Archive - 2023

God, President Kennedy, and Me by Tina Martin (Tonga 1969-71) A version of this appears in the anthology Even the Smallest Crab Has Teeth, 2011. I remember what I was doing on November 22, 1963 even before I heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Praying. Not just because I was chairman of Religious Emphasis Week at Columbia High School but because there was a beauty contest that night and, if it were God’s will, I was willing to win it. So I kept checking in with God, letting Him know that He was on my mind, and I sure hoped I was on His. I didn’t want Him to fix the contest. That wouldn’t be fair. I just wanted Him to help me do justice to whatever God-given beauty I might have so that I could honor the Future Teachers of America Club I was representing and serve as . . .

Back in the mid-sixties when I was an APCD in Ethiopia, a year after my tour as a PCV secondary school English teacher in Addis Ababa, I did a lot of flying on Ethiopia’s Airlines small fleet of single engine prop planes, piloted by young French guys all new to the Empire. It was difficult flying, even in the best of weather, over the vast terranes and high plateaus, and across the Semien and Bale Mountains, the Danakil Depression, where you would feel the fierce winds, and always had to land the small propeller plane on a narrow dirt runways in the middle of nowhere. Still, it was breathtaking to sail across endless kilometers and see tiny tukul houses dotting the hills as if they were nothing more than birthmarks on the African landscape. I was seeing Africa up-close and personal. It was my own special view of the vastness . . .

Award-Winning Author to be Next Ofstad Scholar at Truman State Universty Nina Mukerjee Furstenau (Tunisia 1984-86) is an award-winning author and journalist with special interests in food and identity. Her food memoir, Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America’s Heartland, won the 2014 M.F.K. Fisher Book Award and the International Grand Prize/Les Dames d’Escoffier for culinary literature, among other recognitions. Her most recent book, Green Chili and Other Impostors, focuses on heritage foods and colonial power. Her textbook Food & Culture will be released sometime in 2023.Among her other accomplishments, Furstenau has launched five business magazines and served as publisher of two of them for 15 years prior to going to the University of Missouri Science and Agricultural Journalism program where she was director of food systems communication from 2010-18. In the past, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia (1984-86) and was a Fulbright Global . . .

(Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Kay (Gillies) Dixon (Colombia 1962-64) The Peace Corps’ mission has blurred with age. It is time for a new prescription. The agency’s foe and foil were clear in 1961. To counter the spread of communism in newly independent states, it enlisted a post-World War II generation of American idealists to share our country’s new affluence around the globe. Overseas, Peace Corps volunteers inspired trust in democracy by teaching citizens of poor nations skills they requested in their languages and communities. At home, Peace Corps volunteers promoted international friendship by showcasing beneficial values and practices learned abroad. Everywhere, Peace Corps volunteers learned to innovate, withstand hardship, honor commitments and appreciate the power of humble efforts to help others. Three policies underpinned that mission. Host-community ownership was promoted by having local people use a bottom-up development model called Participatory Analysis for Community Action to choose volunteer . . .

Saving the Planet By Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia 1965-67) The title of the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis was “Can We Save Our Planet?” The speaker, Carl Pope, former Executive Director and Chairman of the Sierra Club, was asked, “What can we do to halt the population explosion that threatens the planet?” Pope’s answer: “Educate girls.” I nearly jumped out of my chair to shout, YES! I had recently returned from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I attended a gathering of 130 girls and young women, some still in secondary school, and others who had been able to finish secondary school and go on to college and university because of Resources for the Enrichment of African Lives (REAL,  real-africa.org). REAL was founded by Tsehai Wodajo, from Nedjo, Ethiopia. Tsehai knew first hand what it took to keep a girl from a poor family in school. In 1970, 8th grader Tsehai wrote . . .

This Colorado ‘solar garden’ is literally a farm under solar panels By Kirk Siegler This year, the garden produced more than 8,000 pounds of produce, while the panels above generate enough power for 300 local homes. When Byron Kominek ( Cameroon 2004-06) returned home after the Peace Corps and later working as a diplomat in Africa, his family’s 24-acre farm near Boulder, Colo., was struggling to turn a profit. “Our farm has mainly been hay producing for fifty years,” Kominek said, on a recent chilly morning, the sun illuminating a dusting of snow on the foothills to his West. “This is a big change on one of our three pastures.” That big change is certainly an eye opener: 3,200 solar panels mounted on posts eight feet high above what used to be an alfalfa field on this patch of rolling farmland at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains. Getting to . . .

