Teaching science in a classroom, knitting wool hats for charity and encouraging runners to step up for an annual 5K race have been part of how Perry and Suzy Seagroves have helped build community in the Concord area.

The couple met in the 1970s when they worked as engineers for Hitchiner Manufacturing in Milford. Perry joked that his boss told him he had interviewed Perry’s future wife, and it turned out the boss was right. The couple did get married and both ended up working for the company.

At Hitchiner, the couple helped produce metal frames used to make guns. Suzy vividly remembers the day John Lennon was murdered because the Charter Arms handgun used by Mark David Chapman was one the Seagroves had indirectly helped make. She recalled playing Lennon’s song “Imagine” on repeat all night, and after that, she said she knew she had to make a change. The Seagroves continued working at Hitchiner for a time until Perry took a teaching job at Nashua Community College.

After a few years at NCC, Perry found his way to NHTI as a full-time chemistry professor, and Suzy took a job at Bishop Brady High School as a chemistry, physics and math teacher. She also has taught courses at NHTI.

Now, 40 years later, they have stayed true to their mission of building community. Perry did so by starting NHTI’s cross country program with the late Tom Walton, with whom he also started The Capital Area Race Series (C.A.R.S.) in 2006. Since then it has grown year over year, bringing hundreds of people to the city to run in nine different 5K races as part of a yearly circuit.

Suzy, despite not being a runner, assisted with these endeavors through her love of knitting and volunteerism. She has knit thousands of items such as sweaters and hats for race participants but also as donations for good causes. At Bishop Brady, she aimed to spread the spirit of volunteerism and has led Habitat for Humanity trips to Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina relief, to Miami and regularly to West Virginia.

“West Virginia – it’s like our family down there. You see the same people year after year and this year, people have taken over so that we have one of the teachers doing it, then there’s parents doing it. It’s just such a wonderful thing and the kids come back, it’s something for all their life. They want to volunteer because they saw what they can do and everything we do is about building community, like when we do these races,” she said.

The Seagroves have imparted their values to everyone who has stepped through their doors. Even though the times and habits of kids have changed during the years the Seagroves have worked as teachers, they remain steadfast in their commitments to education and health.

The Seagroves help with the Sycamore Community Garden at NHTI, which “enhances the opportunities for community members, particularly new Americans, to grow food within the greater Concord area by making gardening accessible to those whose limited income and lack of transportation would otherwise preclude them from accessing land,” according to its website. Suzy teaches her students about growing plants by starting them from seedlings in her classroom and transporting them to NHTI to plant.

Also at NHTI, the cross country program and C.A.R.S. were a long time coming for the Seagroveses. Perry’s passion for running was sparked in his youth because he wanted to keep his legs strong as a hockey goalie during the off-season. From there he took off. The turning point was when NHTI started a sports management program and he saw it as an opportunity to combine the running club and efforts of the students to put together races.

“One of the kids said, why don’t we have cross country?” he explained. “I was kind of waiting for that, so we sat in the club first and then we started to start the team in 2006 and I had no experience being a coach, so they hired Tom Walton. What a great coach.”

Perry had previously coached the NHTI ice hockey team before the program was cut, but the fire for coaching was already lit. He credits Walton for teaching him the ways of coaching cross country, and after Walton stepped down, Perry took over.

During his stint as head coach, Perry won the Yankee Small College Conference Coach of the Year award for four consecutive years and led the team to new heights. He helped two NHTI runners become national champions: Heather Searles in 2008 and Eli Lemire last year. Through this, he became the only person to be honored as coach of the year and teacher of the year, more than enough to earn him an induction into the NHTI Athletic Hall of Fame in 2023.

Tom Raffio, the president and CEO of Northeast Delta Dental, a primary sponsor of the C.A.R.S., is an avid runner and helped start the series alongside Perry and Walton. Raffio said their impact has been widespread. As someone working in the health industry, he believes that this inseparable duo’s impact on community health and wellness is unmatched.

“They’re really genuine, great people, so I’m proud to call them friends,” Raffio said. “But I think the iconic thing that Perry and Suzy have done is they’ve opened up the running and walking world to so many people in Concord, and Delta Dental supports many of these races. We need people like Perry and Suzy to take the lead, volunteering at races, participating in races, just really, really cool people.”

As they both reflected on everything they’ve done, the Seagroves remembered the many people who have helped them along their journey. Suzy plans on retiring this year because at her age it has become too tiring, but she said she looks forward to lots of knitting and continuing to help with community projects however she can.

Perry, the senior-most faculty member in the Community College System of New Hampshire, plans to continue teaching. He described himself as an old-school teacher who thinks written notes are the best and does not use PowerPoint presentations. But that’s not to say his teaching isn’t effective or connecting with Gen Z, because his RateMyProfessor website is full of stellar reviews of his commitment to students and his long-time success with the cross country program is a testament to that.

From the many students’ hand prints on Suzy’s classroom walls to Walton and the great runners at NHTI, they said they felt proud of their accomplishments and efforts to bring the community together for good causes.

“You know how there’s so many movies where you know, like what are those guys named, The Guardians of the Galaxy? The Guardians of the Galaxy have their own family, and that’s what we do, and that’s what running is like. They have a family of it and make people feel like they’re part of it,” Suzy Seagroves said.

The race season starts soon, with the first one being the 100 Hats for St. Pats at Bishop Brady’s mile, where each participant gets a hat made by Suzy upon completion of the race. The C.A.R.S. starts on April 6 with the State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire annual SEA 5K at the State of New Hampshire Office Complex on Hazen Drive in Concord.

Alexander Rapp can be reached at arapp@cmonitor.com.