Joanne Prisley for Athens: Glimpses of Home

One woman’s journey through pages of Athens history

Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)
June 30, 2008

“The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.” – Norman Thomas, six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America

We are all contributors to history. But few create a legacy while preserving others’ history.

Joanne Prisley, 76, has spent 28 years with the Athens County Historical Society and Museum working part-time, both formerly as the director and currently as curator. With her resourceful mind and focused determination for community issues, she has given knowledge and spirit to our town by transcending the conventions of her time.

Chapter One: The early years

“My dad was very radical; he was just wild,” says Prisley. “He always had an opinion.” His opinions supporting communism cost him his job. “He was blacklisted and he didn’t work for years.” Her mother was born to Irish immigrants. “My mother was the one in our neighborhood that if there was something they didn’t like, they would say, ‘Mrs. Dove, you’re going to have to do something about this,’” Prisley says. “She was always out there rabble-rousing and making sure people were treated right.” Both her parents were schooled only through the eighth grade.

Her brother, 11 years older, would become a football star for Notre Dame and the National Football League, and then coach for 37 years. He brought home his college books, which Prisley’s father voraciously read. Her brother’s fame sparked their home-town’s interest, which she and her father opposed. “He became well-known; then they wanted him to come and work in the mill to stay in shape so they could show pictures,” she says.

Her family was naturally inclined toward social values and seeing all sides an issue. “Nobody sat down at home and said, ‘Look, we are going to go out there and support people,’” says Prisley. “It was just what you did.”

Chapter 2: The college years

Prisley traveled southwest from Youngstown to begin her college education in Athens in 1949. Majoring in government (now called political science), she enjoyed the small department where everyone seemed to know each other.

Athens in 1949 to 1953 was mainly Republican. “Everybody thinks of this as this big Democratic stronghold,” says Prisley, “but it was very conservative.”

Athens is where she met her husband, the late Alexander Prisley. He would eventually serve as associate professor emeritus of political science at Ohio University for 37 years. “I met him in Ray Gustafson’s American Political Parties class,” recalls Prisley. “He wanted to take an Alpha Gam to the dance so he could double date with his roommate. I was the only one he knew, so that’s how we got started.” Political involvement strengthened their bond.

She earned her master’s degree in government the following year while working as a graduate assistant in the dorm and her own department. After their marriage, the couple would return to Athens in 1957 while her husband earned his master’s. She was a high-demand residence counselor in three successive dorms, and her husband was one of the first males to live in each.

Chapter 3: The working years

In a time when the majority of women were not working, Prisley was a trailblazer.

Straight out of college she worked for Proctor and Gamble in an innovative market and consumer researcher program. She traveled to conduct door-to-door casual interviews and later recorded extracted data.

She then taught fifth grade in Youngstown, which she despised. “I was raised in a family where if you take on a job, you do it if it kills you,” Prisley says. “I didn’t go and cry and say, ‘I have to leave.’” Despite her feelings, she cared enough to convince school nurses of one boy’s dyslexia and another’s epilepsy, both uncommon diagnoses.

She married, moved to Cleveland, and began employment with BF Goodrich in industrial research and market analysis. No other women worked in that capacity, save one, who was the department head. Though married, she was prohibited from traveling with the men. “They wouldn’t let me travel on the same plane. I had to stay at a different hotel,” she says. “I used to type my own report, but I was typing the fellas’ report, too. I’m sure I wasn’t making as much money. I know I was smarter.”

During this time, the CIA was investigating her husband’s Russian heritage, making his own employment difficult since the available work did not match his capabilities. Prisley was the primary breadwinner.

From 1958-63, while her husband was earning his doctorate at Brown in Rhode Island, she worked in a rare book library with printed material dated before 1800. “That’s where I learned about collecting: how you restore things, how you preserve them, how you do exhibits,” says Prisley. “They gave me good training there.”

They returned to Athens in 1963 on her husband’s agreement to temporarily replace a colleague, teaching American government. She worked as one of two assistant deans of women. He had not yet completed his dissertation, and would not for three more years. With a bachelor’s in history, he struggled to teach the material. Says Prisley, “Luckily, I had saved all my notes. He used that as a basis for his lectures.”

Chapter 4: The child-raising years

Ten years into the marriage, the decision was made to have children. In 1965, at the age of 33, Joanne’s son was born at the old Sheltering Arms Hospital on Athens’ west side. She had chosen not to work. But it didn’t stop her from joining clubs and organizations. She was a member of the Democratic Women’s Club; an adviser to her former sorority, Alpha Gamma; an adult dame for her husband’s fraternity; and co-chair for the Cancer Crusade. Lacking cooking skills, she joined a luncheon group from the time her son was 7 weeks old, called the Ladies Outdoor Gardening and Karate Club. They still meet to this day. She notes, “We have wills, money left for when we die to have a party and a big dinner.”

After her son began grade school, Joanne joined the PTA and was homeroom mother. She also worked part time. “Bill Lavelle was the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, and worked out of his office here,” she says. “I was the administrative assistant in Athens.”

Chapter 5: The historical society years

The building where Prisley has spent the last 28 years, her longest stint of employment, once housed the Athens Public Library. In 1980, the Athens County Historical Society & Museum found its first home, occupying the upstairs. Though the organization itself had started slowly in 1960, it was too late, in Prisley’s opinion. “As a community, we should have had a historical society back in the 1800s,” she says.

When the library moved to its new facility on Home Street in 1993, the Historical Society & Museum spread itself into both floors. The current displays, library, files, researching area and bookshop began to expand into the respected organization that it is today.

“We did the same thing the Smithsonian did, but without staff, equipment or money,” says Prisley. The Historical Society & Museum relies upon membership fees and book sales to keep the bills paid. Their stunning collections and exhibits are from county residents’ donations. With little, the organization has gained much respect, both historically and professionally. Says Prisley, “We’ve had people come here from across the country to research. They say this is one of the most outstanding small historical societies they have ever been in.”

The society also offers genealogical researching tools, tours and classes. Their publications program has more than 100 titles on its list.

