The Peace Corps

Peter Max  

This plan is dated December 18, 2018. Here is the most important statement: “The agency has, therefore, determined that the Peace Corps is not required during a lapse in appropriated funding to take any action to evacuate Volunteers and return them to their homes of record. The Director has determined that all Peace Corps U.S. direct hire and FSN employees overseas are reasonably necessary for the protection of human life and property and, in particular, are required to ensure the health, safety and security of currently serving Volunteers.” Read the entire plan, here: https://files.peacecorps.gov/documents/open-government/Peace_Corps_Operations_Plan_in_the_Absence_of_Appropriations.pdf Everyone is urged to read the whole plan.  It would not be appropriate, in my opinion, to excerpt sections as the whole plan has to be considered in its entirety.  However, the above statement, again in my opinion, does answer the most important question about the immediate impact on serving Volunteers.

Check out the Program for Monday, December 17, 2018 & Watch Video of CorpsAfrica Volunteers Program: https://issuu.com/corpsafrica/docs/harris_wofford_booklet_for_issuu Video: https://youtu.be/jLbzfRiz9os. More photos at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/68558103@N05/08S9 Liz Fanning (Morocco 1993-95) Founder & Director Cors Africa Read about the remarkable CorpsAfrica Volunteers in Morocco, Senegal, Malawi and Rwanda, and follow their adventure on the Volunteer blog, here. CFC #41180 Liz Fanning Mobile: (212) 831-5457 Email: lfanning@corpsafrica.org Skype: lizfanning Mailing address: P.O. Box 5414 – Washington, DC 20016 Website: www.corpsafrica.org

By the time John Todd arrived in November to conduct a school survey of the Eastern Region, the Michelmore incident was closed. Born in Austin, Texas, raised in Memphis, Tenn., Todd graduated from McKinley Technical High School in Washington, D.C. in 1940, just in time for the war. Trained in Texas as an aerial navigator, he flew 36 combat missions over Europe before he was sent back to Texas an athletic officer for the Central Flying Training Command, before he returned to Europe as squadron navigator for the 33rd Fighter Group (P-51s). He married his childhood sweetheart, Frances Atkinson of Washington. “The war was over. I was young with no particular plans. They were asking people to extend their terms of service so I just stayed in for another year—at Neubiberg air base outside Munich.” Later he would serve in Korea and when after that war, in 1956, he received . . .

William E. Hintz of Milwaukee, Wis., was the first overseas staffer ever hired by the Peace Corps. On April 17. 1961, Hintz received a telephone call from John Alexander, a former ICA colleague who was then Peace Corps Regional Director for Africa. Alexander wanted to know if Hintz could be in Nigeria four days hence to carry out a school survey. “Can I think it over?” Hintz asked. “Sure Alexander replied, “for about 30 seconds.” Hintz later reported that “I didn’t actually make it to Nigeria until the 28th of April. But I did the survey.” On May 26, Brent Ashabranner was designated Acting Representative in Nigeria, and Hintz became Acting Deputy Representative. On July 15, he returned to Milwaukee to wind up his affairs and to welcome an adopted daughter, Joy, a Korean orphan, obtained through the famed auspices of Oregon farmer Harry Holt. Four days later, at 10 . . .

In reading the recent Peace Corps Writers article about Lee St. Lawrence I discovered that Lee was a Peace Corps guy.  He had never mentioned this background in all the time I knew him.  We were among a tiny handful of ex-patriots in Ahwaz, Iran, where he was the top adviser to the Iranian Director of the Khuzistan Water and Power Authority (KWPA) and one of the last foreign nationals involved in this project.  I met Lee during the first couple of weeks after I arrived in Ahwaz when my Peace Corps assignment had not yet solidified.  He invited me and the three other PCVs in Ahwaz to come to the KWPA housing compound where he lived whenever we needed a break.  The residents of the 50 or so KWPA-owned western style houses had access to a swimming pool, a cinema, a library holding English books and a club (“cloob” . . .

If you’re in the DC area, please join us for a special tribute to Senator Harris Wofford on Monday, December 17, 2018 at the Embassy of Malawi. You can view the invitation here, and purchase tickets by making a donation to CorpsAfrica, here. Hope to see you there! Liz Fanning Founder and Executive Director, CorpsAfrica Morocco RPCV 1993-95 Mobile: (212) 831-5457 Email: lfanning@corpsafrica.org Skype: lizfanning Mailing address: P.O. Box 5414 – Washington, DC 20016 Website: www.corpsafrica.org

His own flourishing electronics company handled such fascinating assignments as the design and construction of the atomic reactor controls for the first atom-powered U.S. merchant ship, the Savannah. For Dick Graham personally it was probably just as important that the firm offered him a constructive outlet for his skills as a high lever tinkerer. From atomic controls engineering to Peace Corps recruiting might seem as first glance to compose a disconnected journey. Not so, Graham insists, explaining that the nature of his duties with his company made his transition to the Peace Corps perfectly natural. “I was my own advertising manager—writing releases, holding sales meetings, editing the house organ—all the kinds of things one does in recruiting.” Here in Washington, he admits to “no regrets about leaving the company,” and insists that he doesn’t want to “hear any nonsense about financial sacrifice. In the Peace Corps, I am doing exactly . . .

The Malawi program, originally explored by Harris Wofford and later negotiated by Bob Hellawell in August 1962, eventually brought 112 Volunteers to the new nation, to teach in secondary schools and a teacher training institute. It also re-directed the services of scholar-athlete Robert Poole, who had originally been scheduled to go to Addis Ababa. Born in Wilmington, Del., and raised in Saylesville, R.I. and Litchfield, Conn., Poole attended Yale on a four-year Northwestern Connecticut Alumni Scholarship. He was middleweight boxing champion of Yale in 1953. He played basketball and baseball I the college intramural league. He participated in hockey and swimming and as a rugby player, participated in the Rug y Week tournaments in Bermuda for three years. (This was a result of the fact that spring football practice was banned when he was a sophomore—all the football players turned to rugby in the spring.) Before he received his degree . . .