President Biden announces key nominee for US ambassador to Palau     In a statement from the White House, Joel Ehrendreich, is a  Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Palau. Mr. Ehrenreich is an American diplomat who has served as the director of the Office of Japanese Affairs at the State Department since 2022. He is the nominee to serve as the United States ambassador to Palau. On March 21, 2023, his nomination was sent to the Senate. His nomination is pending before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Early in his career, Ehrendreich served in the Peace Corps in Niger from 1985 to 1987. He is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Counselor. He served as director of Regional and Security Policy in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Prior to that, he was a senior operations officer . . .

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) • My site as a Peace Corps Volunteer was in a village in the foothills of the Andean Mountains, called La Plata. It was located at about the 4,000 ft. level, and had about 3,000 residents.  One afternoon, there was a knock at my door. When answering it, I was greeted by three campesinos dressed in traditional garb with ruanas over their shoulders. They said that they were from the village of La Union, which was accessed only via a three hour bus/horseback ride up the mountains, and that their Mayor had recently given them permission to build their first school.  Would I come up to see its potential site? We agreed to meet in one week’s time if they could provide a horse for me. On the appointed time and date, we met at a road-head and rode up a steep mountain trail to . . .

Why Finding the Right Image Can Be So Challenging March 20, 2023 By Ben Berman (Zimbabwe 1998-2000) I place the six-pack of beer on the counter. The clerk looks up at me, then down at the beer, then back up at me, then leans in and says, I thought I was gonna have to ID when you first walked in, but now that you’re up close I can see all the gray hairs on your head. I’m not sure whether to be flattered that he thinks I look twenty years younger than I actually am or upset that he’s noticed that I am starting to go gray. Although, after I get home and examine my head in the mirror, I realize that there is something about the word, gray, that feels off—as though it is too generic a word to capture the intricate blending of complementing colors sprouting from my head. Later, at . . .

Once Again The Torch is Passed There is a new Kennedy associated with Irish affairs. With a nod to the past and a move toward the future, President Joe Biden recently selected 42-year-old Joseph Kennedy III as the latest Special Envoy to Northern Ireland. Who is this newest Kennedy? What does he confront in his new role? This generational passing of the family torch could impact the province’s future – and his own. Kennedy is the grandson of Senator and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, assassinated while running for president in 1968. His great-uncle, SenatorTed Kennedy, played a crucial role leading to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), including supporting the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (which provided an advisory role for the Republic’s government in Northern Ireland’s government). His great-aunt, Jean Kennedy Smith, U.S. ambassador to Ireland in the 1990s, was likewise an influential peace process player. And his father, Rep. Joe . . .

In honor of Women’s History Month, Bennett College is highlighting one of its notable and influential alumna, Carolyn Robertson Payton. Payton, a 1945 graduate of Bennett College, made history when she became both the first African American and first female  director of the Peace Corps in 1977. As director, Payton paved the way for Black women and people of color. She believed in diversifying Peace Corps volunteers and worked tirelessly to bring young people on board, aiming to attract more Black and Hispanic volunteers. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter, Payton was also the first psychologist to take on the role of Peace Corps Director. After graduating from Bennett College with a degree in home economics, Payton earned her Master of Science degree in clinical psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her doctorate in counseling and school administration from Columbia University Teachers College. Born in Norfolk, Va. in 1925, Payton’s . . .

On this day–March 21, 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Sargent Shriver to be the first Director of the Peace Corps. To celebrate this anniversary, we’re pleased to announce the publication of a new book about Sargent Shriver. The Call: The Spiritual Leadership of Sargent Shriver explores the ways in which Shriver’s signature leadership style was fueled by his deep spirituality. Shriver’s approach to public service, while rooted in his devout Catholic faith, is an example for anyone who has felt the deeply human impulse to serve others. Written as a “true conversation that never happened”, the book is an imagined dialogue between a meticulously constructed Sargent Shriver and a fictional interviewer named Didymus. The book’s author, our Founding Director, Jamie Price, worked closely with Shriver for over 20 years. Informed by hundreds of Shriver’s speeches, philosophers and theologians who inspired him, and real-life conversations between Shriver and the author, The Call presents a . . .