But spend any amount of time with Joanne Prisley, and you will become keenly aware of her sharp propensity for accuracy. She remembers in fine detail her husband’s teaching schedule from 45 years ago. “I remember weird things,” admits Prisley. “My husband always said, ‘How do you know how to find things?’” This ability, which she denies is a talent, has served in countless research projects, in which she has been reliable in finding the proper source. Her most productive thinking time: when she is cleaning. Then she can remember specific pages and books.

Her only regret for the Historical Society & Museum is the lack of storage space, and the proper funding for humidity and temperature control to ensure perfect preservation procedures. She says she will miss interacting with people.

Chapter 6: The current years

Keep your eyes open for a woman walking around town, armed with a clipboard. She will be taking meticulous notes on code-enforcement violations to help the city keep standards alive and avoid more deterioration. Having served with the Metropolitan Housing Authority since 1977, chaired the Athens Planning Commission for a 16-year term that expired in January, and involved with the neighborhood association, Prisley is keenly aware of local issues.

“My father always said, ‘Keep your mouth shut for the first six months, and you may speak the next six months. But wait a whole year before you try to do anything.’” Her family training has never wavered, but only burned brighter in her later years. “My husband said I was more radical than (my father) was,” she says.

Having watched the university change and grow, and impact growth in the city of Athens, Prisley feels the most disheartening about some people’s self-centeredness. “Some don’t know how to get along with other people in town,” she says. “People are just not considerate. They forget that they live in the midst of lots of people. Everybody has certain rights.” Of particular concern are trash and noise pollution, and lack of respect for pedestrians.

Prisley is also frustrated by the assumption that this is poor, isolated Appalachia. “This is not the back of beyond. It was on the main road, and the east and west, north and south railways ran through,” she says. “People who (originally) came here were well-educated people. They were hard workers and office holders. They gave up everything because they wanted to make money, come out West, and do better.”

Her husband supported her and her views. “He’d believe strongly in things but I was always dashing off to the City Council, going to the Board of Zoning Appeals, and calling up the police.”

Her husband died after battling an illness in 2005. “I always think funerals are a time to celebrate,” Prisley says. “I don’t sit around and cry about things. We used to have a good time going to cemeteries, putting flowers on, going out to eat afterwards or having a big picnic. It was an occasion. I just hope that I pop off when I’m out running around. I’d rather pop off in the middle of some cleaning fit.”

She claims she is not an artistic person, and completes exhibits in order to convey information. “My biggest talent is on the clean-up committee,” she says. “I’m very good at putting things in order.” She’s fascinated by watching people. “I love watching how they react to things,” she says. “Sometimes I do them over in my head. If I could say, ‘Now if you just let me cut your hair or change your hairdo…’ It’s constantly wanting to organize things.”

Prisley confesses she will not be bored after her retirement. She has plenty to do. Still involved with her sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta, she is undergraduate adviser, treasurer of the house company, and president of the alumni group. She recently helped plan their 100th anniversary on this campus, and also handles and organizes their historic memorabilia. She is active in her church, St. Paul’s, keeping their photographs and historic items in order, and organizing exhibits. She remains on the statewide board of the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums.

There is no doubt she will continue to make history.

Troy Gregorino for Athens: Glimpses of Home

Musician, activist finds Athens a life-giving locale

Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)
June 12, 2008

Imagine you are a buccaneer, a vagabond, or an explorer. You look at maps and choose destinations for the sounds of their names, their position in the state, or what you have heard about them from others.

Pretend you are driving through surprisingly beautiful hills, outcroppings of rock, and endless green trees. The scent in the air is heavy with honeysuckle and rich greenery. Through your open window, you see a sign that says, “Athens, 10 miles.” You stop for directions, and you are told: “Just keep driving that way, and you’ll see it.”

This is similar to what befell Troy Gregorino one summer’s day in 2002. He had developed the keen habit of hopping from one place to another. But then something drew him here and coaxed him to stay.

“I drove in and it felt right,” says Gregorino. “I’d been to Montana, California, Mississippi, New York, all over the place. Me, my little car with eight billion miles on it, whatever number of dollars I managed to scrape together, a guitar, and a suitcase, and I found this place. And I just loved it.” He stepped out of his car, onto the unfamiliar brick streets, and experienced a never-before-felt warmth and welcome.

“Left to fight or flight, everybody’s looking for a new direction….” “Pascagoula,” from the album “Circadian Clocks” by the Jarts

But his path has not been easy. Since he stepped out of his car that long-ago day, he has been arrested, diagnosed, detoured, recorded, unemployed, and cured. His gratitude towards this place comes directly from his brush with having all things taken away. Only two years into his relationship with this town, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004. Two more years stood between the process of healing and his call back to the place he had come to love. His love for the town has not changed, but has enhanced and filled his story of healing. “It’s not in my frame of mind right now to leave Athens,” says Gregorino. “I want to see some things through and continue to be a part of all that called me back.”

“Ohio means beautiful…back to Appalachian hills from which you came, everybody’s leaving just to make it big, rock stars, silver screeners back from the dead…I am your native son…” “Native Son,” by the Jarts

What calls him back in a current practical sense is hosting Open Stage for Donkey Coffee and Espresso, singing and playing guitar in the band the Jarts, tutoring for Kids on Campus, and working for the Ohio Healthy Families Act campaign. But it is the deeper things that strengthen the call. “I tend to find myself drawn to places where political and artistic vibrancy co-exist,” he explains.

It is his relationship with words and music that make up a large portion of Gregorino’s character.

“Writers and artists work so desperately to invent and reinvent new perspectives on the ordinary,” he says. He claims that writing and playing music are separate functions for him, but that he needs both and cannot survive without one or the other.

“Words, at their best, are just approximations of real experience,” says Gregorino. “Ideally they convey something that strikes you beyond a page or beyond a song, but it’s the limitations of them that are engaging enough to bother.”

A degree in journalism from Kent State University landed him many gigs, but around here, the most notable has been his past reporting on the local coffee-house music scene for the Athens Insider. “I think (the Athens music scene) rivals or exceeds any that come to mind across the country that I’ve gotten to see,” he declares. “I would put it up against the best of any city.”

Hosting an open stage allows him to see a broad spectrum of musicians in the Athens music scene, from beginners to those more seasoned.

