[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, gosh. Man, let’s see.

[Assistant] And I have to think too, as a pilot you must be excited about all of the different ways that your Center can offer aerospace. Like you mentioned, from the flights that could come off of the Shuttle landing strip, and the Air Force plane. All that’s just right there in your backyard to go touch.

[User] It’s pretty cool, but I don’t get to fly it, that’s the problem. I have my own little 1978 [American Champion 8KCAB] Super Decathlon aerobatic aircraft that I keep at Merritt Island [Airport, Florida] that I go out and fly upside-down, and do loops and rolls, and have fun in on the weekends.

[Assistant] Take your own tour of the Center?

[User] Well, you can’t fly in the restricted airspace. The industrial area is in the restricted airspace, but you can make a low pass down the Shuttle Landing Facility, and you can fly over the Visitors Center and circle it and see the Rocket Garden. When I have folks come visit I will take them up there and fly them over it so they can see it, and they think it’s pretty cool. And when you are flying down the Shuttle Landing Facility you can look across and you can see the VAB and the launchpads, and the new mobile launcher being built. It’s a pretty good tour that I give.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, I’m sure it’s good for you as well to be able to see all of that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It’s pretty cool, but I don’t get to fly it, that’s the problem. I have my own little 1978 [American Champion 8KCAB] Super Decathlon aerobatic aircraft that I keep at Merritt Island [Airport, Florida] that I go out and fly upside-down, and do loops and rolls, and have fun in on the weekends.

[Assistant] Take your own tour of the Center?

[User] Well, you can’t fly in the restricted airspace. The industrial area is in the restricted airspace, but you can make a low pass down the Shuttle Landing Facility, and you can fly over the Visitors Center and circle it and see the Rocket Garden. When I have folks come visit I will take them up there and fly them over it so they can see it, and they think it’s pretty cool. And when you are flying down the Shuttle Landing Facility you can look across and you can see the VAB and the launchpads, and the new mobile launcher being built. It’s a pretty good tour that I give.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, I’m sure it’s good for you as well to be able to see all of that.

[User] If I can’t fly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Yes, I need that, and I’m a pilot more than anything.

[Assistant] Don’t tell the people at Kennedy—they think that you’re the Center Director. Well, thank you so much for coming in.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, you can’t fly in the restricted airspace. The industrial area is in the restricted airspace, but you can make a low pass down the Shuttle Landing Facility, and you can fly over the Visitors Center and circle it and see the Rocket Garden. When I have folks come visit I will take them up there and fly them over it so they can see it, and they think it’s pretty cool. And when you are flying down the Shuttle Landing Facility you can look across and you can see the VAB and the launchpads, and the new mobile launcher being built. It’s a pretty good tour that I give.

[Assistant] Yes. Well, I’m sure it’s good for you as well to be able to see all of that.

[User] If I can’t fly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Yes, I need that, and I’m a pilot more than anything.

[Assistant] Don’t tell the people at Kennedy—they think that you’re the Center Director. Well, thank you so much for coming in.

[User] Thank you. I think we have a very exciting future in front of us, and I think we are well positioned for it. It’s been a really hard transition. It’s been taxing.

[Assistant] And full. I used the word “grueling,” but there was just so much.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] If I can’t fly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Yes, I need that, and I’m a pilot more than anything.

[Assistant] Don’t tell the people at Kennedy—they think that you’re the Center Director. Well, thank you so much for coming in.

[User] Thank you. I think we have a very exciting future in front of us, and I think we are well positioned for it. It’s been a really hard transition. It’s been taxing.

[Assistant] And full. I used the word “grueling,” but there was just so much.

[User] And it seems to never end. But then you look back and you say, “Wow, that’s amazing. We did that.” I can’t wait for SLS to fly, and use that Charlie Bolden quote again. “I knew it would feel good. I didn’t know it would feel this good.”

[Assistant] Yes. Well, we wish you the best of luck.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Thank you. I think we have a very exciting future in front of us, and I think we are well positioned for it. It’s been a really hard transition. It’s been taxing.

[Assistant] And full. I used the word “grueling,” but there was just so much.

[User] And it seems to never end. But then you look back and you say, “Wow, that’s amazing. We did that.” I can’t wait for SLS to fly, and use that Charlie Bolden quote again. “I knew it would feel good. I didn’t know it would feel this good.”

[Assistant] Yes. Well, we wish you the best of luck.

[User] Thank you.

[Assistant] Thank you again.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, they weren't so much of an influence in the astronomy and space flight part, but my father, being a civil engineer, instilled in me the importance of learning about math and science in general.

[Assistant] Did you have any heroes at the time when you were growing up? You mentioned you enjoyed science fiction. Were there particular writers that you enjoyed reading more than others, and then also real-life individuals? You mentioned Dr. Wernher von Braun.

[User] Well, actually, the only real motivator person that I'd actually had the opportunity to contact directly was Dr. von Braun, because after reading his articles in Collier's and other places, I sent him a letter saying I was interested in space and all that sort of thing, and he actually sent me an autographed photograph, which I had totally unexpected. That was while he was still part of the Army at the Redstone Arsenal [Alabama], before the creation of NASA.

[Assistant] During your college career, obviously it was during the sixties, a lot of civil unrest and so forth. Did you find, because of your race, any obstacles in your education career?

[User] I don't think that I really had any overt obstacles in my college education. Of course, African Americans were like 1 percent of the engineering students there, so we were relatively rare, but I never saw any instances of discrimination that prevented me from doing whatever I wanted to do there, on the part of either professors or other students.

[Assistant] You mentioned your coming to the Naval Research Laboratory. You received a scholarship or you worked as a co-op student or an intern?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, actually, the only real motivator person that I'd actually had the opportunity to contact directly was Dr. von Braun, because after reading his articles in Collier's and other places, I sent him a letter saying I was interested in space and all that sort of thing, and he actually sent me an autographed photograph, which I had totally unexpected. That was while he was still part of the Army at the Redstone Arsenal [Alabama], before the creation of NASA.

[Assistant] During your college career, obviously it was during the sixties, a lot of civil unrest and so forth. Did you find, because of your race, any obstacles in your education career?

[User] I don't think that I really had any overt obstacles in my college education. Of course, African Americans were like 1 percent of the engineering students there, so we were relatively rare, but I never saw any instances of discrimination that prevented me from doing whatever I wanted to do there, on the part of either professors or other students.

[Assistant] You mentioned your coming to the Naval Research Laboratory. You received a scholarship or you worked as a co-op student or an intern?

[User] It was a postdoctoral appointment when I came to NRL, which was funded by the National Science Foundation at the time, and that was my first real chance to have hands-on participation in space science, because NRL was one of the few organizations that was directly involved in the space program.

[Assistant] What were some of the early experiments work that you did relating to the space program prior to Apollo?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't think that I really had any overt obstacles in my college education. Of course, African Americans were like 1 percent of the engineering students there, so we were relatively rare, but I never saw any instances of discrimination that prevented me from doing whatever I wanted to do there, on the part of either professors or other students.

[Assistant] You mentioned your coming to the Naval Research Laboratory. You received a scholarship or you worked as a co-op student or an intern?

[User] It was a postdoctoral appointment when I came to NRL, which was funded by the National Science Foundation at the time, and that was my first real chance to have hands-on participation in space science, because NRL was one of the few organizations that was directly involved in the space program.

[Assistant] What were some of the early experiments work that you did relating to the space program prior to Apollo?

[User] Most of our work was done with sounding rockets in those days, and sounding rockets have the advantage that you can build something on a relatively short time scale, a relatively small expense, and get results from it quickly. So one of the projects that I came to do as part of my postdoctoral appointment was what was then a hot topic, which was look for molecular hydrogen in interstellar space, which could be detected only by the use of ultraviolet spectroscopy, and therefore required rocket flights above the atmosphere.

[Assistant] On these sounding rockets, can you relate any interesting incidents with failures, either during the launches themselves or recovery of the payloads?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was a postdoctoral appointment when I came to NRL, which was funded by the National Science Foundation at the time, and that was my first real chance to have hands-on participation in space science, because NRL was one of the few organizations that was directly involved in the space program.

[Assistant] What were some of the early experiments work that you did relating to the space program prior to Apollo?

[User] Most of our work was done with sounding rockets in those days, and sounding rockets have the advantage that you can build something on a relatively short time scale, a relatively small expense, and get results from it quickly. So one of the projects that I came to do as part of my postdoctoral appointment was what was then a hot topic, which was look for molecular hydrogen in interstellar space, which could be detected only by the use of ultraviolet spectroscopy, and therefore required rocket flights above the atmosphere.

[Assistant] On these sounding rockets, can you relate any interesting incidents with failures, either during the launches themselves or recovery of the payloads?

