April 25, 2025
Photo by Elizabeth Owsley
Most people wouldn’t consider the smell of formaldehyde and mothballs romantic, nor would they consider dissecting fly brains and catching bugs dates, but it worked for the Niedermanns.
When Melissa Bechtel (now Niedermann), graduated with a degree in general agriculture from the University of Missouri in 1997, she was eager to stay in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources to continue her education with a master’s in agronomy. Passionate about entomology, she got began her master’s degree with Marc J. Linit, professor of forest entomology, where she shared an office with a quiet graduate student from Iowa.
“The first day I walked into the lab she came bounding in,” said Allen Niedermann, who came to Mizzou to study forest insects after completing two bachelors’ degrees from Iowa State University.
“Dr. Linit was our professor and he said, ‘He’s new, I need you to get him involved, so he’s going to help you plan the entomology fall picnic,’” Melissa Niedermann said.
After being friends for about a year, they started dating in December of 1999 and got married in 2001. While she completed her master’s degree, Melissa Niedermann gave birth to their first child, Bonnie, now a communications major at Mizzou, and when she defended her thesis she was pregnant with twins Heidi and JD. JD Niedermann attends St. Louis Community College, while Heidi Niedermann followed in her parents’ footsteps as a CAFNR student.
Allen Niedermann is a high school teacher in St. Louis, where he uses his background in entomology to teach biology and ecology and coach Envirothon teams, a science quiz bowl that focuses on conservation and nature topics. Melissa Niedermann was a stay-at-home mom before she began working with Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, where she uses her love of nature as the director of camping services, overseeing three camp properties in eastern Missouri and their programming.
“Working in labs and greenhouses at Mizzou I think you learn perseverance,” Melissa Niedermann said. “You get huge confidence boosts from working on your own; you learn how to be a self-starter, how to initiate work on your own, be ambitious … I was a suburban kid and now I’m overseeing three large camp properties, and I learned everything I know to do that in the Ag Building.”
When it came time for their children to choose colleges, the Niedermanns gave them a personal tour of Mizzou. Bonnie Niedermann wanted a big school where she could get involved and fell in love with Marching Mizzou. Heidi Niedermann was resistant to going to Mizzou because her parents went there, but after touring CAFNR she had her parents cancel her remaining visits to other colleges.
When Heidi Niedermann was looking for an on-campus job, her parents suggested the Enns Entomological Museum. She now works for Robert Sites, Enns Entomological Museum Curator and professor of entomology, in the Division of Plant Science and Technology and is changing her major from animal sciences to natural resource science and management.
“It means so much to me that I can carry on their love of science and nature,” Heidi Niedermann said. “It is cool that I inherited that love of nature, insects and forestry. I don’t think I would’ve ever found out how much I enjoy working at the museum if it weren’t for them pushing me to at least try it, and I am so lucky that it is something that I really do find happiness in.”
Heidi Niedermann also regularly sends her parents pictures of insects in the Enns Museum that were collected and pinned by her dad, some of which he caught on dates with her mom.
“Mizzou, and especially CAFNR, is such a great place to make and keep friends,” Melissa Niedermann said. “Our friends were in our wedding, we still talk to them, and we just met all our core people here. Also, so many of the faculty who were here for us when we were students are here for our kids now, even if they aren’t in CAFNR. It’s just phenomenal, and I don’t know if that would’ve happened in any other college.”
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