“There seems to be more inclination among listeners to be there for the music itself,” Gregorino says. “(At Donkey) the sound system is good. I think it’s a great first stage for a lot of people, but it also serves as an ideal stage for people who have already had time to fine-tune their work. It’s a lot of fun to watch their progress happen from week to week.”

He also likes Donkey’s intimacy. “You are not competing with clashing glasses and the sounds that accompany the bar atmosphere,” he observes. “I think it lends itself to a different kind of sensitivity toward the craft.”

He would know. Melding writing and music, Gregorino performs his own songs in the band, The Jarts. Its music is directly linked to his personal recovery.

“I think it was at the core of my motivation for wellness again,” says Gregorino. “For that matter, it was the motivation for the formation of this band.”

The band’s lineup: Gregorino (guitar, vocals), Ashley Ford (cello), Michael Rinaldi-Eichenberg (keyboards), Chris Pyle (bass), and Sam Oches (drums).

“Nobody wants to hear a guy gush about his band too much,” Gregorino admits. “But the formation of The Jarts and what they have offered of themselves personally and musically have just been tremendous for me. This whole experience has been life-affirming.”

The band’s first CD was proudly released at an April 26th Donkey show. “The album reads as a kind of journal or documentary, even if it is rather surreal in parts,” says Gregorino. “We’ve been working on these songs for many months together as a band and playing them over and over again. And I feel like I’m coming up with new realizations about my own words in the song.”

“This year begins and ends in the same old way…Did you think you’d live to see 2042?… In spite of the lines you’re reading across my hands, sun upon your skin is all you understand…” “2042,”by the Jarts

“A lot of things I do on a whim,” Gregorino says. “Politics isn’t one of them.”

Political activism has peppered his life. At Kent, he was arrested at a 2003 annual Commemoration of the 1970 Kent State massacre. The peaceful protest was about the Iraq War, but local authorities pigeon-holed him as the leader of a crowd that was led into a street, he claims.

“My initial ‘guilty’ verdict was overturned by an appellate court,” Gregorino says. “During the trial, officers conceded that I was arrested because I was ‘perceived as a leader’. According to the first amendment, that’s not a crime. Later I was part of a successful federal suit arrest against the city of Kent for wrongful arrest.” All must have been forgiven. He was asked to play Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” at the 2006 Commemoration.

His love for the forests, hills and river feeds his desire for defending and protecting this small town. He ran for City Council at large in last November’s election. Though he was not elected, he came away inspired.

“I was a first-time candidate with no major-party affiliation and next to no budget,” he says. “And I got over 600 votes when the final count was in.”

He says he believes in Athens’ potential and its forward-thinking people.

“I believe we have arrived at a point where we’ve got crucial decisions to make in terms of what kind of legacy we want to hand down to future generations,” he says. “I’m firmly convinced that a proactive push from below can prevent the effects of overdevelopment and economic short-sidedness from sucking the life out of a city. Complacency is our greatest enemy.”

“You’ve stopped conceding and waiting for your miracle, your heart is still beating in plasticine material, radiating through placating you congenially… Despise me, disguise me, these cells keep dividing, the light through the white blinds is so very blinding, I shield my eyes to shield you from me, say to me let’s go where we’re supposed to be…” “Tunnel Vision” by the Jarts

“These are all the upsides of being told that you have to undergo certain treatments or die,” Gregorino says. “This heavily introspective awareness and appreciation all over again. It just feels like gratitude. I’ve gotten a new perspective on my relationship with the world that I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Athens is now a place now that holds more meaning for him than any other. It permeates his life, influences his healing, and filters into his art.

“I feel fortunate for every day I get to be a part of things where there’s such vitality,” says Gregorino. “I love the pulse and the beat of this place, and all of its liveliness. But I love this place for its paradoxes and contradictions, too. I’ve got to have both and Athens gives you both those things, liveliness and serene quiet all within a very short walk.”

“Other cancer patients and survivors, so many of them seem to have specific memories and recollections of what happened,” says Gregorino. “I’ve got this grey blankness when it comes to pinpointing things.”

He does remember the ceiling, and lacking strength. “I was memorizing every line in the ceiling above me. I was out and out and there were many months where I lacked the strength to even pick up the neck of the guitar and strum it if I wanted to.” His treatments have lessened to only a few times a year, with no recurrences, which he considers to be the best news. For now, he is settled. “There’s always a place to be welcomed in Athens. It does a lot of good things for me and I want to do good things in return.”

“I’m not afraid, I am alive, I’m the shooting star in the red moon sky across the plane…I am alive, I’m breaking through to the other side…” “Red Lament” by the Jarts

Sandy Shirey for Athens:Glimpses of Home

Recalling a lifetime of service

Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)
May 29, 2008

Clara Barton, clad in long skirts appropriate to the era, stepped over bodies that littered the hot and bloody fields, searching for live ones who needed help. Known as the “Angel of the Battlefield,” she had tirelessly persevered through whizzing bullets, personal illness, and endless soliciting for donations to increase scarce emergency medical supplies.

This determined woman overcame her childhood shyness to provide relief in times of war, crisis and disaster, and finally found success in the year 1881, at the age of 60. Through much persuasion, the American division of the Red Cross was finally born. Working well into her 70s, and not leaving her executive post until age 82, Clara Barton lived nearly 10 more years before her death from pneumonia at 91.

It is Barton’s legacy, strong, true and determined, that Sandy Shirey has strived to emulate. “Clara Barton cared more about giving that service to people than anything,” says Shirey, executive director of the Athens County chapter of the Red Cross. “She wanted to see what people needed and get people rolling to do it, and that’s been my approach in 23 years. Plus, she was really feisty and would fight for what she wanted, and I will do that, too.”

From the moment she set foot in the Athens chapter of the emergency response, disaster relief and humanitarian services organization in 1985, Shirey’s simple focus has been “what are we here for?” while working to make a difference in others’ lives.

Yet she has inspired and aided countless southeast Ohioans with fierce dedication, no matter the season or the hour. “It is a huge job; I won’t kid you about that,” says Shirey. “I’ve really devoted my entire life in 23 years to the Red Cross. I’ll admit that and people know it.”