[User] Well, actually, as was also true of the film The Right Stuff, where the astronauts were shown examples of the rockets they were supposed to ride blowing up on a launch pad or early in flight, there were quite a few mishaps even in the sounding rockets, so either the rocket not getting to sufficiently high altitude, or the parachute not working, or the attitude-control system that needs to point the instrument at the target of interest not working properly. So usually it took two or three tries to get one fully successful result.

[Assistant] Leading up to the work on Apollo, can you basically describe how you came into working on the camera that was used on Apollo 16?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It's really an electronic camera. It's a type of camera we call electrographic, which uses film, but is also an electronic imaging device. We call it electrographic because the imaging device produces electrons, just like in a videocamera. But instead of being recorded by CCD [Charged Coupling Device] or other electronic imaging device, it actually hits the film and is recorded directly as darkening of the film, and it's more quantitative and also a lot more sensitive than direct photography. And unlike the electronic imaging devices, the film does have to be recovered and brought back in order to get the data.

[Assistant] Was that a little frustrating for you, knowing that, unlike some of the instruments where they could actually monitor the data that they were gathering immediately, you had to pretty much wait until they came back before you knew if your instrument worked or not?

[User] To some extent, but we knew that ahead of time, and that had always been true in other flights, including sounding rocket flights, that we wouldn't know for sure what we got until we processed the film.

[Assistant] Was this a considerable time after the mission completed before you could pretty much bring closure to this point in your life, knowing that the results came through, the film was processed, and you could start analyzing the data?

[User] Yes, it was sort of an apprehensive time, because it was like a couple of weeks between the time that they returned and the time that the film was actually processed by the people at Johnson Space Center, so I wasn't there at the time and would not have been able to participate in it even if I was there. But once we found out that the images were good, we were certainly quite relieved.

[Assistant] What were some of the results? In laymen's terms for some of our readers of these interviews, what were some of the results from the camera, the highlights, that you found?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] To some extent, but we knew that ahead of time, and that had always been true in other flights, including sounding rocket flights, that we wouldn't know for sure what we got until we processed the film.

[Assistant] Was this a considerable time after the mission completed before you could pretty much bring closure to this point in your life, knowing that the results came through, the film was processed, and you could start analyzing the data?

[User] Yes, it was sort of an apprehensive time, because it was like a couple of weeks between the time that they returned and the time that the film was actually processed by the people at Johnson Space Center, so I wasn't there at the time and would not have been able to participate in it even if I was there. But once we found out that the images were good, we were certainly quite relieved.

[Assistant] What were some of the results? In laymen's terms for some of our readers of these interviews, what were some of the results from the camera, the highlights, that you found?

[User] Well, the most immediately obvious and spectacular results were really for the Earth observations, because this was the first time that the Earth had been photographed from a distance in ultraviolet light, so that you could see the full extent of the hydrogen atmosphere, the polar auroris and what we call the tropical airglow belt. All of these were revealed in pictorial form for the first time, so that's something you don't have to wait for data analysis to show people.\n\n We also obtained UV [ultraviolet] images of stars, including the large Magellanic Cloud, the nearest nearby galaxy, but these were less immediately different from things that were done from sounding rockets and from low Earth orbit, at least in terms of the general public.

[Assistant] Were any of the results used from the Apollo 16 instrument later dusted off and compared to some of the subsequent missions where this instrument was flown? Is there a similar instrument aboard the Hubble [Space Telescope]?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, there's not on the Hubble, because the Hubble is a much more specialized, high-powered telescope with a very narrrow field of view, whereas our cameras are really more survey instruments with wide fields of view, so you can actually map a large area of the sky, or take a picture of the whole Earth, or whatever, so it's really different kind of science than most of the other NASA missions have been, including our own missions in low Earth orbit, like on the Space Shuttle [STS-39] in 1991 and the ARGOS [Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite] satellite, which we just launched this year.

[Assistant] You mentioned that this was also flown on a later Skylab mission. How did the instrument differ on the Skylab flight, as opposed to that that was used during Apollo 16?

[User] On the Skylab flight, the primary objective was to observe Comet Kohoutek, which was prominent during the time of the mission, and since it was in the Skylab space station, all we really needed was the basic camera. We didn't need the stand, the tripod, and the pointing system that we had on the Apollo mission, where it was pretty much a stand-alone instrument. So the backup camera from the Apollo mission was used for Skylab, but not the whole tripod assembly.

[Assistant] Why wasn't this camera flown on subsequent Apollo missions? Why was it just on Apollo 16?

[User] Well, actually, we would consider ourselves lucky to have had even one opportunity because of the fact that the highest priority of the Apollo missions was on lunar science specifically, and many of the lunar scientists felt that something that's looking at the Earth or looking at the stars is lower priority then, in terms of the uniqueness of it, compared to lunar science. But we justified it because of the unique perspective of the Moon for doing astronomy, in comparison to low Earth orbit. But we did not have a second chance, that's true.

[Assistant] And going into the development of the camera for that mission, you knew that ahead of time?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] On the Skylab flight, the primary objective was to observe Comet Kohoutek, which was prominent during the time of the mission, and since it was in the Skylab space station, all we really needed was the basic camera. We didn't need the stand, the tripod, and the pointing system that we had on the Apollo mission, where it was pretty much a stand-alone instrument. So the backup camera from the Apollo mission was used for Skylab, but not the whole tripod assembly.

[Assistant] Why wasn't this camera flown on subsequent Apollo missions? Why was it just on Apollo 16?

[User] Well, actually, we would consider ourselves lucky to have had even one opportunity because of the fact that the highest priority of the Apollo missions was on lunar science specifically, and many of the lunar scientists felt that something that's looking at the Earth or looking at the stars is lower priority then, in terms of the uniqueness of it, compared to lunar science. But we justified it because of the unique perspective of the Moon for doing astronomy, in comparison to low Earth orbit. But we did not have a second chance, that's true.

[Assistant] And going into the development of the camera for that mission, you knew that ahead of time?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did that in any way influence the design of it, what you wanted to accomplish at that point?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, actually, we would consider ourselves lucky to have had even one opportunity because of the fact that the highest priority of the Apollo missions was on lunar science specifically, and many of the lunar scientists felt that something that's looking at the Earth or looking at the stars is lower priority then, in terms of the uniqueness of it, compared to lunar science. But we justified it because of the unique perspective of the Moon for doing astronomy, in comparison to low Earth orbit. But we did not have a second chance, that's true.

[Assistant] And going into the development of the camera for that mission, you knew that ahead of time?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did that in any way influence the design of it, what you wanted to accomplish at that point?

[User] No, because even if we had a reflight, it would have been basically the same.

[Assistant] Going back with Apollo 16 and the instrument flown on Skylab, and then you had the same or similar instrument flown on several Shuttle missions. How did those differ from the previous missions, particularly the Shuttle missions?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Did that in any way influence the design of it, what you wanted to accomplish at that point?

[User] No, because even if we had a reflight, it would have been basically the same.

[Assistant] Going back with Apollo 16 and the instrument flown on Skylab, and then you had the same or similar instrument flown on several Shuttle missions. How did those differ from the previous missions, particularly the Shuttle missions?

[User] The Shuttle mission, being in low Earth orbit, had somewhat different objectives than the Apollo mission. Also, on the Shuttle flight, which was on STS-39 in the spring of 1991, we had two cameras mounted on a pointing system so that we could obtain pictures in two different colors of ultraviolet light at the same time. But aside from that, it was basically the same instrument technology as used on the Apollo and in the sounding rocket flights.

[Assistant] Did you use some of the data from the earlier missions in your science for the Shuttle missions as well, and was that useful?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, because even if we had a reflight, it would have been basically the same.

[Assistant] Going back with Apollo 16 and the instrument flown on Skylab, and then you had the same or similar instrument flown on several Shuttle missions. How did those differ from the previous missions, particularly the Shuttle missions?

[User] The Shuttle mission, being in low Earth orbit, had somewhat different objectives than the Apollo mission. Also, on the Shuttle flight, which was on STS-39 in the spring of 1991, we had two cameras mounted on a pointing system so that we could obtain pictures in two different colors of ultraviolet light at the same time. But aside from that, it was basically the same instrument technology as used on the Apollo and in the sounding rocket flights.

[Assistant] Did you use some of the data from the earlier missions in your science for the Shuttle missions as well, and was that useful?

[User] Yes, because it gave us a baseline of what to expect in terms of instrument calibrations. We could look at some stars that were the same in the two missions, and use those to compare the sensitivities of the two instruments, what we call inflight calibration. And also the fact that we had done something similar gave us a better idea of what to expect in the later flights.

[Assistant] You mentioned that on the Shuttle flights, starting with the first one, STS-39, that they no longer used film, but these CCDs. Can you expand a little bit more on the differences between the film versus CCD, the advantages, the disadvantages?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, because it gave us a baseline of what to expect in terms of instrument calibrations. We could look at some stars that were the same in the two missions, and use those to compare the sensitivities of the two instruments, what we call inflight calibration. And also the fact that we had done something similar gave us a better idea of what to expect in the later flights.

