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Edison
State faculty member, Dr. Vivian Blevins, along with Edison
State President, Dr. Doreen Larson,
present the collection of veteran
stories to Jim Oda, Director of the Piqua Public Library and Carl
DeSantis, Board Member of the Miami Valley Veterans Museum in Troy.
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Veterans’
Stories Now Available
For several years Dr. Vivian Blevins, a faculty member at Edison State
Community College, has worked to communicate the stories of military
veterans in Ohio’s Miami Valley to local and national audiences.
Those stories are now available in a collection at the Piqua Public
Library and the Miami Valley Veterans Museum in Troy.
“As a community college, we are committed to collaborations with the
communities we serve,” said Edison State President, Dr. Doreen Larson.
“This is an excellent example of a collaboration among Edison State
faculty, students, the Piqua Community Foundation, the Miami Valley
Veteran’s Museum, and the Piqua Public Library.”
Blevins worked with Edison State students to interview forty plus area
veterans for the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. Editor
Ted Jones and videographer Nicholas Essinger, both Vietnam veterans,
worked with Blevins to produce “Veterans’ Voices” for Western Ohio
Cable Television. Dozens of interviews with area veterans conducted by
Blevins have appeared in local newspapers as well as newspapers in
Kentucky and Tennessee.
A grant from the Piqua Community Foundation provided funding for
Blevins to hire Edison State graduate, Lisa Mowen, to complete the work
required in duplicating DVDs, making copies, and putting the collection
together for the library and the museum, each of which will have a
collection on reserve and a circulating collection.
With the delivery of almost 100 artifacts to the library and the
museum, they are now accessible to the public.
“We honor our veterans by giving permanence to their understanding of
their military experience and making their stories available to their
families, students, and the community,” said Blevins.
Blevins will continue to honor veterans this fall with a program
devoted to those from the Korean War era on Thursday, November 10 at
the Piqua campus.
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