As with Barton, 23 years was exactly enough time for both women to prepare to move on. Shirey, 65, after unprecedented volunteer recruitment, award-winning blood drives and personal sacrifice, is retiring from her position as director.

“I feel that it is time,” she says.

Though she will remain as a disaster volunteer, she is heading into a different territory of need. She will work part-time for the Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development (COAD), recruiting and training low-income seniors as foster grandparents in the schools and as companions in other seniors’ homes.

“I want to keep working in volunteerism,” says Shirey. “You are either born with it, or it is promoted by your upbringing. I guess it was my path. Though I strayed a little bit, I finally got to the right thing.”

Here are some benchmarks in Shirey’s life of service:

• As a child in the 1940s and ’50s, Shirey lived six houses down from the railroad tracks. Men would ride the rails and come to the nearby houses searching for food. Says Shirey, “I was instructed by my mother that if a gentleman asked for food, I was to fix him two ham sandwiches and a big jug of coffee with a lot of cream and sugar in it.”

• In the third grade, a disabled child needed help, so Shirey didn’t think twice about helping through tutoring.

• The middle of the night once found Shirey sniffing the air in confusion. She could hear flames crackling above her head, and smelled smoke. One son had already vacated his room due to the smoke and noise from the attic. “It was 1 or 2 in the morning and the Richland (volunteer) Fire Department came and saved our home,” she says. “I was really impressed.”

• A fire broke out on Court Street. The flames consuming the building didn’t captivate her as much as the service of a man she knew who worked for the Red Cross. She watched him set up a shelter and begin to provide for the firefighters. “He was going to get them coffee and snacks because they were going to be working this fire for a long time,” she says. “That really made me aware of the Red Cross. Then over time, I began paying more and more attention to it. It’s in the news almost every day.”

IN 1985, SHIREY WAS STILL cutting commas out of wax layouts in the wee hours of the morning for last-minute changes to The Athens NEWS. Fresh out of graduate school with a master’s in journalism/public information, she had already covered stories of social needs in the county, from a rape trial to local hunger to the Glouster Community Center’s need for a cooking stove (and receiving one because of her article). “It just gave me satisfaction to be doing those things,” Shirey recalls. “I was taking a direction into service. It was always there.”

Shirey proposed to write a story about Lucille Smith, then director of the Red Cross, who was retiring after nine years. Shirey remembers walking up the steps of the then North Congress Street location, about to change her life. In learning about the job, she fell in love with its goals. Says Shirey, “After I wrote the story, I came back a couple days later and handed her (Smith) my application. She was pretty surprised.”

The rest is history.

“I don’t know how we functioned in that place,” she says of the cramped house that is now a student rental. “Because if you set your work down and walked away for a minute, someone else’s work would pile on top of it. A couple cars could park there, but you’d get stuck and have to ask four other cars to back out before you could leave.”

In the beginning, quick learning of the ins and outs of the job complemented her ability to take charge. “Once I learned what needed to be done, I could handle a variety of tasks and I was raring to go,” she says. “I saw myself handling a lot of the things on my own because we didn’t have a lot of volunteers. I would cook sloppy joes for the bloodmobile and work the bloodmobile.”

In 1998, a donation from a former volunteer allowed the purchase of 100 S. May, a former Columbus Southern Power/AEP building. “We have a full parking lot, meeting rooms and the volunteers can have their own desk,” she says. “As a result of having a better facility, we have far more disaster volunteers than we had before.”

THE ATHENS COUNTY CHAPTER of the Red Cross serves Athens, Vinton and Gallia counties, providing basics in disaster relief: food, shelter, clothing, medication, and comfort. Disaster Education, Armed Forces Emergency Communication, Health and Safety Education, and Blood Drives are also components of Red Cross services. All could not be accomplished without the physical and monetary support from volunteers and other donations.

“You go ahead and give relief, and at the same time you are telling the public what you are doing so that they will help you pay the bills,” says Shirey.

Fundraising, and alternately, constant accountability, is essential to keeping the organization steadily afloat. Everything is donated, and the organization is efficiently run on a shoestring. As a private nonprofit organization, it must document every penny earned and spent. Unlike Clara Barton, who was reputedly a poor administrator, Shirey is matter-of-fact about this necessity. “If you don’t keep your books, then you don’t have a good organization.”

The Red Cross Web site proudly states, “Volunteers are the Red Cross.” Every facet is sustained by the steadfast aid of volunteers. “A volunteer helps people, wants and enjoys doing it,” says Shirey.

A preliminary list of regular volunteers to call upon in times of need consists of a tight-knit core group of about 60, all willing servants under Shirey’s care and leadership.

Her success is attributed to allowing people to work on what they are interested in, giving them the leeway to make decisions to recruit and train others, and to take the lead in their area of work.

“It’s like a little army,” Shirey says of her volunteers. “One of the reasons I’ve been so successful in recruiting volunteers is because I give them lots of attention, and it becomes like a family.”

Volunteers accomplish a majority of tasks, ranging from writing checks, vacuuming, changing toilet paper, setting up shelters, gathering receipts, and manning the hand radio when cell phones fail in the deep parts of the county. “We don’t ask anyone to do anything that we won’t do ourselves,” says Shirey.

She claims that one cannot be demanding of volunteers, but she is known for her subtle gift of persuasion. “By lightly putting forth the idea,” she says, “people will jump in if they want to. If people appreciate what we do, they will come through and donate or give blood or volunteer.

“Throughout the course of a normal day, I am the hostess of the office,” says Shirey. “I like the planning the best. I just love to plan things to the fine detail. When people are willing to pick up on each aspect, and it works like clockwork, and we can quickly get out and serve those people, then that’s very satisfying.”

A typical daily routine includes e-mail communication with the regional office, national conference calls and organizational meetings. “I know a lot of people hate meetings,” says Shirey, “but I say, ‘Let’s not call it a meeting. Let’s just get together to figure out what we’re going to do and let’s just do it.’”

The office is staffed from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day with mostly volunteers, and only two fulltime equivalent of paid staff — Shirey and two part-timers.

IN HER MEMORY, TWO county disasters stand out as the worst.

March 1997 brought historic flooding to Amesville. Subsequent flooding in June 1998 was “6 feet deeper than historic,” according to Mayor Frank Hare.