[Assistant] You mentioned that on the Shuttle flights, starting with the first one, STS-39, that they no longer used film, but these CCDs. Can you expand a little bit more on the differences between the film versus CCD, the advantages, the disadvantages?

[User] Well, actually, the Shuttle flights did use film, just like the Apollo mission, but what has changed recently was the long-duration, unmanned satellite mission called ARGOS, which stands for Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite, which was launched by the Air Force in February of this year [1999], for a minimum of one-year mission duration.\n\n Now, for that kind of mission, we definitely need an electronic readout device to send data down remotely to the ground because of the fact that you don't have astronauts there to bring it back, you don't have the Shuttle to bring it back, and so the satellite's up there permanently. You have to radio the data down, just like the Hubble Space Telescope does. The basic distinction is that the charge couple device takes the place of the film to record the electrons, so that you get a signal that can be processed by telemetry and sent down to the ground as an image, just like in the HST [Hubble Space Telescope].

[Assistant] I suppose one of the advantages of that is that you have instantaneous results, you don't have to worry about retrieving the film and then processing it, and so forth.

[User] Right. And also it's more quantitative, because with the advances in computer technology, we can convert CCD images to light intensity much more readily than we could convert film images into light intensity.

[Assistant] The instrument, as it's deployed on the Moon, it's basically housed in the descent stage on the lunar module, and then hauled up by the astronauts?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right. And also it's more quantitative, because with the advances in computer technology, we can convert CCD images to light intensity much more readily than we could convert film images into light intensity.

[Assistant] The instrument, as it's deployed on the Moon, it's basically housed in the descent stage on the lunar module, and then hauled up by the astronauts?

[User] That's correct. It had to be in a protective bag to keep the inside of it dry, because one of the problems we had in all of these cameras is that since they are designed to be open to the vacuum of space, we have to protect them from being contaminated when they're on the ground, and, in particular, water vapor is a big problem, so we have to put them in dry bags, make sure they're purged with dry nitrogen and that sort of thing.

[Assistant] Earlier this week, we were at the [National] Air and Space Museum attending a conference, and we noticed one of these instruments on display there, and they had a sign next to it, describing it as a backup instrument. How did that come about, bringing it out to display? Because I don't remember seeing that a while back. I don't know if that was relatively recent or not.

[User] Well, actually, Dr. David DeVorkin at the Air and Space Museum had requested the backup of the Apollo camera as a possible display item. The backup unit was used for the actual display on the lunar module exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. It turns out that the film transport, the actual film transport that's on that display model, is the actual flight one from Apollo 16, which was brought back there by the astronauts. We don't advertise that to the public, because we don't want somebody to steal it and try to sell it for a million dollars, just because it had been to the Moon and back.

[Assistant] So they had this in storage, the backup, for a number of years here?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That's correct. It had to be in a protective bag to keep the inside of it dry, because one of the problems we had in all of these cameras is that since they are designed to be open to the vacuum of space, we have to protect them from being contaminated when they're on the ground, and, in particular, water vapor is a big problem, so we have to put them in dry bags, make sure they're purged with dry nitrogen and that sort of thing.

[Assistant] Earlier this week, we were at the [National] Air and Space Museum attending a conference, and we noticed one of these instruments on display there, and they had a sign next to it, describing it as a backup instrument. How did that come about, bringing it out to display? Because I don't remember seeing that a while back. I don't know if that was relatively recent or not.

[User] Well, actually, Dr. David DeVorkin at the Air and Space Museum had requested the backup of the Apollo camera as a possible display item. The backup unit was used for the actual display on the lunar module exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. It turns out that the film transport, the actual film transport that's on that display model, is the actual flight one from Apollo 16, which was brought back there by the astronauts. We don't advertise that to the public, because we don't want somebody to steal it and try to sell it for a million dollars, just because it had been to the Moon and back.

[Assistant] So they had this in storage, the backup, for a number of years here?

[User] Yes, right. The actual camera from the backup module was used in Skylab, so we had to remake a model of the camera for the display at the Air and Space Museum.

[Assistant] The only difference then was that instead of the tripod when it was on Skylab, it was attached to—


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, actually, Dr. David DeVorkin at the Air and Space Museum had requested the backup of the Apollo camera as a possible display item. The backup unit was used for the actual display on the lunar module exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. It turns out that the film transport, the actual film transport that's on that display model, is the actual flight one from Apollo 16, which was brought back there by the astronauts. We don't advertise that to the public, because we don't want somebody to steal it and try to sell it for a million dollars, just because it had been to the Moon and back.

[Assistant] So they had this in storage, the backup, for a number of years here?

[User] Yes, right. The actual camera from the backup module was used in Skylab, so we had to remake a model of the camera for the display at the Air and Space Museum.

[Assistant] The only difference then was that instead of the tripod when it was on Skylab, it was attached to—

[User] To an airlock.

[Assistant] One of the things that we were talking about earlier was, you attended this conference or seminar that was held yesterday at American University [Washington, DC], and we were talking about your feelings of manned or robotic versus unmanned, human space flight. I was wondering if you could share what your feelings are and the differences between them, and what one can accomplish versus the other, and if you have a preference of one over the other.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, right. The actual camera from the backup module was used in Skylab, so we had to remake a model of the camera for the display at the Air and Space Museum.

[Assistant] The only difference then was that instead of the tripod when it was on Skylab, it was attached to—

[User] To an airlock.

[Assistant] One of the things that we were talking about earlier was, you attended this conference or seminar that was held yesterday at American University [Washington, DC], and we were talking about your feelings of manned or robotic versus unmanned, human space flight. I was wondering if you could share what your feelings are and the differences between them, and what one can accomplish versus the other, and if you have a preference of one over the other.

[User] Well, that's one of the things that's changed a lot over the years with the advances in technology, because one of the justifications for the Space Shuttle back in the seventies was that it would provide human presence for carrying out experiments in low Earth orbit that would not be practical to do robotically with unmanned satellites.\n\n However, with the advances of computer technology, we've seen a shift over the years in that many of the experiments that originally would have only been practical with human presence are now practical to do remotely with robotics. For example, the Mars Pathfinder was a good example of how miniaturized electronics can do almost as much in a hundred-million-dollar mission as a billion-dollar Viking mission of 1976.\n\n There are still some things that really require the human presence, but in the area of astronomy, the shift has been largely toward the robotic techniques, and that's also evident in our changing over from film to the CCD recorder, so we can have it in an unmanned satellite, long-duration mission, as opposed to short-duration missions like the Space Shuttle and Apollo.

[Assistant] When you were working on the Apollo Program, were you aware at all of the significance of the work that you were doing, beyond just its scientific return, but more because you were being a participant in the race to the Moon and just being involved with the Apollo Program?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. So far, the only one who has actually established as a career is the one who is the captain in the Air Force. The others are either in graduate school or still in college. But I think they all acknowledge the help that I might have given them in the process.

[Assistant] Looking back over your long career with the NRL and the work that you've been doing in the fields of astronomy and space science, what do you feel has been your most significant accomplishment?

[User] Well, I guess the Apollo camera on the Moon, in terms of its overall results, would be one, and also we had a sounding rocket flight in 1970, which was before Apollo, which made the first detection of molecular hydrogen in interstellar space. So those two, I would say, would be the most significant single events.\n\n Of course, we've had a lot of other projects in the interim. We've had many sounding rocket flights. We've looked at comets Halley, Kohoutek, and West, and we have the current ARGOS satellite, which has the potential for more data return than everything else we've done altogether, assuming everything works properly for the three-year mission. But I would say those two probably would be the ones that, to me, stand out.

[Assistant] Why were they rewarding or basically you acknowledge them as your significant accomplishments? What, personally and professionally, made those more important than others?

[User] Well, I guess simply because they were first of a kind in both cases. Not that they were necessarily more significant in terms of the overall field of science, but just that they were a first of a kind. Of course, everything is superseded by more advanced technology, because certainly nothing that I have done would compare with Hubble Space Telescope or anything like that.

[Assistant] You mentioned molecular hydrogen. For those such as me that aren't really informed on the significance of that find, can you explain a little bit more about what that means and why it's significant?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, but just for the gyros, not for instrument changes.

[Assistant] What projects are you currently involved with? I think you mentioned earlier that funding's been an issue in proposals, but are you any involved in any current activities?

[User] The main activity right now is the ARGOS satellite, which was launched on February 23 [1999], and that's going to be a long-duration mission with a one- to three-year lifetime, and just the mission operations and data analysis for that will keep us very busy for quite a while. Now, of course, we will still be on the outlook for opportunities to propose missions beyond that, but unlike in the past where we were almost always trying to build something new while we were still looking at data from something old, I think the next few years will be sort of distinct, in that we won't really have any new flight projects in the works for a while. That doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities for student participation, because we do have actually a community outreach activity similar to the Moonlink Program, in which the students will actually look at our data and work with it as well.

