Wendee Levy

Wendee Levy
...
Home > High Holiday Profile: Wendee Levy -- It was written in the stars
...
Wendee Levy -- It was written in the stars
...
Wendee Levy at the Jarnac Obervatory

As the saying goes, behind every good man is a great woman.

"David and I joke that I spent 26 years teaching, organizing classes, organizing sports and tournaments, so that I could retire and take care of one man," says Wendee Levy, 55, who retired in 1996 from teaching physical education in New Mexico.

"David" is world-renowned astronomer and comet hunter David Levy.Wendee is David's wife and business partner.Together they run Jarnac Observatory in Vail, host a radio talk show on the Internet, and generally enjoy spending every day together.

Raised in New York, Levy worked and lived in Las Cruces, N.M. for 26 years, 23 of which were spent on the White Sands missile range, where she first met David."We were a fix up," says Levy.Their mothers, who had worked together at an overnight camp in Maine many years before, spent almost a decade nudging them before the two finally decided to meet.David was living in Corona de Tucson, but while working on a biography of Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto, David often traveled to Las Cruces.

"His mother said, ‘David you're going to Las Cruces every month.Wendee lives there.She's single at the moment -- call her,'" Levy recalls.

Finally, after a few months of writing postcards and speaking on the phone, David and Wendee met for the first time in the summer of 1992.

"When David and I first met each other," she says, "I told him the only problem was my schedule: I was working long hours almost seven days a week.My schedule was always the same, but it never stopped."In addition to teaching, Levy coached intramurals, volunteered at the American Red Cross, and taught swimming.

The two were friends for a while, until April 1995, when David invited Wendee to a party celebrating 65 years since Tombaugh had discovered Pluto.It was their first real date and "it was after that dinner that things changed," says Levy.

"In the New Mexico school system you can retire after 25 years," she says.Levy wasn't sure she really wanted to retire, but decided that she would teach at least 26 years and then re-examine year to year.But, "in walks David Levy in year 25," she says."Our relationship went from friendship to much more than that.And we spent year 26 as our main courtship."

In May 1996, at the end of her last day of teaching, Levy says, she "packed up the car, put the dogs in, and drove off" to Tucson and David.

"And that was it, I never looked back," she says.
...
Levy, who labels herself a "type A++ personality," needed something to do.She started by paying the bills."My goal was to take care of what we lovingly call the minutiae," Levy says."So David could do what he does well -- lecture, write, and observe -- and I'd take care of everything else."

It's not minutiae, David interjects."Wendee runs our business.Wendee runs the Jarnac Observatory.
...
Levy managed to finish the tax class, but David's health worsened.He had kidney cancer.Amid the misfortunes, however, good things were happening.Parade magazine hired David as their science editor; he got a book advance for Comets: Creators and Destroyers; and in 1998, the Levys incorporated the Jarnac Observatory, located on their property in Vail.As David healed and his schedule filled, so did Wendee's.

"Once we incorporated, David was the president and I became secretary/treasurer," says Levy."My H & R Block class came in very handy."

Wendee, who acts as both co-director and resident educator at Jarnac, also spends a lot of time working in the observatory with David, taking pictures of his findings in the night sky and searching the sky herself.Their talk radio show on astromomy used to be broadcast live in Tucson on KTKT, but is now on the Internet at www.letstalkstars.com.

The show started three years ago when the owner of Starizona, a local astronomy shop and viewing center, approached David with the idea.In the beginning, Wendee would sit by David's side suggesting questions for him to ask.Gradually, her role became more participatory, until she started asking questions herself on air.

"My role became bringing the subject down to the level of the average person," she says.Levy eventually hosted a half dozen shows without David.

In addition to their professional endeavors together, Wendee and David enjoy giving mutual time to charitable causes.Levy's "baby," she says, is Telescopes for Telethon, a fundraiser she conceived for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The program started on a small scale on Labor Day in 1998 with the Tucson Amateur Astronomical Association setting up telescopes at Flandrau Planetarium and Science Center for people to view the moon -- "a star party," says Levy.The astronomers placed buckets next to their telescopes and asked for donations to MDA.

"And I thought that's all it was going to be, just a little street corner thing," says Levy.Instead, they set their sights higher and involved the entire astronomical community in the United States.

Other astronomical clubs around the nation responded, says Levy.For the past five years, Telescopes for Telethon star-parties have taken place locally at Old Tucson, Sabino Canyon and Flandrau; while astronomical clubs in other cities, such as Atlanta and Fort Bend, Texas host parties of their own.

"We're presenting a check for $6,000 this year," says Levy.
...
I don't have to leave my house to go to work," says Levy, who works from a garage-turned-office next to their home and observatory.

"Even though I'm doing a lot to keep everything together, I feel like I'm on constant vacation and playing," she says.