Shirey remembers that people needed to be rescued from second-story windows. Response had to be split into two areas of service. Shirey stayed up all night in an elementary school shelter. Extensive follow-up occurred in visiting homes, providing for needs, and subsequently, fundraising.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita occurred in New Orleans, but affected Athens County in unexpected ways. Outpourings for offers of help meant extensive training and deploying of volunteers, plus gathering equipment they would need for aid. The room was filled with volunteers needing instruction, and Shirey had to explain the difficulty of the mission. Not liking to turn anyone away, she also realized the danger and intensity of the assignment. Evacuees poured in as well with basic emergency needs. This also required major fundraising.

The end of June is Shirey’s estimated departure. Her advice to whoever takes her place is simply this: don’t forget what the Red Cross is here for. She says it’s too easy for an agency to focus on staff, salary and structure instead of core values. She feels satisfied with what she has accomplished, though things have not always been perfect. “I won’t be kicking myself, saying ‘Oh my gosh, I never got that done.’ Unless I don’t get my desk cleaned off,” she adds, laughing.

ON WEEKENDS, SHIREY HAS the energy to break for a moment of solace in a pine grove off the side yard of her house. The birds sing, and she can tell where the deer have been. She tries not to think about work as she enjoys the scenery.

She believes the 23 years she put into the Red Cross has grown her personally, equipped her with many skills, but also satisfied her need to do something worthwhile. She doesn’t believe in retiring and staying at home. As long as she is able, Sandy Shirey will never stop living a life of service.

Mickey Hart for Athens: Glimpses of Home

What one man builds, another calls it home
By Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)

From the beginning, Mickey Hart has looked at the bigger picture.
“I see myself as a generalist,” says Hart, the director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center on campus. “And I like working to improve the quality of life with whatever group I’m connected with.”
Whether managing his previously-owned restaurant; playing euchre at card tables with patients of the now-closed Athens Mental Health Center; overseeing life in concrete-blocked rooms of the residence halls; chatting inside the third floor LGBT Center in Baker; or stripping 50-year-old wallpaper off the walls of his own house, his lasting impact is to build comfortable points of connection to which anyone can return.
He keeps a few goals in mind: service to others; hospitality; and leaving things better than the state in which it was found.
Hart was born and raised in the beautiful backyard of tourist-attracting Hocking Hills, in Laurelville. Small town life fostered tight-knit social gatherings, of which Hart was an observer. “In a really small town,” Hart says, “businesses and restaurants can be a community building piece.”
Fresh out of high school, the future before him, with no encouragement to go further, he began work at Bob Evans. He hosted, bussed tables, and worked the kitchen area and out front, fully servicing customers. “I enjoyed it,” says Hart, “because I got to see all parts of the operation.”
When asked to consider becoming manager, he took his knowledge of restaurant operation and invested in an un-leased business. Hart formed a business partnership with his former school bus driver, and Sue and Mic’s Village Café came to life. A mom and pop hometown diner, its specialties were homemade comfort food. Owning it gave Hart awareness of his ability and power to serve others’ needs. “Everyone that hadn’t really worked much, I employed lots of those people,” says Hart. “(The restaurant) makes people happy, but it’s also (serves) as a community-organizer.”
After five years, Hart admitted it was time to leave the business and pursue his Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts painting. The restaurant, renamed The Village Café once Hart’s monetary interests were removed, still runs strong. Hart’s mother is manager, and partners with his former partner. Hart continues to design menus and create specialty items such as sandwiches, salads and sauces.
Athens became home for Hart as soon as he arrived in the fall of 1990. He lived in the Athens Mental Health Center during the final two years of its Resident Volunteer program, making lifelong friends and learning to play euchre, pool, and talk with people no matter what their background.
“I’ve always done some kind of giving back work,” says Hart, “to help people out.” He also served as Resident Director in the dorms, with Teen Institute in peer leadership for substance abuse prevention, with Health Recovery Services coordinating retreats, and served on the board of Equality Ohio, and organization promoting equal rights of LGBT Ohioans. For the first time, Hart has decided to take a two-year sabbatical from devoting himself to any volunteer work, giving him time to renovate his home.
“A lot of the work I try to do is to create community,” says Hart. As director of the LGBT center, he focuses on being welcoming. “I try to make it feel like a home. My vision is that it’s the LGBT living room on campus.” In all his responsibilities, he pulls from both administrative and creative sides of himself. From making posters for the “Faces of Pride” every quarter, to organizing social and educational events, to creating table settings for the pride graduation events, he calls himself the glue. “Because the university population is always changing, someone needed to be here to be the glue, to hold the community together for the LGBT people,” Hart says. “I don’t think I hold it completely together, but it’s a binding thing and a lot of other people add to that.”
Hart believes Ohio University and Athens’ strong point is friendliness towards LGBT and Allied people. Hart stresses for students to always be aware of their surroundings, and thinking of ways they can positively give back to the local community. One specific way of making students aware is by archiving: clipping and saving posters and fliers, cataloguing history of LGBT issues on campus and in Athens. “Creating context helps students understand what came before, what they can build on, what may not have worked then but may work now, what may never work, and some things that work no matter what.”
Hart grieves the loss of personable-ness and small-school feel with recent changes to Athens and the university. “We had a big boom thirty years ago and now we have this wave of retirement happening. We have new administration in the upper levels and we’ve lost a lot of institutional memory,” he says. “We’re weathering a lot of change all at once.” He is also concerned about the imbalance between increase of students and decrease in faculty and staff. According to Hart, this affects the economy of Athens. “It’s been nice to see new business come to town,” says Hart, “but we lose what is uniquely Athens as we get more mainstream.”
Hart would like anyone to avoid “traveling a path”, cycling only through the path from home to work and back, keeping options limited. Better navigation comes when connected in many areas. In his opinion, one opportunity for involvement is often overlooked: United Campus Ministries. UCM’s mission is to engage the Ohio University and Athens communities, and has been an incubator for some such organizations as My Sister's Place, Careline, Appalachian Peace and Justice Network, Athens AIDS Task Force, River Valley Community School, and Southeastern Ohio Foodbank.
In his spare time, Hart hunts mushrooms with his 78-year-old grandmother, whom recently bagged over 6 pounds of the fungus. He says he’s slowing down a bit, and reflects on what is important. Of missing time for artwork, he says, “I’d like to make some beautiful things and add beauty to the world that way.”
“In Athens,” he says, “you have to get comfortable with people coming into your life, staying a few years, and then moving on.” These cycles are difficult, but part of the way of life here. He feels Athens is a safe and comfortable place overall. On sharing the same name as the famous drummer from the Grateful Dead, he says: “I am Mickey. My legal name is Michael, but from day one I was Mickey.”
Considering the big picture, Athens should be grateful for its own Mickey Hart.