[Assistant] Were you involved at all with the Clementine [also known as the Deep Space Program Science Experiment] and the Lunar Prospector mission?

[User] Not directly, in terms of actually participating in the science. The Clementine was actually built here at the Naval Research Laboratory, but it was done by the Naval Center for Space Technology as a contractor to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, so we did not have any chance here in the Space Science Division to participate in that.\n\n The Lunar Prospector mission was strictly in the area of community outreach activities and education. One of our students did a highly rated project in the DC City Science Fair, which was last weekend, in which he demonstrated a method of extracting water from frozen soil at the lunar north and south poles, which was something he did in a vacuum chamber here in our laboratory.

[Assistant] How did that work, the process?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Not directly, in terms of actually participating in the science. The Clementine was actually built here at the Naval Research Laboratory, but it was done by the Naval Center for Space Technology as a contractor to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, so we did not have any chance here in the Space Science Division to participate in that.\n\n The Lunar Prospector mission was strictly in the area of community outreach activities and education. One of our students did a highly rated project in the DC City Science Fair, which was last weekend, in which he demonstrated a method of extracting water from frozen soil at the lunar north and south poles, which was something he did in a vacuum chamber here in our laboratory.

[Assistant] How did that work, the process?

[User] The idea was to put heaters in the frozen soil, which has ice in it, and as the vapor comes out, have it condense on a black plate, which is shaded from the sun, so that it radiates the space and stays very cold, so that the water vapor comes out and condenses as ice on the underside of this plate, so that after enough ice has been collected, astronauts can come and scrape it off.

[Assistant] Basically harvesting ice from the Moon.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Take considerable amount of energy to heat the soil?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The idea was to put heaters in the frozen soil, which has ice in it, and as the vapor comes out, have it condense on a black plate, which is shaded from the sun, so that it radiates the space and stays very cold, so that the water vapor comes out and condenses as ice on the underside of this plate, so that after enough ice has been collected, astronauts can come and scrape it off.

[Assistant] Basically harvesting ice from the Moon.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Take considerable amount of energy to heat the soil?

[User] Yes, but energy is not really a problem on the Moon, because the sun is out all the time, and near the north and south poles, one could set up a solar panel in an area where the sun shines, and transmit that electricity to the area where you need to heat the soil that's in shadow. So really, the problem on the Moon is there's no readily accessible water or oxygen or hydrogen, which are really the most important things that you need to bring from Earth if you are going to be dependent on resources from the Earth, and that's, of course, very expensive. But sunlight is free on the Moon. You just need to bring solar panels.

[Assistant] A while back I did a paper in which we had proposed an ultraviolot spectrograph on the poles of the Moon, the far side, particularly in one of the craters, so that there wouldn't be sunlight exposed at all. Do you know if there were any plans at one time to actually do that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Take considerable amount of energy to heat the soil?

[User] Yes, but energy is not really a problem on the Moon, because the sun is out all the time, and near the north and south poles, one could set up a solar panel in an area where the sun shines, and transmit that electricity to the area where you need to heat the soil that's in shadow. So really, the problem on the Moon is there's no readily accessible water or oxygen or hydrogen, which are really the most important things that you need to bring from Earth if you are going to be dependent on resources from the Earth, and that's, of course, very expensive. But sunlight is free on the Moon. You just need to bring solar panels.

[Assistant] A while back I did a paper in which we had proposed an ultraviolot spectrograph on the poles of the Moon, the far side, particularly in one of the craters, so that there wouldn't be sunlight exposed at all. Do you know if there were any plans at one time to actually do that?

[User] There have been a lot of proposals. In fact, I even participated in a workshop on that at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque about five years ago, but there have been many studies along those lines, but so far no funding to build the hardware, simply because there really was no plan to return to the Moon until the Lunar Prospector mission this last year.

[Assistant] Looking back again to Apollo, what were your feelings on the abruptness of the missions, the fact that the later missions were canceled, I think the Apollo 19 or 20? They had plans of landing in Copernicus, I think one of the craters on the far side of the Moon, as well, and then all that went to the wayside. What are your feelings on why the Apollo Program stopped and why there wasn't a more aggressive post follow-up manned mission to the Moon?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There have been a lot of proposals. In fact, I even participated in a workshop on that at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque about five years ago, but there have been many studies along those lines, but so far no funding to build the hardware, simply because there really was no plan to return to the Moon until the Lunar Prospector mission this last year.

[Assistant] Looking back again to Apollo, what were your feelings on the abruptness of the missions, the fact that the later missions were canceled, I think the Apollo 19 or 20? They had plans of landing in Copernicus, I think one of the craters on the far side of the Moon, as well, and then all that went to the wayside. What are your feelings on why the Apollo Program stopped and why there wasn't a more aggressive post follow-up manned mission to the Moon?

[User] Well, I guess it had to do with the reason that it was done in the first place, which was to beat the Russians. Once the Russians were beaten, then the general public didn't see any reason to continue it, so that's really the reason why it was so abrupt. There was a very high level of activity until that objective was completed, but then once that objective was completed, it sort of passed away. Because lunar science was never really the primary objective of the Apollo Program, although a lot was done during that mission.\n\n Now that we have renewed scientific interest in the Moon, there might be justification for returning to the Moon with human beings to further explore it, in particular because, as in the case of Mars, there are some things you can't do with robots. But the only problem is that right now it's pretty well priority, because the Moon rates behind Mars in scientific priority right now, I would guess.

[Assistant] Looking back at the overall science return from the Apollo Program, what are your feelings on the quality and the amount that was returned?

[User] The mission as a whole or just our experiment?

[Assistant] The mission as a whole, the program as a whole.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I guess it had to do with the reason that it was done in the first place, which was to beat the Russians. Once the Russians were beaten, then the general public didn't see any reason to continue it, so that's really the reason why it was so abrupt. There was a very high level of activity until that objective was completed, but then once that objective was completed, it sort of passed away. Because lunar science was never really the primary objective of the Apollo Program, although a lot was done during that mission.\n\n Now that we have renewed scientific interest in the Moon, there might be justification for returning to the Moon with human beings to further explore it, in particular because, as in the case of Mars, there are some things you can't do with robots. But the only problem is that right now it's pretty well priority, because the Moon rates behind Mars in scientific priority right now, I would guess.

[Assistant] Looking back at the overall science return from the Apollo Program, what are your feelings on the quality and the amount that was returned?

[User] The mission as a whole or just our experiment?

[Assistant] The mission as a whole, the program as a whole.

[User] It certainly returned unique data, which could not have been obtained any other way. And the fact that we have had so much time to analyze the data since then at these lunar science conferences they have each year in Houston [Texas], now people have a much better idea of what they really should do next, and the Lunar Prospector was just the first of those things that they felt that we needed to do next, and now the Lunar Prospector has returned data that gives even more incentive to get back to doing some more lunar science. But just how it's going to rate in the overall mix of things, I don't know. I don't even know if Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin has that answer.

[Assistant] You've certainly been with it since pretty much—many people refer to the sixties as kind of the Golden Age of unmanned exploration. Do you feel that's a fair assessment?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The mission as a whole or just our experiment?

[Assistant] The mission as a whole, the program as a whole.

[User] It certainly returned unique data, which could not have been obtained any other way. And the fact that we have had so much time to analyze the data since then at these lunar science conferences they have each year in Houston [Texas], now people have a much better idea of what they really should do next, and the Lunar Prospector was just the first of those things that they felt that we needed to do next, and now the Lunar Prospector has returned data that gives even more incentive to get back to doing some more lunar science. But just how it's going to rate in the overall mix of things, I don't know. I don't even know if Dan [Daniel S.] Goldin has that answer.

[Assistant] You've certainly been with it since pretty much—many people refer to the sixties as kind of the Golden Age of unmanned exploration. Do you feel that's a fair assessment?

[User] Well, I think that actually things have improved a lot since the sixties, in terms of the unmanned missions, simply because of the advances in technology. For example, if you compare the results from the current Mars Global Surveyor with the first Mariner missions, there's absolutely no comparison, because one of the things that was remarkable was how quickly the Mars Global Surveyor debunked the face on Mars, because most scientists knew already that it was not a human artifact, but it was hard to convince people who were less knowledgeable. But the picture that was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor was so much sharper than the previous Viking images, there was absolutely no way that someone could imagine that to be a face on Mars. And that hasn't been in the tabloids yet. Of course, they don't want to publish that, because that makes their previous news look bad.

