NEWS VOICES
Welcome to News Voices, a weekly feature where members of the WVIA News team will talk with each other — and sometimes sources — about key things we've learned in recent stories we have been working on.
Today Kat Bolus sits down with Roger DuPuis to discuss his recent story about a collaboration between a University of Scranton comms class and the Gino J. Merli Veterans' Center in Scranton.
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KAT: You're listening to Morning Edition here on WVIA Radio. I'm Kat Bolus, and this is News Voices. Today I have with me, Roger DuPuis. Hello Roger.
ROGER: Hi Kat.
KAT: So Roger recently worked on a story about University of Scranton students who were documenting the lives of veterans at the Gino Merli Center. When I was very early in my career, I was sent to the Gino Merli Center to interview two World War II veterans. And it's one of those stories where I wish I could go back as like a more seasoned reporter. Can you tell me, you know, why the students were there, what this class is, and, you know, why they do it, you know, every year?
ROGER: Yeah. Okay. So this is the COM224 Media Writing course at the University of Scranton, and it is run by professor Kim Pavlick. And what they do as part of this course each year is to have the students meet with veterans who live there and talk with them about their life histories, and then they put together a written and and also a digital summary of these folks' lives that they then present to them, and they will eventually be on on display for the community to see. But it's really, it's sort of a writing exercise, but it's one of those things that goes so far beyond that, because it really is an opportunity for these folks, for the veterans, to tell their stories in a way they might not have otherwise. And you know, as I was talking to Dr. Pavlick, one of the things she said was that, you know, sometimes we have heard stories and learned details of their service and their lives that they did not even tell their families, because sometimes it's just easier to tell your life to a stranger, as we know as journalists.
KAT: Have you had similar experiences? You know, interviewing veterans within your career?
ROGER: Oh, gosh, yes. I had a World War II veteran who I interviewed two years ago when he turned 100 and he told me some things on video about escaping from a torpedoed ship off the coast of North Africa that again, his family said to me 'you know we never knew these things.' And he died a week later.
KAT: Wow.
ROGER: Which was just for me, so powerful that I was one of, you know, the last people to talk with him about that chapter in his life.
KAT: And what's interesting about kind of, you know, reporting, and what these students are doing is that these stories are now on record for these families. I think you had mentioned in the story that there's kind of a physical component that also comes with like the storytelling and the documenting that they're doing.
ROGER: So what they do is two students pair up with each veteran. And so each one of them writes their own story. What the veteran receives is a printed copy of that story, but then also on a thumb drive, I think it was, they have a digital version. And so that is them talking about their memories. And what Dr. Pavlick said to me was that, you know 'we've had family members come back to us after their veteran relative had passed, and some of the things that were in those stories become part of the memorial for for their relative.'
KAT: In your article, you say the students interviewed Cold War veterans, World War II, Korea, Vietnam. You know, the one guy you talked to was involved in a crisis in Lebanon in 1958. Like, what do you think the young people get out of hearing about these experiences that kind of — I mean, we're talking college students, so they're, you know, 18, 19, 20, 21 — what do you think they got out of hearing about these past experiences that seem like they're so far in the past?
ROGER: The veteran who was the centerpiece of my story, John Hollenback, is 85. He was the person who served in 1958 in the Mediterranean during a crisis in Lebanon. And so the students who worked with him admitted they had never even heard of that particular incident ... that chapter in our history. So not only did they learn that, but Mr. Hollenback talked a lot about his life after he came home and his wife, Nancy, who was, you know, the love of his life, the center of his existence. And I think that was something that the students really were so impressed by — that wow, this gentleman just really wanted to talk about his wife and his family life. And so it was really not just learning about his military service, but bonding with this gentleman, right? And what everyone involved said to me was that when this project happens every year, there are students who sign up, who are not journalism students, right? They just want to take part in this. So, you know, you get the students who are really interested, they're really engaged. And what I'm also hearing is that for some of these veterans who may or may not have visitors, this is a highlight for their year.
KAT: Well, Roger, thank you so much for joining me today.
ROGER: Thanks, Kat, it was great to be here.
READ MORE ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF SCRANTON CLASS: Stories of service: University of Scranton students document veterans' life histories