Darlene Wasserman for Athens: Glimpses of Home

Local woman expands meaning of ‘home’

Athens: Glimpses of home

Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)
May 1, 2008

One of Darlene Wasserman’s titles is about to change, but the first half of all of her roles has always been the same.

As a home-schooling mother, she has nearly completed her responsibilities toward her son’s education. Until June, she will continue equipping her son for high-school graduation and his next steps in life. Her reasons, she says, are multi-faceted. “I do it because it needs to be done, I have the skills to do it, and it seems like the right thing to do for our family and our son.”

As a homemaker, she has expanded the definition of beyond taking care of the house. “It extends beyond the concept of keeping rooms clean, preparing food, taking care of clothing,” she says. “It goes into making an environment that meets the bigger needs of the people living in the house: a place to relax, be safe, to be enriched.”

As an advocate for the homeless, Darlene, who is married to Keith Wasserman, executive director of the Good Works homeless shelter in Athens, offers care and support behind the scenes. “We encounter a lot of people who haven’t had a home, don’t know how to make one, but want or need one,” says Wasserman.

From her contact with people in poverty, she believes they don’t learn how to dream. “It’s debilitating and handicapping to a person to not have a good home life,” says Wasserman. “It’s destructive to not have an environment that nurtures you, or to have a place that addresses your physical, emotional and soul needs.”

Wasserman arrived in Athens in the fall of 1976, as an undergraduate. Raised in a single-parent home, she and her two brothers did not question their mother’s work, their subsistence on food stamps or the support they received from the government. “I was aware of my mother not having energy or time to read or to have dreams,” recalls Wasserman. “Her focus was surviving.”

Wasserman is the only one in her family to complete a college degree. From Ohio University, Wasserman earned a bachelor’s in fine arts, with an emphasis in art education and a minor in English for teaching reading. Recently, she earned a master’s degree in reading.

During her first two years of living on campus, she mistakenly thought Court Street was the town. Soon she discovered people and places that would become fixtures in her life.

“I was living with nine other people: one married couple and seven women,” says Wasserman. “I was involved with a Christian community on Elliott, Mill and Oak, with a lot of sharing of meals, and popping in and out of one another’s houses.”

During this time, she met and dated the man who would become her husband. “I got married and my husband had a house then, and was doing something with his life that required his energy.”

The house, located at 3 Elliott St., had a sign posted next to the door: Good Works. Her husband, Keith, was seeking to remedy homelessness in Athens County.

“For me to live in a house where people were coming and going,” says Wasserman, “wasn’t that unusual.” She describes herself as flexible and adaptable no matter what goes on around her. “I don’t think I thought too much about what it was going to be like. Living with somebody else always has its moments whether you are married to them or sharing common living space.”

After about five years, their vision hadn’t changed, but their response to what was going on around them was different. Rapidly disappearing from the neighborhood were the little old ladies with flower gardens, who were replaced by more students. “Some behaviors were starting to bug us,” Wasserman acknowledges. “We realized we either had to accept behaviors or move.”

They bought property for themselves outside of town. Good Works moved to its current west-side Central Avenue location and the subsequent Luhrig Road property just to the west of Athens.

THE CITY IS NEVER completely dark. In the country, often you cannot see in front of you. Having been a city-dweller her entire life, Wasserman was shocked upon moving outside of town. “There is a sound to silence,” she says. “It has a weight to it. It can be disconcerting.” Yet space is something she has come to appreciate.

“I haven’t formed what Good Works is,” says Wasserman. “I haven’t guided what it has become.”

Never enjoying the spotlight, she is more comfortable in the background. She provides impact by being flexible. “I didn’t say (to Keith), ‘We are not taking anyone into our house.’ Or when he is gone a lot of weekends, evenings or night shifts I didn’t say, ‘You can’t do this.’ I think I enabled him to put the time and energy into it that it requires and demands.”

Darlene Wasserman believes Good Works has impacted the community in unrecognized ways. “The community would not be the same if what he (husband, Keith) started did not exist,” she says. “I can’t even imagine how our community would be different, but I know it would be.”

Good Works has sought to give to those who have needed it. People in poverty are focused on survival, on the basics of human need. “Their energies don’t go into, ‘What do I want to do 10 years from now?’ or ‘Where would I like to go? What would I like to see?’ They are not thinking about having a garden in their front yard, or what color their curtains are.”

Over the years, Wasserman has discovered deeper parts of Athens: “There’s this whole world of people that were born, grew up, and had children here. They have gotten old, had jobs and life not even connected to the university. They are manufacturers, homemakers and farmers.”

A group of women with whom she became involved changed her perspective on relationships. They valued connectedness and longevity.

“These women had gone to school together, stayed in the community, and had children. And their children went to school together,” says Wasserman. “So they could talk about a lot of their lives. It’s probably the way we’re supposed to live: deeply connected, aware of one another’s history, having a vocabulary that can give your life stability. To feel the depth that time and history give to life.”

She hopes to enjoy the alterations that will soon take place in her life. She hopes to once again nurture her artistic temperament through painting. Regardless of the circumstances, no doubt she will live as she always has, providing for others’ needs. “Athens is home and it will be home for most of our lives, if not all of our lives,” she says.

Athens: Glimpses of Home: Joe Schloss

Former coal miner steadies himself on solid ground

Athens: Glimpses of home

By Jenaye Antonuccio, Athens NEWS Contributor

(photo by Sherry DiBari)
April 17, 2008

When given a choice, most people would not work in utter darkness.