[Assistant] Going back to some of the work that you've been doing with others in the outreach program, as a student entering the field of astronomy and space science, or wanting to pursue a career, what advice would you give him or her?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, simply because back in those days I really didn't know that much about lunar science in general, because the astronomy that we were doing was really quite separate from what most of the scientific mission was about, which was the Moon itself. See, we weren't involved in studying the Moon, so I really could not really judge that. In fact, the only reason that I have somewhat broader knowledge of lunar science now than then was not because of any experiment I did, but because of the community outreach, where we have to educate students about a much broader range of topics than what we do specifically.

[Assistant] The instrument itself was basically designed separate, to be assembled by the astronauts. Was there any consideration given to building that into the side of the lunar module or having it fixed, rather than as a separate instrument?

[User] No, simply because it would have been impossible to do that and still get the kind of sky colors we needed. Actually, we designed it so that the astronauts did not have to do any assembly. All they had to do was offload it and set it up on the tripod and do some alignment, because we were warned well in advance to make it simple, and for astronauts to do, because they had so many other things they had to do during the mission. And they didn't really have time to learn in great detail how our instrument worked.

[Assistant] So it was basically pointing it in the direction and then shooting it and then they returned after a period of time and would point and shoot according to a schedule?

[User] Yes. So it really was a more complicated version of their Hasselblads [cameras], in that they were just there to use it, not to really do any science of their own.

[Assistant] And then the retrieval of the film itself, that happened last?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, simply because it would have been impossible to do that and still get the kind of sky colors we needed. Actually, we designed it so that the astronauts did not have to do any assembly. All they had to do was offload it and set it up on the tripod and do some alignment, because we were warned well in advance to make it simple, and for astronauts to do, because they had so many other things they had to do during the mission. And they didn't really have time to learn in great detail how our instrument worked.

[Assistant] So it was basically pointing it in the direction and then shooting it and then they returned after a period of time and would point and shoot according to a schedule?

[User] Yes. So it really was a more complicated version of their Hasselblads [cameras], in that they were just there to use it, not to really do any science of their own.

[Assistant] And then the retrieval of the film itself, that happened last?

[User] Yes, that was last. And also, they didn't have to bring the rest of the instrument back, so they could just leave it there. All they had to do was take out the film transport and put it in their bag and leave.

[Assistant] Make sure they didn't forget that film. [Laughter]


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. So it really was a more complicated version of their Hasselblads [cameras], in that they were just there to use it, not to really do any science of their own.

[Assistant] And then the retrieval of the film itself, that happened last?

[User] Yes, that was last. And also, they didn't have to bring the rest of the instrument back, so they could just leave it there. All they had to do was take out the film transport and put it in their bag and leave.

[Assistant] Make sure they didn't forget that film. [Laughter]

[User] Right.

[Assistant] In closing, do you have any other comments or stories that you'd care to share about your career?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, that was last. And also, they didn't have to bring the rest of the instrument back, so they could just leave it there. All they had to do was take out the film transport and put it in their bag and leave.

[Assistant] Make sure they didn't forget that film. [Laughter]

[User] Right.

[Assistant] In closing, do you have any other comments or stories that you'd care to share about your career?

[User] No, not really. I think we've pretty much touched on everything.

[Assistant] Then we'll close our interview, and again, thank you, Dr. Carruthers, for participating.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. Except I didn’t get paid.

[Assistant] We’ll have to ask her if she felt that you lived up to her expectations. I’m sure that she’ll agree with that.\n\n When she was here and raising those children and you were off with educational efforts and other career plans, she must have had quite a support group herself. How did you all function together as an extended family in Cleveland?

[User] Well, I was on the phone every day, there’s no question about that, and home most weekends. But here, again, we did have a group of friends that were just like family, and to this day we still maintain those friendships. And their children refer to me as Uncle and to her as the Aunt, and our children refer to them as uncles and aunts and so forth. So it was really like a family right here in Cleveland. In fact, we could not have survived with my going away like that if we didn’t have good friends and support like that. If something were to be needed to be done at home, then she could just pick up the phone and call any of them and they were there.

[Assistant] Well, I believe we’re going to take another quick break and when we come back we’re going to talk, maybe receive some instruction from you about management styles and leadership qualities that we could utilize as lessons learned.

[User] All right.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] Yesterday you briefly shared with us some of the qualities that you admired in your colleagues and former directors. What qualities do you seek in the employees that you recruit or that you hired?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] All right.\n\n [pause]

[Assistant] Yesterday you briefly shared with us some of the qualities that you admired in your colleagues and former directors. What qualities do you seek in the employees that you recruit or that you hired?

[User] The first thing is you must be technically competent in your field of endeavor, because the first thing that people need is some faith and credibility in your knowledge based in whatever area you’re hired. So that’s one thing I look for. Secondly, have you demonstrated your ability to work as a member of a team? Because unlike in the old days when one person could be the know-all, be-all for any particular area, that’s not the case anymore today. So you have to be able to demonstrate that you have ability to work as a member of a team. And also, if you’ve demonstrated some leadership abilities and ability to, what I call, inspire people to work with you.\n\n And I’m a great believer that you need to have a sense of humor, because if you can’t laugh and have fun at what you do, then I think you really need to find something else to do.

[Assistant] Speaking of sense of humor, I understand that there was a movement, underground movement, to put together a video for you of My Favorite Julian Earls Joke.

[User] Oh, is that right? [laughs]

[Assistant] People thought that would be a great idea, that they could give you the jokes that they heard from you back as retirement presents. Do you have a stash of your favorite jokes that you like to share with folks?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, yes.

[Assistant] The Peace Corps tends to do that. So how old were you in 1963?

[User] I had just finished my freshman year.

[Assistant] In college?

[User]
In college, yeah. So to back up a little bit. I had, my parents. My father was an immigrant, which probably influenced me to some extent. He came to this country when he was ten years old. And both my parents grew up in poverty and even knew some hunger as children. And, uh, but they were very empathetic people, like my father joined the NAACP in the 1940s, and my mother was always the one to take casseroles to the neighboring widows and that kind of thing. But they were also a little bit outside of the norm, you know, of the average American suburban style life. We actually grew up in the city, in Minneapolis.

And one example of that is my mom, the last child in the family, my little sister was born with Down syndrome. And so my mom was just defiant when the doctor said put her in an institution, and she brought her home. And I was, you know, recruited to help raise this child. So I really think that influenced me to, to, it influenced me to feel a sense of responsibility for other people and to always try to be helping them and serving them in some way. So I think that had a huge influence on everything in my life.

[Assistant] So you grew up in Minneapolis?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had just finished my freshman year.

[Assistant] In college?

[User]
In college, yeah. So to back up a little bit. I had, my parents. My father was an immigrant, which probably influenced me to some extent. He came to this country when he was ten years old. And both my parents grew up in poverty and even knew some hunger as children. And, uh, but they were very empathetic people, like my father joined the NAACP in the 1940s, and my mother was always the one to take casseroles to the neighboring widows and that kind of thing. But they were also a little bit outside of the norm, you know, of the average American suburban style life. We actually grew up in the city, in Minneapolis.

And one example of that is my mom, the last child in the family, my little sister was born with Down syndrome. And so my mom was just defiant when the doctor said put her in an institution, and she brought her home. And I was, you know, recruited to help raise this child. So I really think that influenced me to, to, it influenced me to feel a sense of responsibility for other people and to always try to be helping them and serving them in some way. So I think that had a huge influence on everything in my life.

[Assistant] So you grew up in Minneapolis?

[User] Correct.

[Assistant] And where did you go to college?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Correct.

[Assistant] And where did you go to college?

[User] So we were the first generation on either side of the family to go to school, my brother first and then I was next. And we didn't have enough money to send me away. So I looked around the Twin Cities and right across the river was Macalester College. So I liked their pillars of their mission, which were racial and cultural diversity, community service, and international affairs. And so that's where I went. I also liked the fact that they had started already, before I got there, a program of exchange with an all Black school in the South. So for my junior, first semester of my junior year, I studied at Knoxville College in Tennessee.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] So I joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and registered voters and felt to some extent, part of the, um, part of the civil rights movement. So I think that too was a big influence on me because I, in college, I got to know some African students and they talked a lot about the independence movements in Africa and about Pan-Africanism. So I saw it as an extension or a broader interpretation of civil rights, and I wanted to be part of that. So, so I, and that's when I really knew I had, I wanted to go to Africa.

[Assistant] And did you study international relations in college?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and registered voters and felt to some extent, part of the, um, part of the civil rights movement. So I think that too was a big influence on me because I, in college, I got to know some African students and they talked a lot about the independence movements in Africa and about Pan-Africanism. So I saw it as an extension or a broader interpretation of civil rights, and I wanted to be part of that. So, so I, and that's when I really knew I had, I wanted to go to Africa.

[Assistant] And did you study international relations in college?

