Showing posts with label Heather Raisor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heather Raisor. Show all posts

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Facebook, Missions, and Dogged Librarians make Connections

Detective Solves ID of Interviewer and Interviewee

Sometimes a Blanding Connection is no further that a click away!


Heather Raisor as USU librarian in Blanding has been working with the SJCounty Historical commission and the University to digitize oral interviews which were conducted over the past 30 years.  A large amount of those were done by juniors in my English classes between 1986-1999, so if Heather runs into a tape without ID on it, she calls.  This particular story began September of 2017, when a particular tape showed up talking about horse racing, but neither of us could figure out who it might be.

Heather explained, "I made a small mp3 file and sent it to Janet and several other people to listen to and see if they recognized the voices. No one could.  

Next I drove out to see if I could find Aseneth Guymon to see if she could identify it [her son Tony is a jockey], but no one was home. Shortly afterwards, I happened to be at the Dr, Black's chiropractic office. For some reason I was telling them about it and there was a lady there, (don’t remember her name) but she recognized the interviewee's voice as Johnny Dufur's."

Half the mystery was solved, but Heather still didn’t know who the student doing the interview was. Sterling Black  thought it sounded like Dana Woodard, a friend from high school.  So she went on Facebook to try to find her. Found a Dana Woodard Adams and the following pictures are our text."  Heather sent her a mp3 file, and after listening to it this conversation evolved:
    

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Thanks to Facebook, the mystery was solved, the digital file identified and indexing completed.
Now fast forward six months............



         Reprise of the Search:   On March 15, 2018 Heather, Sterling, and Janet all happened to be all at the Chiropractor's office at the same time, and Sterling amazingly had found  an "artifact" -- the old 5 " floppy disc with both his research paper and Dana's on it!  So if we could open it up, we'd even have the transcript of that interview!!  Thanks Heather for being such a diligent detective.

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               New Stake President Loves Football and Family




Marilyn Lyman:
I need to add one more story to the Blanding Connection list because of its interest and importance to so many people. We are in Quartzsite AZ and just came from Stake Conference where Mitchell Kalauli Jr was sustained as the new Stake President in the Lake Havasu Stake. His wife is Nickie Patterson.  She is my brother, Kenneth's granddaughter. Her parents are Tierre and Kathy Patterson. Stephen Mosley's son Paul has been and will continue to be on the High Council down here.   He is also an Arizona State Representative.




Missionaries with Blanding Connections Serve in the South

Janet Wilcox: 
Our grandson Michael Wilcox has been serving in the Florida Tallahassee Mission for over a year. His parents are Chris and Pam Wilcox who live in Provo.  


Just this past fall, 2017, two Blanding young women were called to that same mission: Morgan Black (Sterling and Carrie Black's daughter)

 and Ashley Shumway (Caroline Shumway's daughter).  We'll soon be saying y'all, like they do!


Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Cross Country Connections

  Jodi Slade Wheatley -- South Carolina 
Grant Gibbons and his family are friends with me and my family
out here in Aiken, SC. I never met him before coming here, but
we both came from Blanding. 
Rosalie Payne -- Centerville:   

Jodi Slade just reminded me of a couple more. Grant Gibbons was in stake YM. presidency with my financial adviser.  
--The teacher across the hall from me at the middle school was a brother-in-law of Eric Spotted Elk. Their wives are sisters.
--Teaching in Price I had several students who were children of my former students. That meant that they instantly became my "grandchildren." I am sure I will forget some but here goes.
--2 daughters of Eric Mantz
--Daughter of Stewart and Stacy Black. He was also in my high council
--Son of Grant Hickman and grandson of Jessica Lee and Ken Hickman. His name is Kenneth Hickman so that was an easy one to catch
--Son and daughter of Kerry Van Dyke
-- Two sons and daughter of Alissa Morley
--Son of Eldon Nez
--Daughter of Rochelle Romero Badback (son was in school as well)
--Also Judy Mainord who used to teach at SJH is an assistant supt in Carbon District


 Lynn-Yvonne Wright -- Logan

 I drive Aggie Shuttle on campus at USU. One day I was talking to a person on the bus and during our discussion learned that her Grandmother was Merle Black, one of my classmates from San Juan High.

 Aminnie Laws -- Wyoming I went to a Wright family gathering to see the pioneer sights in Wyoming in 2003 (or 04) One of the couple missionaries asked where we were from, when we responded Blanding, UT, the Elder asked if we knew Ray Brown. He served a portion of his mission as a companion in the Chicago area. He was surprised when I told him that was my grandpa. It was so neat to hear some of his memories of their time together.