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English professor Buddy Levy back on History Channel

Buddy Levy
Buddy Levy

Narrative historian and WSU English professor Buddy Levy is making a return to the History Channel.

Levy, the author of a 2005 biography about early American adventurer Davy Crockett, is among the experts interviewed for the cable network’s latest documentary series “The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen.” He appears in episodes 3 and 4, which air March 21 and 28.

“When we first talked it was clear they were looking to understand more than just who the people were,” Levy said. “They wanted to know about the frontier and what it was like to set out into the unknown.”

The new series by executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio explores the formative period of history featuring what it describes as the first 75 volatile years of the United States—from the Revolution through the California Gold Rush. It was a time when historical figures such as Crockett, Daniel Boone, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, John Fremont and Andrew Jackson spearheaded the fledgling nation’s expansion west into uncharted land.

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WSU Insider

Pullman Radio

Bringing the past into the future: Huna Heritage Foundation debuts online archive

It’s been the mission of the Huna Heritage Foundation (HHF) to perpetuate the Huna Tlingit culture and promote education for future generations, and it plans to do both of those things with the launch of its digital archive.

Kimberly Christen
Christen

One of the challenges HHF faced was finding a platform that met its needs. While it’s HHF’s goal to share pieces of culture and history, some information should only be accessible to certain people or groups, said HHF Executive Director Amelia Wilson. It’s HHF’s goal to not only host photos but to eventually have audio and video recordings as well, but some of that might be sensitive material — like clan songs, owned by a clan, which would only be made available to people inside that clan. HHF settled on the open source platform and content management system called Mukurtu. It was developed by Dr. Kimberly Christen of Washington State University to meet the archival needs of an indigenous group in Australia, Wilson said.

“This software is grassroots, community driven, and (a) customizable site that would allow us to draw upon our Hoonah cultural protocols to direct our access levels,” she said.

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Capital City Weekly

Juneau Empire

Opinion: Billy Graham was on the wrong side of history

Racial tensions are rising, the earth is warming, and evangelicals are doing little to help. That may be Graham’s most significant, and saddest, legacy.

By Matthew Avery Sutton, Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of History

Matthew Avery Sutton
Sutton

When Billy Graham stands before the judgment seat of God, he may finally realize how badly he failed his country, and perhaps his God. On civil rights and the environmental crisis, the most important issues of his lifetime, he championed the wrong policies.

Graham was on the wrong side of history.

The world’s most famous evangelist let his apocalyptic anticipation of the coming kingdom of God blind him to the realities of living in this world.

For Graham, the Bible had a clear message for Christians living in what he believed were humans’ last days on earth. Individuals alone can achieve salvation; governments cannot. Conversions change behaviors; federal policies do not.

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The Guardian

Girls Who Code teaches that computer skills aren’t just for boys

Local chapter of national organization builds wall of ideas in first year

Regina McMenomy
McMenomy

Regina McMenomy, an English instructor at Washington State University Vancouver, is facilitating a new chapter of Girls Who Code, a national organization whose mission is to provide computer science instruction to young women and girls through clubs, classes and online programs.

McMenomy isn’t a coder herself. That’s part of the point of Girls Who Code, she said. She’ll be learning along with the group how to write computer-generated music, develop games or design websites. It all depends on their interests.

“The agency is entirely theirs,” she said.

Emma Anderson, 12, and Ivy Isch, 11, are friends who attend Discovery Middle School. The pair huddled around a computer, experimenting with EarSketch, a program that teaches Python and JavaScript through the creation of music.

Emma enjoys learning code in a room of all girls, she said. It’s important that girls don’t “grow up thinking only guys can do” programming.

The girls, who meet once a week on Wednesdays, will over the next 14 weeks develop a virtual murder mystery using a variety of code and programming skills.

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The Columbian

Series to explore growth of Clark County through residents’ personal tales

“How We Came to this Place,” a series of community conversations will explore how residents of Clark County, Wash., got there as individuals and as a community.

The Clark County Stories Project, beginning January 27, is a partnership of the Clark County Historical Museum, Washington State University Vancouver and Fort Vancouver Regional Library District. It aims to inspire and train community members to collect the oral histories of residents who have witnessed the changes of the last 30 to 50 years.

Sue Peabody“Each of us has a story about how we came here,” said WSU Vancouver history professor Sue Peabody, one of the project founders who also is a Clark County Historical Society trustee. “Each of us can see the rapid development and changes in our communities.”

The population of Clark County has more than doubled over the last 30 years to almost 500,000. More than half — 54 percent — of its residents were born in another state; 10 percent were born in another country.

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The Columbian

Camas Post Record