[User] No, no. I was good at English and I became an, um. I knew I needed to find a career where I could make some money. So I became a teacher, a high school teacher, and I even got certified at Macalester. And this was very useful. Then after I graduated, I taught. I felt, I knew I wanted to join the Peace Corps already, but I felt that I didn't want to inflict myself on a developing country as an untrained, inexperienced teacher. So I really felt, um, I needed to get some experience in as a teacher. So I taught for two years and then I joined.

[Assistant] In Minneapolis?

[User] No, um. I had gone overseas my, um, right after graduating, so I was in France on a Macalester program called the Student Work Abroad Project. And, um, and when I came back, it was too late. The timing wasn't right. So that fall I substitute taught in Minneapolis. But then I went to Michigan, the Upper Peninsula actually, to teach, where I taught middle school, what we now call middle school. Back then it was junior high. And then I went on to the East Coast to teach. I thought I was going to teach in New York City, but they needed a fifth year. So I went to New Jersey and I taught in the New Brunswick, New Jersey, High School.

[Assistant] So then what? When did you decide to finally apply? What, what caused you to do that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, because I had known all along this is what I wanted to do. So after, you know, right midway through my year in New Jersey, I applied and I was accepted first for, actually for Ethiopia. But that would have meant leaving school early. And I just couldn't do that. My contract went through June. So I came home for the summer to Minnesota and then I, the program they opened, that opened up in the fall was Kenya. And I just could not have asked for a better, you know, for a better program.

[Assistant] So, so let me ask you, where did you train? So you applied. Was it a complicated process to apply at that point?

[User] I don't remember that it was. I think it was so much easier back then. But yeah, I was used to filling out applications, I suppose, at that point in my life. So I have. But the training was actually in New York, so we took classes at Columbia in teaching methods and we did a live-in in Spanish Harlem. I lived with an African American family for a month and taught at Cathedral High School. That was my practice teaching. And then we went upstate, um, to the town of Monroe, New York, where we all piled into this old hotel for our one month of intensive training in Swahili.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And that was in Monroe?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't remember that it was. I think it was so much easier back then. But yeah, I was used to filling out applications, I suppose, at that point in my life. So I have. But the training was actually in New York, so we took classes at Columbia in teaching methods and we did a live-in in Spanish Harlem. I lived with an African American family for a month and taught at Cathedral High School. That was my practice teaching. And then we went upstate, um, to the town of Monroe, New York, where we all piled into this old hotel for our one month of intensive training in Swahili.

[Assistant] Ah.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And that was in Monroe?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Interesting. Our group was also trained at Columbia University, but we didn't have a home stay. We just lived in a hotel.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And that was in Monroe?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Interesting. Our group was also trained at Columbia University, but we didn't have a home stay. We just lived in a hotel.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] So things change each year that become.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] Interesting. Our group was also trained at Columbia University, but we didn't have a home stay. We just lived in a hotel.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] So things change each year that become.

[User] I know, they were always experimenting.

[Assistant] The training really has changed tremendously. So you went through training and did you learn Swahili?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Okay.

[Assistant] So things change each year that become.

[User] I know, they were always experimenting.

[Assistant] The training really has changed tremendously. So you went through training and did you learn Swahili?

[User]
I did. Um, I didn't use it that much when I got to Kenya because I was placed with the Luo people. They are the people of Obama's father's family. So basically Obama was half Luo. And they are a smaller tribe in Kenya and they have formed the active opposition for decades since independence. And I have an incredible story.

Well, first of all, so when I got to Nairobi, um, nobody knew where my site was. I had asked for an isolated site because I didn't want to be near other Peace Corps volunteers. I wanted to be out of my own. I felt I could assimilate, learn the language, everything better that way. And so I got a school that was called Harambee, which in Swahili means "let's pull together." And in those days it was very rare for volunteers to be assigned to Harambee schools. Today, I think it's very common.

[Assistant] So what is a Harambee school?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I know, they were always experimenting.

[Assistant] The training really has changed tremendously. So you went through training and did you learn Swahili?

[User]
I did. Um, I didn't use it that much when I got to Kenya because I was placed with the Luo people. They are the people of Obama's father's family. So basically Obama was half Luo. And they are a smaller tribe in Kenya and they have formed the active opposition for decades since independence. And I have an incredible story.

Well, first of all, so when I got to Nairobi, um, nobody knew where my site was. I had asked for an isolated site because I didn't want to be near other Peace Corps volunteers. I wanted to be out of my own. I felt I could assimilate, learn the language, everything better that way. And so I got a school that was called Harambee, which in Swahili means "let's pull together." And in those days it was very rare for volunteers to be assigned to Harambee schools. Today, I think it's very common.

[Assistant] So what is a Harambee school?

[User] Well, it's built by the community. Let's pull together. And, um, and so there's no government support. And that is the school I was assigned to. It was called Nyamira Girls Secondary, and it was a boarding school that took in forms one and two, the first two years of high school.

[Assistant] Before we do all of that, let me just go back to training a little bit. So did you think the language training was, was good?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
I did. Um, I didn't use it that much when I got to Kenya because I was placed with the Luo people. They are the people of Obama's father's family. So basically Obama was half Luo. And they are a smaller tribe in Kenya and they have formed the active opposition for decades since independence. And I have an incredible story.

Well, first of all, so when I got to Nairobi, um, nobody knew where my site was. I had asked for an isolated site because I didn't want to be near other Peace Corps volunteers. I wanted to be out of my own. I felt I could assimilate, learn the language, everything better that way. And so I got a school that was called Harambee, which in Swahili means "let's pull together." And in those days it was very rare for volunteers to be assigned to Harambee schools. Today, I think it's very common.

[Assistant] So what is a Harambee school?

[User] Well, it's built by the community. Let's pull together. And, um, and so there's no government support. And that is the school I was assigned to. It was called Nyamira Girls Secondary, and it was a boarding school that took in forms one and two, the first two years of high school.

[Assistant] Before we do all of that, let me just go back to training a little bit. So did you think the language training was, was good?

[User] Language training was good. We had wonderful Swahili teachers from Kenya and Tanzania and, um. Yes.

[Assistant] And what about the cultural training? Did you find it?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, it's built by the community. Let's pull together. And, um, and so there's no government support. And that is the school I was assigned to. It was called Nyamira Girls Secondary, and it was a boarding school that took in forms one and two, the first two years of high school.

[Assistant] Before we do all of that, let me just go back to training a little bit. So did you think the language training was, was good?

[User] Language training was good. We had wonderful Swahili teachers from Kenya and Tanzania and, um. Yes.

[Assistant] And what about the cultural training? Did you find it?

[User] I don't have many memories of the cultural training. I think it's, you know, in that brief time, I think I learned something of Kenya's history, but not a lot, because I didn't learn much about Mau Mau at all, you know. So we learned maybe about British colonialism, maybe about some of the different tribes, but, but not the deep hidden stuff. And, um, and then, of course, they focused a lot on teaching methods. But for me, that was irrelevant since I'd just spent.

[Assistant] I was going to ask.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Language training was good. We had wonderful Swahili teachers from Kenya and Tanzania and, um. Yes.

[Assistant] And what about the cultural training? Did you find it?

[User] I don't have many memories of the cultural training. I think it's, you know, in that brief time, I think I learned something of Kenya's history, but not a lot, because I didn't learn much about Mau Mau at all, you know. So we learned maybe about British colonialism, maybe about some of the different tribes, but, but not the deep hidden stuff. And, um, and then, of course, they focused a lot on teaching methods. But for me, that was irrelevant since I'd just spent.

[Assistant] I was going to ask.

[User] About four years becoming a teacher so.

[Assistant] So the teaching methods didn't really help you at all?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't have many memories of the cultural training. I think it's, you know, in that brief time, I think I learned something of Kenya's history, but not a lot, because I didn't learn much about Mau Mau at all, you know. So we learned maybe about British colonialism, maybe about some of the different tribes, but, but not the deep hidden stuff. And, um, and then, of course, they focused a lot on teaching methods. But for me, that was irrelevant since I'd just spent.

[Assistant] I was going to ask.

[User] About four years becoming a teacher so.

[Assistant] So the teaching methods didn't really help you at all?

[User] No, I felt I was already pretty well trained in that.

[Assistant] And then what about the homestay? Did it help you learn about living in a different culture? I guess that was the.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] About four years becoming a teacher so.

[Assistant] So the teaching methods didn't really help you at all?

[User] No, I felt I was already pretty well trained in that.

[Assistant] And then what about the homestay? Did it help you learn about living in a different culture? I guess that was the.

[User] I already lived down at Knoxville College and in France. Maybe I had picked up some of that knowledge already and, uh, but it probably it did to some extent. I remember the young man who, the son in the family, teaching me. Because they lived in, I guess, what you might call a project or a tenement building. And he taught me, I'll never forget this training. If, you know, when you're, don't step on the elevator to go up to our floor until you know whether someone is over in the corner that you can't quite see as, you know, before you step on. Or if you're taking the stairs, if the elevator is out, then you have to check each landing and just be aware. I think he, he tried to teach me to look around me all the time, and that was useful training. If I could remember.

