the adjoining Art Gallery is a collection of art work from Rich and Genie encompassing their lifetimes.

Looking at a retrospective of their art work is like getting a summary of all the countries Rich has been to: Egypt (Rich climbed a pyramid), Indonesia (he’s been there 14 times), Japan (he fired pots in a wood-fueled kiln), and China (Rich witnessed history with the Tiananmen Square student-led protests of 1989).

Genie, 72, is equally committed to teaching mathematics and theater.

“Teaching is such a gift as a profession,” Genie said, “to be able to meet all these new people every semester, to find out parts of their culture, to share that part of humanity that we do have in common. Always I’m learning at least as much as I’m teaching.”
Rich and Genie had much in common before they ever met. Both grew up in Minnesota. Both were adopted. Both wanted to live in California.

Genie, a Fulbright Scholar to the Netherlands and a University of California, Los Angeles graduate, was in her first semester at AVC in fall 1971 when she attended a faculty meeting. “… Somebody pointed him out to me. Right at that moment, the woman he was with, he helped her off with her coat.” Rich’s courtesy caught Genie’s attention. She went to a pottery sale Rich was doing and purchased some plates and cups

“We got to talking and he said ‘I’d like to take you out to breakfast’,” she said. That was the start of their relationship. Two years later they got married.

In the years since, they’ve collaborated frequently on projects combining Genie’s writing and spoken word with Rich’s art work. (Aside from ceramics, Rich does photography, video and computer-generated images.) They even published a book together, “Colors of the Heart.”
Aside from working with her husband, Genie enjoys collaborating with faculty members from other disciplines, such as dance and anthropology. “I enjoy performing with experienced colleagues who inspire me to look at things in a new way,” she said.

Looking to the future, Rich is especially interested in reaching out to veterans in his ceramics classes.

Rich, a veteran who served with the Army Security Agency during the Cold War era, said many veterans are returning home from combat with deep, emotional wounds.

“It’s healing -- taking the earth and making something beautiful,” said Rich. “It’s really healing to them. I’m discovering life. I’m discovering real pain. I feel real worthwhile here.”