Fulton County Ohio Media

Jeff Mazurowski is special education teacher at the Pike-Delta-York (PDY) Middle School, who, prior to becoming an educator, compiled a lengthy resume of work experiences in many fields.  An alumnus of Defiance College, where he also played football for the Yellow Jackets, Jeff has been employed as a construction contractor, a used car salesman, a steel worker and school sports coach in addition to being married and helping to raise three children.

All these experiences have been very beneficial in helping him pursue another avocation, one more personal and related to his current profession.  Jeff writes children’s books.  And has been doing so for more than 25 years.  Previous books included “Auroa and Boris Touch the Sky,” “The Christmas Boy,” “The Bad Creek Gang,” which he wrote in collaboration with this fourth-grade students and “Red, White and Bloo.”

While Jeff is a talented writer, he defers to the more artistically inclined for the illustrations that enhance the overall experience for the reader.  His latest book that he published and sold on Amazon last summer was titled “Udder Chaos!”  For this new publication Jeff enlisted the services of a young but very talented artist by the name of Keegan Clapp, a Delta High School freshman and a close friend of Jeff’s son Jack.  Jack had been taking dairy cows to the Fulton County Fair for several years, which planted the seed for “Udder Chaos!”

Jeff was very familiar with Keegan’s artistic ability and approached him with the offer to create the illustrations.  “Back when they were in the fifth or sixth grade, I knew Keegan was a great artist and I said, ‘Keegan.  We’re going to write a book about cows and you’re going to draw the pictures.’  We just joked around about it for a few years and then last year I wrote a rhyming book about cows getting loose at the fair and 14-year-old Keegan Clapp drew the pictures and did an amazing job,” explained Jeff.  “What he did with the pictures brought the story to life.  He has not only great artistic ability to draw but he has an eye for knowing what to draw and how to draw it.”

Before the winter break this past December, Jeff came across some stored copies of his previous books and decided to generously donate them to the elementary students at PDY.  “I was actually looking for Christmas decorations in my crawl space and found a couple of boxes of books that I had written and published 20 years ago that were brand new but they were in 20-year-old boxes,” said Jeff.  He had enough to give one signed book to each of the approximately 375 students.

“The Kindergartners through second-grade got a copy of my ‘Auroa and Boris Touch the Sky’ book which is a book about the Northern Lights and the third and fourth graders got a copy of the ‘Christmas Boy’ which is more of a short chapter book,” said Jeff.  “I’m actually working on a second edition of both,” he added. 

“Udder Chaos!” proved to be very popular and many copies were sold at the Fulton County Fair.  So popular, in fact, that Jeff is now working on a sequel titled “The Barbeque Bandits Steal a Cow.”  Stay tuned on when and where it will become available.