[Assistant] Maybe even not in Kenya, but coming back home.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, I felt I was already pretty well trained in that.

[Assistant] And then what about the homestay? Did it help you learn about living in a different culture? I guess that was the.

[User] I already lived down at Knoxville College and in France. Maybe I had picked up some of that knowledge already and, uh, but it probably it did to some extent. I remember the young man who, the son in the family, teaching me. Because they lived in, I guess, what you might call a project or a tenement building. And he taught me, I'll never forget this training. If, you know, when you're, don't step on the elevator to go up to our floor until you know whether someone is over in the corner that you can't quite see as, you know, before you step on. Or if you're taking the stairs, if the elevator is out, then you have to check each landing and just be aware. I think he, he tried to teach me to look around me all the time, and that was useful training. If I could remember.

[Assistant] Maybe even not in Kenya, but coming back home.

[User] I know, I know.

[Assistant] So you, uh, you went through training in New York and how, was it all English language teachers who were being trained, or was your group a more diverse group?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I already lived down at Knoxville College and in France. Maybe I had picked up some of that knowledge already and, uh, but it probably it did to some extent. I remember the young man who, the son in the family, teaching me. Because they lived in, I guess, what you might call a project or a tenement building. And he taught me, I'll never forget this training. If, you know, when you're, don't step on the elevator to go up to our floor until you know whether someone is over in the corner that you can't quite see as, you know, before you step on. Or if you're taking the stairs, if the elevator is out, then you have to check each landing and just be aware. I think he, he tried to teach me to look around me all the time, and that was useful training. If I could remember.

[Assistant] Maybe even not in Kenya, but coming back home.

[User] I know, I know.

[Assistant] So you, uh, you went through training in New York and how, was it all English language teachers who were being trained, or was your group a more diverse group?

[User] We had, I think we had a combination of nursing and, nursing education, and if I remember right. We were a large group, over a hundred, and people were, some people were getting deselected. I remember that terrible, um, threat. I remember protesting when another, someone, a friend, got deselected, you know, so, um.

[Assistant] Deselection is a big thing for people in the sixties. Do you have any thoughts about that? How effective a process that was?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I know, I know.

[Assistant] So you, uh, you went through training in New York and how, was it all English language teachers who were being trained, or was your group a more diverse group?

[User] We had, I think we had a combination of nursing and, nursing education, and if I remember right. We were a large group, over a hundred, and people were, some people were getting deselected. I remember that terrible, um, threat. I remember protesting when another, someone, a friend, got deselected, you know, so, um.

[Assistant] Deselection is a big thing for people in the sixties. Do you have any thoughts about that? How effective a process that was?

[User] Well, I think it's better, if there are some real questions about someone, to, um, to not take them to the country of service. Because we had someone come in Senegal. There was something called demystification, demyst for short, which was when the trainees, because of course the trainees now are mostly, most of the training is done in country. And so this woman came out to stay with us and in every way she was not appropriate for the Peace Corps. And I think it might have been better if she'd been told that before she. But at the end she said, well, you know, I don't think they'll take me, but at least I got a trip to Africa out of it.

[Assistant] Maybe that was the whole idea. Okay, so you finished the first training. We'll go to the second training later on. And you ended up in Kenya. And I assume you flew to Nairobi?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We had, I think we had a combination of nursing and, nursing education, and if I remember right. We were a large group, over a hundred, and people were, some people were getting deselected. I remember that terrible, um, threat. I remember protesting when another, someone, a friend, got deselected, you know, so, um.

[Assistant] Deselection is a big thing for people in the sixties. Do you have any thoughts about that? How effective a process that was?

[User] Well, I think it's better, if there are some real questions about someone, to, um, to not take them to the country of service. Because we had someone come in Senegal. There was something called demystification, demyst for short, which was when the trainees, because of course the trainees now are mostly, most of the training is done in country. And so this woman came out to stay with us and in every way she was not appropriate for the Peace Corps. And I think it might have been better if she'd been told that before she. But at the end she said, well, you know, I don't think they'll take me, but at least I got a trip to Africa out of it.

[Assistant] Maybe that was the whole idea. Okay, so you finished the first training. We'll go to the second training later on. And you ended up in Kenya. And I assume you flew to Nairobi?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And so talk a little bit about your experience in, in arriving in Kenya.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I think it's better, if there are some real questions about someone, to, um, to not take them to the country of service. Because we had someone come in Senegal. There was something called demystification, demyst for short, which was when the trainees, because of course the trainees now are mostly, most of the training is done in country. And so this woman came out to stay with us and in every way she was not appropriate for the Peace Corps. And I think it might have been better if she'd been told that before she. But at the end she said, well, you know, I don't think they'll take me, but at least I got a trip to Africa out of it.

[Assistant] Maybe that was the whole idea. Okay, so you finished the first training. We'll go to the second training later on. And you ended up in Kenya. And I assume you flew to Nairobi?

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And so talk a little bit about your experience in, in arriving in Kenya.

[User] Okay, so I found my site on the map, but nobody really knew how to get there. So, um, I, you know, because I had a bunch of luggage with me. And so I finally I found someone, though, who agreed to drive me all that way. It was about a five or six.

[Assistant] But nobody from Peace Corps was?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] And so talk a little bit about your experience in, in arriving in Kenya.

[User] Okay, so I found my site on the map, but nobody really knew how to get there. So, um, I, you know, because I had a bunch of luggage with me. And so I finally I found someone, though, who agreed to drive me all that way. It was about a five or six.

[Assistant] But nobody from Peace Corps was?

[User]
No, no. In those days, they didn't help you get to your site. Or at least they weren't helping me get to my site. But that was fine. I wasn't afraid or, I just wanted to get there. I was very excited about reaching there. But when I arrived, there was a house where I was supposed to live, a teacher's house, and it was full of chickens and goats. And so, and there was no furniture. So the other teacher who was there and had welcomed me said, you know, I went five miles away to the, or several miles away to the nearest Peace, other Peace Corps volunteer and stayed with him.

But what is significant here is that this school had been founded by Oginga Odinga, who was a leading politician and statesman in Kenya for many, many years. And he was a founding father, you know, he helped the country gain independence and get, he got Kenyatta out of prison. And eventually he was instrumental in getting multiparty democracy going again in Kenya after the Kenyatta years. And he had founded my school.

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Was he from that village?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And asking them to ensure their participation and approval of my stay. Next, we went to Odinga's home, where we feasted and danced to the haunting strains of traditional Luo harp music. Odinga flung his yellow and green staff here and there for emphasis as we danced. Everyone applauded when I carried money to the harpist. After the meal, people made long speeches in Luo, praising Odinga and welcoming me and Maranda PCV Ron Smallwood, the one I'd been staying with. I was brand new to Kenya and totally overwhelmed at the events of the day. Finally, I rose to express my gratitude which, you know, a speech which I wasn't prepared for.

[Assistant] In Luo?

[User] I had learned Swahili, but they spoke Luo there, they didn't. Luo was more important than Swahili. I slept in my own house that night. The chickens were gone, but the empty rooms magnified the bumps and thuds from above and outside. After a few nights, my terror disappeared and I grew to love Nyamira. When I left two years later, Odinga was in prison, detained for political activity. I wish that I had found a way to thank him for helping to ensure the favorable intervention of the ancestors in my Nyamira experience. And I still cry when I read that.

[Assistant] That's lovely. Very nice. So you had an official welcome.

[User] Oh my gosh, I mean, how incredible. And this was before he went to prison, so it wasn't too much later that he was detained.

[Assistant] And he was imprisoned for?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I had learned Swahili, but they spoke Luo there, they didn't. Luo was more important than Swahili. I slept in my own house that night. The chickens were gone, but the empty rooms magnified the bumps and thuds from above and outside. After a few nights, my terror disappeared and I grew to love Nyamira. When I left two years later, Odinga was in prison, detained for political activity. I wish that I had found a way to thank him for helping to ensure the favorable intervention of the ancestors in my Nyamira experience. And I still cry when I read that.

[Assistant] That's lovely. Very nice. So you had an official welcome.

[User] Oh my gosh, I mean, how incredible. And this was before he went to prison, so it wasn't too much later that he was detained.

[Assistant] And he was imprisoned for?

[User] Two years, I think for two years. But then after that, he was forbidden from political activity. But later he founded the opposition party and after. And now his son, of course, became prime minister later, the election. I think his son, Raila Odinga, who I knew, actually stole the election in 2008. But anyway, that's not part of this interview probably.

[Assistant] Well, unless you'd like to say something about that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh my gosh, I mean, how incredible. And this was before he went to prison, so it wasn't too much later that he was detained.

