Peace Corps Volunteers

  By Kevin Shea | For NJ.com    Thomas Baranyi, the Mercer County man who gave a TV interview after storming the U.S. Capitol last year and showed blood on his hand from a rioter who’d been shot, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C. Baranyi, 30, who’d been charged with four crimes for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, pleaded guilty to one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building. He’ll be sentenced in May, and faces up to six months in prison. Born and raised in Hamilton, and now living in Ewing, Baranyi was candid in the local TV news interview, which made headlines nationwide and went viral online. He introduced himself as “Thomas Baranyi from New Jersey,” and proceeded to narrate his role. “We tore through the scaffolding, through flash bangs and tear gas and blitzed our way in through all the chambers just trying to get . . .

  Entrepreneurs and animal advocates bring a cause closer to home By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON | newsroom@montereyherald.com |  February 1, 2022    Maybe it was while getting her master’s degree at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, which included joining the Peace Corps, or when she went to Botswana with local artist Mary Beth Harris and became both enchanted by elephants and devastated by their plight, that Carmel’s Susie Bauer (Central Africa Republic 1982-84) decided to establish a nonprofit organization.Tuesday, she and Harris opened “Mopane” at The Crossroads in Carmel, named after a tree in Southern Africa. Known as the “tree of life,” its foliage feeds elephants, and its grubs become tribal cuisine. This boutique will carry custom jewelry, fabrics, art, and vessels — primarily fair trade products from Africa. Half the proceeds will go to Elephant Havens Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit rescue organization in Botswana, and the other half will benefit various . . .

  A data scientist and former Peace Corps Volunteer has joined the North Carolina State House, filling out the term of  longtime Rep. Susan Fisher of Asheville. Rep. Caleb Rudow (Zambia 2012-2015) was the choice of Buncombe County Democratic activists to serve out the remainder of Fisher’s two-year term. Gov. Roy Cooper then appointed Rudow, as state law required. Rudow was sworn in on Feb. 1. Rudow is the son of an Asheville attorney, Marc Rudow, and his wife Deborah Miles, is the founder and long-time Executive Director of the UNC Asheville Center for Diversity Education. A 2005 graduate of Asheville High School, Rudow majored in philosophy at UNC-Chapel Hill and later earned an MA in Public Policy from the LBJ School of Government at UT-Austin (TX). Rudow learned Spanish under Señora Castro at Asheville High and then spent a full semester in Costa Rica—after several other trips to Central . . .

  New Castle News by Renée Gendreau, Jan 28, 2022 • It wasn’t the way Michael Hassett wanted people to learn about Tonga. A 2007 graduate of Laurel High School, Hassett served for two years with the Peace Corps (Tonga 2012-14) in the South Pacific kingdom, which was devastated by a tsunami earlier this month. Together with his wife, Chiara Collette, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer who also served in Tonga, Hassett founded Friends of Tonga in 2018 to provide educational opportunities for the island nation’s children. Last summer, in partnership with Schools for Children of the World, the non-profit dedicated its first school in Ta’anga on the island of ‘Eua. Located northwest of New Zealand, Tonga is a constitutional monarchy comprised of 176 islands, of which 36 are inhabited by the nation’s 109,000 residents. When forming the organization, Hassett noted that one of the difficulties in raising funds was the . . .

  Rob Schmitz is NPR’s international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany’s levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic. Prior to covering Europe, Schmitz provided award-winning coverage of China for a decade, reporting on the country’s economic rise and increasing global influence. His reporting on China’s impact beyond its borders took him to countries such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. Inside China, he’s interviewed elderly revolutionaries, young rappers, and live-streaming celebrity farmers who make up the diverse tapestry of one of the most fascinating countries on the planet. He is the author of the critically . . .

  Tony Schinella, Patch, CONCORD, NH, 1/20/22 • — A former PCV and Country Director, accused of illegally registering to vote in New Hampshire and voting, has chosen to fight the charges in court.   MaryKate Lowndes (Honduras 1989-91 & PC/W Staff of Hyannis, Massachusetts, faces four voter fraud charges in Rockingham County Superior Court — a single felony count of wrongful voting as well as two counts of misdemeanor wrongful voting and a single count of misusing an absentee ballot. She was indicted in September 2020, when she was living in Washington, D.C., and was a Peace Corps director. Originally, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office filed seven charges against Lowndes including a felony voter fraud charge as well as two misusing absentee ballots and four voter fraud misdemeanor counts. On Sept. 18, 2020, one absentee ballot and two voter fraud charges were nolle prossed. The charges stem from incidents . . .