For Joe Schloss, however, it’s what he would choose even today. For 27 years, Schloss spent his daylight hours 400 feet underground in Southern Ohio Coal’s Meigs Division mines #31 and #2, working as a surveying supervisor.

“I would still be down there,” he said. “It’s real boring without it. It was good for my health, kept me in good shape.”

He said he misses the thrill and activity.

“There was always something that gave you an adrenaline rush. It’s similar to war,” he said. “You share a lot with people.”

But the mines are closed, and his doctor has required him to have core decompression surgery on both hips.

Schloss, 58, has been on long-term disability for a year and a half. While the left hip slowly heals, he is impatient to start his game again. He’s hoping for one summer of fun before the next surgery.

Most early mornings, you could have found him alone on the Athens Community Center courts, playing “Blade Ball.” A game of his invention, it utilizes skillful rollerblading in one-man basketball.

“I take the brakes off of the rollerblades, and just swirl to stop,” said Schloss.

His silver Jeep would have been parked nearby, with the license plates identifying him as a veteran. Most often, the Jeep would have been topless, open to the morning sun.

“When I get in the jeep, it’s not cold. It’s refreshing,” he said.

Schloss grew up in Athens. Living on Hudson Avenue in his youth, he mowed lawns to make money. The area was full of families. He had agreements to mow 40 yards.

“The students were all in dorms. You just didn’t see them,” Schloss said. “There was no Mill Street or Palmer Street problem.”

His junior year, he moved to a farm in Guysville in the eastern part of the county.

With no football team at Federal Hocking, he missed the game he loved most. Instead, his senior year, he helped coach the reserve team.

“When you live in the country, you have to drive a half hour to get a gallon of milk,” said Schloss. “You could never keep the car clean. You always need new vehicles because they are always falling apart.”

After a two-year Navy commitment during Vietnam, and a brief stint of employment in Columbus, Schloss moved back to Athens.

When he first interviewed for the mines, he didn’t want to go underground.

“I said, ‘Forget it,’” he recalled. “But I was with a group of guys that got along really well.”

Being in the dark all day, he had to identify his co-workers by the sound of their voice.

“You have to shine the light from your cap-lamp on their chest. If you shine it in their face, it makes people mad. They get temporary blindness.”

Sometimes, they were made to wait for downed equipment or elevators. Schloss made up games to pass the time.

“We’d take our hardhats off and play tag by the light from our luminary stickers; we couldn’t barely see them,” he laughed. “If we heard a rock or something stirring, we’d just jump.”

He witnessed mining methods change from conventional dynamite, to room-and-pillar extraction, to long-wall mining with a machine utilizing tungsten carbide drill bits that could remove an entire seam, leaving the earth to fall in behind it. He endured the constant din of machinery.

He noticed when familiar working conditions suddenly required warning signs and occasional chest x-rays. He saw accidents, and worried when others got lost.

“Never let a new guy underground alone,” said Schloss. “One didn’t read the map right. They found him the next morning. He’d been there 24 hours.”

He points to a spot on the map that would be the underworld to us, but to him, it is familiar and almost like home.

“I remember hanging up a sign that said, ‘Entering Gallia County’ right here, just to let the guys know.”

Today, he has to think about whether he is more comfortable in the dark.

“I say you can see better without the lights on,” declared Schloss.

When he meets with his former co-workers, he can see their familiar faces have changed with time. He gets through the winter cautiously, avoiding colds due to chronic bronchitis and asthma.

Reminiscing about the time he was offered a job in Utah with better conditions, he says of the state, “It was like visiting the moon. There wasn’t anything but tumbleweed.”

“I don’t regret staying,” Schloss said. “I love Athens.”

He takes advantage of the opportunities for entertainment the university offers.

“I like the excitement the kids bring to town,” Schloss said of students. “I don’t like their jaywalking.”

He enjoys the busy school year, and the lazy quiet of summer. He laments the lack of jobs in the area.

“We need a big manufacturing company to come in here,” declared Schloss. “We need to get some kind of plan, other work than just OU.”

With the weather turning, it’s likely he’ll be back on the basketball court. Like he used to do in the mines, he’ll be happier when he can invent games.

“If you make a game out of it, it keeps you from worrying,” he said.

For now, he throws balls to his dogs, who avoid the recently transplanted cactus in the yard he pridefully takes care of, above ground, in the town he loves.

more than they're cracked up to be....

ATHENS: GLIMPSES OF HOME

Seed hulls thickly cover the ground near the brick retaining wall at Wilson Hall. A few chipmunks pepper the scene, cheeks bulging. But the squirrels steal the show: nearly ten sit in a row atop the wall, devouring and mussing the neat piles of black oil sunflower seeds and unshelled peanuts that Vicky Butcher has laid. “Nineteen squirrels are the most I’ve seen,” says Butcher, an Administrative Assistant in the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Office. For nearly forty-five years, someone has fed the squirrels at Wilson Hall. Ms. Butcher has done so for eighteen and a half. “I have no idea how much I spend. If I knew I would probably stop,” Butcher says. “During the winter, I go through six 25- pound bags each. When it’s really bad, I also put out birdseed.” Over long weekends or breaks, a Guardian Angel takes her place. “He watches,” she says. “If I haven't put food out for a couple of days, he feeds them.”

It was 1908. Ohio University’s President Allston Ellis, reputedly showy and vain yet an able administrator, had recently had a major confrontation with the former University President, Charles Super. Ellis, having held office for seven years and would until his untimely fatal heart attack in 1920, was careworn. A series of unfavorable public criticisms had triggered a mandatory Presidential four-week vacation. He was slated to tour and observe eastern Normal Schools, which trained students to become teachers. Harvard was one of his stops. While being entertained by Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, something frolicking on Harvard’s Yard caught the eye of the man with a propensity for display. From a November 1902 edition of Harvard Illustrated Magazine, an article by George Allan England notes: “Every morning at seven our almoner fills the green boxes about the Yard, which serve as arboreal pantries. There is also a certain tin pan whither the squirrels come to drink; they are quite at home with us and know it.” On the fateful day of June 18, 1908, a committee was formed. From the Board of Trustees minutes: "A motion by Boyd, seconded by Kinnison, was unanimously adopted appointing Ellis, Welch, O'Bleness, Wood, Biddle, and Jones a committee to consider the advisability of securing squirrels for the campus. Said committee to report at a subsequent meeting of the board.”