[Assistant] And he was imprisoned for?

[User] Two years, I think for two years. But then after that, he was forbidden from political activity. But later he founded the opposition party and after. And now his son, of course, became prime minister later, the election. I think his son, Raila Odinga, who I knew, actually stole the election in 2008. But anyway, that's not part of this interview probably.

[Assistant] Well, unless you'd like to say something about that.

[User] Well, it was my second trip back, but I'll talk about the first one.

[Assistant] Okay. So you got to the school. You were welcomed royally, clearly. And then did you end up learning Luo?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Two years, I think for two years. But then after that, he was forbidden from political activity. But later he founded the opposition party and after. And now his son, of course, became prime minister later, the election. I think his son, Raila Odinga, who I knew, actually stole the election in 2008. But anyway, that's not part of this interview probably.

[Assistant] Well, unless you'd like to say something about that.

[User] Well, it was my second trip back, but I'll talk about the first one.

[Assistant] Okay. So you got to the school. You were welcomed royally, clearly. And then did you end up learning Luo?

[User] I tried, but let me explain what happened to me there, because it's, um, it's a little complicated. I loved the school. It was incredibly beautiful on this hill with these, you know, waving stands of yellow grass and all around us and beautiful sunsets near the lakes. So they brought fish sometimes.

[Assistant] So where was this, north?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, when the girls arrived, they had to. They had to pay. The parents had to bring their money.

[Assistant] Ah, so they paid tuition.

[User] You could be a little lenient somehow and put them on a payment plan. But these were mostly subsistence farmers, you know, and they, most of them didn't really have a way of raising the money. But when, um, but I think the headmaster had been insisting they pay full fees.

[Assistant] And then he took the money.

[User]
And then pocketing it. Yes. But luckily, the board of governors was on the case, at least a little belatedly. But they, um, there was a trial and Codway went to prison. So then the board of governors said I should be the headmistress, even though sometimes I have been disagreeing with them because, well, for example, the student who was pregnant, they thought she should be sent home. And I said, no, she should stay and continue her studies as long as she can. But even with such disagreements, they seemed to feel I should be the headmistress. Well, I knew that this wasn't quite in my description of duties. So, um, but there was no quick means of communicating with Peace Corps headquarters.

And I sent a letter and the letter came back and it was kind of ambiguous. So I told the board, well, okay, I'll step in temporarily. But the temporary position went on for a year and a half, so I stayed for the rest of my period I was there, I was there as the headmistress of the school. And of course, it was a lot of work. You know, I think I worked 80 hours a week. I would work from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. every day, because I was still teaching. And I was still teaching at least three subjects, three or four subjects, and, um, and I really had a ball though. I really loved it.

[Assistant] So what were your, your big challenges as headmistress of the school?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Luo.

[Assistant] Or Luo.

[User] Mostly in English.

[Assistant] Oh, okay.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And the students spoke English as well?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Mostly in English.

[Assistant] Oh, okay.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And the students spoke English as well?

[User] They did. I mean, they had started English at a pretty early age, I think in standard three or something, or even before that, they start English. But, you know, when I needed to, I used Swahili, but, um, and I tried to learn Luo.

[Assistant] And then how many teachers? How many teachers did you have?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] And the students spoke English as well?

[User] They did. I mean, they had started English at a pretty early age, I think in standard three or something, or even before that, they start English. But, you know, when I needed to, I used Swahili, but, um, and I tried to learn Luo.

[Assistant] And then how many teachers? How many teachers did you have?

[User] There were never more than three, including me.

[Assistant] Including you, so.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] They did. I mean, they had started English at a pretty early age, I think in standard three or something, or even before that, they start English. But, you know, when I needed to, I used Swahili, but, um, and I tried to learn Luo.

[Assistant] And then how many teachers? How many teachers did you have?

[User] There were never more than three, including me.

[Assistant] Including you, so.

[User] So, um, I think at one point there was four, because at one point the Swahili, we had to, no one was qualified to teach Swahili. So we had to get someone else who could do that. So we brought her in and she lived with me. So, um, that was nice. And yeah, so it was mostly in English and I always felt bad that I hadn't really learned Luo but.

[Assistant] So you were super busy, running the.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] There were never more than three, including me.

[Assistant] Including you, so.

[User] So, um, I think at one point there was four, because at one point the Swahili, we had to, no one was qualified to teach Swahili. So we had to get someone else who could do that. So we brought her in and she lived with me. So, um, that was nice. And yeah, so it was mostly in English and I always felt bad that I hadn't really learned Luo but.

[Assistant] So you were super busy, running the.

[User] Super busy.

[Assistant] Running the school and teaching.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So, um, I think at one point there was four, because at one point the Swahili, we had to, no one was qualified to teach Swahili. So we had to get someone else who could do that. So we brought her in and she lived with me. So, um, that was nice. And yeah, so it was mostly in English and I always felt bad that I hadn't really learned Luo but.

[Assistant] So you were super busy, running the.

[User] Super busy.

[Assistant] Running the school and teaching.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And what was that all-consuming or did you have did you have a private life as well?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Super busy.

[Assistant] Running the school and teaching.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And what was that all-consuming or did you have did you have a private life as well?

[User] No, not much.

[Assistant] Were there Peace Corps volunteers? There was somebody you said five miles down the road. Did you see that person?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Mm hmm.

[Assistant] And what was that all-consuming or did you have did you have a private life as well?

[User] No, not much.

[Assistant] Were there Peace Corps volunteers? There was somebody you said five miles down the road. Did you see that person?

[User] Yeah, that was at the boys school. Um, rarely. Once in a while. Once in a while, there would be, for example, a combined, um, combined party or something, a dance party with the boys. So then he would come over sometimes, although actually, sometimes another teacher would come.

[Assistant] Well, who you do?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, not much.

[Assistant] Were there Peace Corps volunteers? There was somebody you said five miles down the road. Did you see that person?

[User] Yeah, that was at the boys school. Um, rarely. Once in a while. Once in a while, there would be, for example, a combined, um, combined party or something, a dance party with the boys. So then he would come over sometimes, although actually, sometimes another teacher would come.

[Assistant] Well, who you do?

[User] Well, I had, I had a close friend at Nia Girls School, which was about 20 miles away, but it was an all-day trip to get there. So I would see them I would say maybe once. You know, there were three semesters during the year, I think, in that system. And so once in a while at the semester breaks, I would, we would travel together, maybe go on safari.

[Assistant] She was in the Peace Corps with you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, that was at the boys school. Um, rarely. Once in a while. Once in a while, there would be, for example, a combined, um, combined party or something, a dance party with the boys. So then he would come over sometimes, although actually, sometimes another teacher would come.

[Assistant] Well, who you do?

[User] Well, I had, I had a close friend at Nia Girls School, which was about 20 miles away, but it was an all-day trip to get there. So I would see them I would say maybe once. You know, there were three semesters during the year, I think, in that system. And so once in a while at the semester breaks, I would, we would travel together, maybe go on safari.

[Assistant] She was in the Peace Corps with you?

[User] She was a Peace Corps volunteer at a government school that had been founded by missionaries. So and then there was another woman with her. And those two are still my closest friends from that era, from that, from the Peace Corps Kenya era. So, um, yeah, and then it became, then I decided that what I needed to do, since I wasn't so sure my girls were going to get into government schools, that I should make Nyamira a government school. So I started writing letters to the Ministry of Education and also to our member of Parliament, Mr. Omalmo. And eventually they came to the school for a visit, and we spent days preparing for this visit, you know, with, of course, a program of singing and speeches. And we had to clean up the school, you know. It was.

[Assistant] Like an accreditation visit?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] She was a Peace Corps volunteer at a government school that had been founded by missionaries. So and then there was another woman with her. And those two are still my closest friends from that era, from that, from the Peace Corps Kenya era. So, um, yeah, and then it became, then I decided that what I needed to do, since I wasn't so sure my girls were going to get into government schools, that I should make Nyamira a government school. So I started writing letters to the Ministry of Education and also to our member of Parliament, Mr. Omalmo. And eventually they came to the school for a visit, and we spent days preparing for this visit, you know, with, of course, a program of singing and speeches. And we had to clean up the school, you know. It was.

[Assistant] Like an accreditation visit?

[User] Yes, yes. And I remember we also went out to work on the road because during the rainy season, the road out to the main road where you got the bus to Kisumu that, it was almost impassable during the rainy season. So we actually went out there and tried to fill in the ruts with rocks. And, and I went out there to prove I could do it too. And I worked with the girls for a while. I don't know if we made much progress on that road, but we tried. Um. And so they came and, um. The biggest celebration we ever had at the school was at the end where we got the letter that the government had agreed to take our school as a government school, and we really celebrated. Oh my gosh.

[Assistant] Congratulations.

[User] And that school still exists today.

[Assistant] So what, what did it take to become a government school?