  WAVERLY, Iowa (KWWL) – Eastern Iowa and the Island Kingdom of Tonga are 7,000 miles apart. This week, it feels even farther for one family. “It’s been kind of hard not having that connection right now,” Barb Corson of Waverly said. After graduating from Central College in 2016, Barb’s daughter Carolyn joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Tonga. She began teaching at a Christian boy’s school. “She amazes me all the time,” Barb said. Carolyn stayed in Tonga until March 2020, when the Peace Corps brought all of its people back stateside because of the pandemic. However, in June 2021, she was allowed to return to Tonga because of her status as a teacher. She quarantined in New Zealand for three weeks and then rejoined her boyfriend Fine (pronounced “Fin-a”), who is from Tonga. The two got married soon after. “We were able to watch a livestream . . .

  Drama Kids of Manasota celebrates 20 Arts and Entertainment Monday, Jan. 17, 2022 by: Marty Fugate Contributor • Some talented kids want to grow up to be actors when they grow up. Some adult actors are still kids at heart. Tamara Solum (Cameroon 1989–91) is one of them. Her inner child loves the magic of make-believe. She shares the secrets of that magic with area children at Drama Kids of Manasota, an after-school, dramatic arts program, serving children between the ages of 5 and 18. This local offshoot of Drama Kids International is nearing its 20th birthday. Solum’s has been its happy director and owner for 18 of those years. Drama Kids is a perfect fit for her passion and talents. Solum graduated with a theater degree from Occidental College in L.A. in 1988. You’d think her path to Drama Kids was a straight line. It was actually a winding road … “I did . . .

  Maheisha Adams and Meerim Ilyas met at a conference in Ukraine in 2019, and solidified their bond a year later while quarantining together in Washington.   By Louise Rafkin for “VOWS,” New York Times Jan. 14, 2022 photos by Ed Pingol • Meerim Ilyas and Maheisha Adams (Kenya 2005-07) met in April of 2019 while attending the European Lesbian Conference in Kyiv, Ukraine. When the two decided to meet for dinner one night after the conference, both assumed it was a professional invitation. Yet by the end of the meal, the flowing conversation turned decidedly personal. Both left the dinner besotted. “Meerim is beautiful and intelligent, a fabulous conversationalist, and is always bubbling with ideas, Ms. Adams said. But romance presented challenges: they lived thousands of miles and an ocean apart and their backgrounds were wildly different. Ms. Adams, now 42, was raised on the plains of Guthrie, Okla., by her . . .

  The photographer captured a fleeting cultural moment with his seminal 1973 book.   By Danielle Avram of the Dallas News The year 1968 was a tumultuous time in American history. The country was embroiled in riots and protests over the escalating U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Progress achieved by the landmark passing of the Civil Rights Act was clouded by the election of Richard Nixon and the lingering segregationist sentiments spurred on by politicians such as George Wallace. For Bill Owens, 1968 also proved to be a pivotal year. After years abroad in the Peace Corps, Owens (Jamaica 1964-66) had relocated to Livermore, Calif., a former agrarian community-turned-suburb of San Francisco, to work as a photojournalist for the local newspaper. Struck by his newfound suburban lifestyle, particularly the young ages and outlooks of its residents, Owens spent a year . . .

  Tom Hasvold’s (Ecuador 1983-85) career formed itself the day in 1982 he walked across the student union at the University of Colorado and spied a bearded man sitting between a Peace Corps banner and a sign-up sheet. Six months later, Hasvold had a passport and a job in South America. He also launched a passion for connecting people with outdoor spaces and natural resources. That vocation carries over today into his role as Oakland, Oregon’s mayor. “He loves parks and likes to keep them up and functional for everyone in the city,” said Terri Long, who retired in July as Oakland’s city recorder but continues as a contracted planning clerk. “He’s an outdoorsman himself, and he likes to see a lot of open spaces so citizens have comfortable places to go outside.” James Hart, Oakland’s director of public works, agreed that Hasvold seeks to boost community assets that everyone . . .

  IN TRUMP TIME By Peter Navarro (Thailand 1972-75) All Seasons Press 344 pages November 2021 $28.00 (hardback), $2.99 (Kindle)   Peter Navarro (Thailand 1972-75) was one of only three senior White House officials by President Trump’s side from the 2016 campaign to the end of the president’s first term in office. Always moving In Trump Time as was his signature, Dr. Navarro said he was the first to sound the alarm within the West Wing about the pandemic. He played, he writes, a pivotal role in the rapid development of both vaccines and therapeutics like Remdesivir. As Defense Production Act Policy Coordinator, Navarro was at the center of ramping up domestic production of critically needed Personal Protective Equipment while helping President Trump insure that every American who needed a ventilator had a ventilator. Dr. Navarro served as an Assistant to the President and the Director of the Office of . . .