Going out to sweep the chaff at the end of the day, they start to appear. “They recognize the sound of the broom,” Ms. Butcher says. They know her: she knickers, coaxing them with peanuts. ”The first few years I named them, got to know them. Then they would disappear and it hurt.” She holds her white bucket full of peanuts, smiling proudly, talking to them, worrying over one’s muddied nose. “Last summer’s drought drove them to water,” says Butcher. “When they came back I didn’t have as many of the old squirrels. I’ve had to retrain a new generation to trust me.”

It was the early 1990’s. President Charles Ping and President Kazuo Yamada continued to deepen the twenty-year-old rich bond between Ohio University and Chubu University in Japan. Numerous gift exchanges were made. Most notable: receiving cherry trees for the banks of the Hocking River near the Convocation Center, and giving a replica of Cutler Hall’s cupola, which was placed on a raised surface in a Japanese city park equivalent of our green. But less renowned is the gift of grey squirrels. Ping said, “The City Council came to Athens and were quite taken with the squirrels. They asked if we would ship some to them so they could release them at a new city park. As it turned out, it was very complicated to ship live animals.” Dr. James Bryant, then Vice President for Regional Higher Education, said, “When talking with the city council, the squirrels would come in through the open window of my Cutler Hall office and run around on my desk. The Japanese fell in love with them.” They specifically requested twenty-three squirrels, no more and no less. “You cannot put more than one squirrel in a cage, especially stressed ones,” said Dr. Bryant. “We had to have twenty-three cages, each with appropriate food and water receptacles and use a licensed breeder to capture them. We had to get confirmation and an export license. We took all the seats out of an O.U. plane and flew to Chicago, then to Tokyo. From there it was a two-hour drive in busses to get to Komaki City, which is on an island.” The Japanese were waiting for the squirrels as the centerpiece display at an International Fair. There were no other squirrels on the island so releasing them was not advised. “They had constructed an enormous, circus-wagon like cage with wheels to move to the park where they would be kept afterwards,” said Dr. Bryant. “It was one of the most interesting undertakings in all my years.” One squirrel died a few days later. A squirrel’s life expectancy is little more than a year. One year later, there were only fourteen left.
Dr. Robert Lilley was a visiting professor to Chubu from April to June in 1997. From his journal entry, June 19, 1997: “Tohru Washizu, Director and chief of the Komaki International Affairs Division met with us. We hiked up the hill to a park where the Gray Squirrels given by Ohio University are kept. It was very hot and muggy, and most of the squirrels were hiding, but the ones we saw looked in good repair.” On a sign at the park, the header at the top said: “Cute International Ambassadors of Friendship, American Eastern Grey Squirrels.” The rest reads: “These eastern gray squirrels are a gift from the people of Ohio to the people of the City of Komaki as a symbol of the friendship between the City of Komaki and Ohio University. You can see these squirrels in all corners of the rich green University of Ohio campus." Josep Rota, Associate Provost for International Affairs said, “Unfortunately there is no squirrel left on the campus of Chubu University. I am inclined to believe they died because of the environmental conditions. The climate and similar factors were just too different.”

Bark is peeled off of the trees in strips. Squirrels carry old used tissues or bits of fluff. They are nesting. In the pre-spring barren trees, the nests, or drays, stand out like blots of ink on blank paper. All over the grass, little holes have been dug, evidence of a search. “Our grounds people do a wonderful job keeping the grounds looking good. They use those big leaf vacuums,” says Ms. Butcher. “The squirrels don’t bury the nuts deeply, they just find a tuft of grass. When the grounds are cleared, most of the peanuts that they have hoarded get ground up and shipped out somewhere else.”

Whether our squirrels carry Harvard genes, or suffer the loss of their Chubu-bound relatives, some things have not changed: squirrels like to make their homes on campus greens. Keeping safe from predators, they prefer traveling in groves of trees rather than ground travel. The eastern gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, officially classified as a rodent, can weigh up to 1.5 pounds, measure 16- 20 inches long, and always flash a white belly that stands out amongst the speckled grey. Characteristically bushy tails can be used as a parachute, an umbrella, a blanket, and a cushion for falls, and for balance and communication. A squirrel must habitually gnaw with its constantly growing teeth in order to prevent the puncturing of their own skull.
Typically hoarding more food than it can eat, a grey squirrel practices singular burying, called “scatter hoarding”. Most nuts are forgotten and not recovered, which leads to the inadvertent planting of a tree. Once rampant in the area, droves of squirrels would migrate in waves up to half a billion in size, disturbing efforts of agricultural production. Ohio law required a quota of squirrel skins to be turned in with tax payments. Chestnuts were a major foraging choice, until the blight obliterated nearly all chestnut trees, reducing squirrel populations. Increasing human settlement also pushed out the tree planters, which brought about another law: only six squirrels per bag during hunting season.
Do they seem more intelligent, these creature we view every day? Does their chirruping have a slight Bostonian accent? Do they aspire for more, or pine for things lost? Whatever the case, they have made their home with us, with no intention of ever leaving.

They leap with soundless grace, lilting on air. A crow caws suddenly, and they scatter, prone to instinct. One lets out a screeching alarm, warning the others. It carries, message conveyed from tree to tree. “They are still wild creatures,” Ms. Butcher says, “but I do think the squirrels add a lot to the campus. To see the students so thoroughly delighted (about) these critters running around, that gives me a thrill, too.” After a few minutes, one hesitantly approaches, freezes, paws poised in question. She tosses a peanut. Within 5 seconds, it has chewed through the shell, corn-on-the-cob style, going for the gold.

Special thanks to: Bill Kimok, Susan Knoer, Judy Connick and Doug McCabe of the University Archives; Kelee Riesbeck and Joanne Prisley of Athens County Historical Society; Dick Piccard, Josep Rota, Dr. Robert Lilley, Dr. James Bryant, Dr. Charles Ping; Betty Hollow, Mariel M. Jungkunz, Sally Linder, and Vicky Butcher. Translation by eric@jcastle.info.