Robert Rightmire

Robert Rightmire spent many years as a beloved and enormously impactful teacher, advisor and organizer at PMHS. From 1966 through 1994 he taught Social Studies and Advanced Placement American History, and also served during many of those years as a Class advisor, Advisor to the General Organization, and Advisor to the National Honor Society. While at Patchogue-Medford, he mentored new Social Studies teachers, taught in the Gifted and Talented Program, and was repeatedly recognized state-wide for his excellence and dedication to education. Between 1972 and 1982 Mr. Rightmire was extremely active in producing or serving as an advisor for many of the highly acclaimed musicals performed by Pat-Med students in association with the brilliant and equally beloved Bert Pollock, a 2017 inductee to the Patchogue-Medford Hall of Fame. Mr. Rightmire also taught at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue as an adjunct professor of History from 1985 through 1996.

Through the years, Mr. Rightmire has also invested a great deal of time, effort and expertise in helping to educate the greater Patchogue-Medford Community and beyond, promoting the works of the great American artists Rockwell Kent and Ryah Ludins. Mr. Rightmire’s professional writing, curatorial work, speeches, presentations, and travel have stimulated and enhanced scholarship in the field of art history in the United States and abroad. Mr. Rightmire is the author of several magazine and journal articles on a wide variety of subjects and five books: The Prints of Rockwell Kent (revised edition, 2002); The Greeting Cards of Rockwell Kent, 2013; Postmarked Art, The postcards of Rockwell Kent, 2015; When Objects “Talk” to You (Schoolchildren’s Anthropomorphic Valentine Cards from the 1940s and 1950s) 2014; and Do You Like Valentines? SODA II Having fun with the language of children’s Valentines 1930s-1960s, written with his granddaughter Kristina Kea, 2017.