Other Voices

Roberta Villanova Nunn was not happy early in her teaching career that social studies textbooks portrayed African peoples as backwards. She had been to Morocco and understood the richness of its culture. Late in her teaching career — teaching children foreign languages at Berne-Knox-Westerlo — she felt like a hero as kids enjoyed her sombrero when she taught Spanish and her beret when she taught French. For this week’s podcast, Nunn donned the hat she wore on African safaris. Nunn, who lives in Westerlo, grew up in Hudson, learning Italian as her first language. When she was 6, she journeyed with her family to Italy and has traveled the world ever since. Some of the treasures she has collected over the years from around the globe are on display at the Westerlo Library through August.

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Harold F. Greene is philosophical about the death of his son, a two-star Army general, shot in Afghanistan five years ago. His son, Harold J. Greene, who got good results working collegially in the Army, was there to train Afghan soldiers and to help the country develop training so it could carry on after the United States’ withdrawal. He chuckles as he remembers the happy times with his three sons growing up in the Guilderland home where, at almost 90, he still lives. The elder Greene says in this week’s podcast that everyone has an allotted time on this Earth. He also knew, having served in the Army himself at the end of World War II, that death was a possibility. And, he notes with pride that his son’s son went on to West Point and is himself pursuing a military career.

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Nancy Lawton has kept the memory of her husband, Douglas, alive with an annual golf outing that celebrates him and raises funds for worthy causes. Douglas Lawton, who was raised in Guilderland Center, followed in his father’s footsteps, serving in the volunteer fire department there. His fellow firefighters, whom Nancy Lawton refers to as a “brotherhood,” suggested the tournament after he died in 2014. Lawton speaks with honesty and strength in this week’s podcast, about her husband’s courageous three-year battle with a rare form of colon cancer and about her life as a widow. She finds great joy and comfort in her family, particularly her three grandchildren. The Douglas Lawton Golf Outing takes place this year on July 17 at Orchard Creek Golf Club in Altamont. Money raised will go to the Guilderland Center Fire Department as well as to the Veterans Miracle Center in Albany.

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Chasity McGivern is the area representative for the American Scandinavia Student Exchange, known as ASSE, a not-for-profit organization that places foreign-exchange students around the world. Cameron Goss, left, from Australia, and Julia Solé, from Spain, were both high honor students at Berne-Knox-Westerlo this year. On this week’s podcast, the girls talk about the close bonds they’ve forged with their host families and how much they enjoyed the nurturing atmosphere of BKW. They also appreciated the chance to share their home-countries’ cultures.

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Tom Smith is 87 now, although he notes with a grin that he may actually be 88 since one year, after crossing the international dateline, he celebrated two birthdays. Smith recently took an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C with other veterans to see the memorials there, including the life-like poncho-clad statues depicting American soldiers in Korea. “It was one of the best days of my life,” says Smith in this week’s podcast. Smith, one of five brothers who all served in the military, enjoyed the pageantry of the day — uniformed cadets at the Christian Brothers Academy, a motorcycle escort to the airport, greetings from well-wishers both taking off and landing, meeting Senator Bob Dole, in a wheelchair just like Smith — as much as the memorials. He remembers, as a kid, a trip to D.C. with his father when he first saw the Lincoln Memorial and felt that Lincoln was looking at him. He felt the same way on this trip.

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Susan E. Leath, Bethlehem’s town historian since 2007, is featured in this week’;s podcast. In those 12 years, she has informed residents of their town’s past — starting with the ancient Mohicans and Mohawks — which she feels is essential for its future. Leath has done this in traditional ways: putting together exhibits, giving talks, writing columns and books — the third just recently published. She has also used more unorthodox methods: leading hikes while lecturing, paddling along the Hudson River and Vlomankill while pointing out landmarks to other kayakers, and soon overseeing “A Visit with Slingerlands’ Founding Family.” On June 28, visitors can meet with costumed volunteers portraying Congressman John I. Slingerland, an abolitionist and fighter of patroon rents; his brother; and their mother — working from scripts written by Leath. The event is a fundraiser for the Friends of the Slingerland Family Burial Vault, which seeks to restore the vault owned by the town of Bethlehem, off of New Scotland Road.

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Castina Charles is a poet and activist; both of her passions are fueled by her drive to educate, to make people understand different perspectives — including her own as a black woman in modern America. In this week’s podcast, she reads poems that are at once playful and pointed. She also talks about the Women’s Empowerment Conference and March she organized, which included Christine Ahn who led a women’s march across the Korean DMZ, and Lacey Schwartz who made the documentary, “Little White Lie,” about being raised in a Jewish family only to discover at 18 that her biological father was a black man. Charles makes politics personal.

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Elizabeth Zunon, who grew up on the Ivory Coast in Africa and spent her teenage years in Guilderland, just published a book she wrote and illustrated, “Grandpa Cacao: A Tale of Chocolate From Farm to Family.” She is the little girl pictured on the cover of the book with the grandfather she knew through family stories but never met. Her book, dedicated to “all the Grandmas and Grandpas who broke their backs working in the fields so we wouldn’t have to,” is rooted in a particular family — hers — but has universal themes. In this week’s podcast, Zunon talks about her life as an artist and now, after years of illustrating others’ books, as an author.

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Andrew Schotz and Saranac Hale Spencer each started careers in journalism at The Altamont Enterprise. Schotz has gone on to report for and later edit a variety of publications in Maryland — daily and weekly newspapers, both family-owned and part of a chain, as well as an online news site. Spencer covered courts for The Legal Intelligencer in Philadelphia, then covered crime and education for The News Journal, a Gannett daily in Delaware, and now works for factcheck.org, monitoring the accuracy of what is said by major political players in the United States. In this week’s podcast, they discuss the challenges of finding truth in an era of “alternative facts,” hostility toward the press, and shrinking newsroom budgets.

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Fabrice Liegeois was raised and shaped by the grandmother he adored, Jeannine Robert. A blonde beauty who looked like Marlene Dietrich and spoke five languages, she killed an SS officer who fell in love with her during the German occupation of France. She knifed him in order to save her best friend, a Jew. The young women fled to Paris. Robert used the copy of “Mein Kampf” that the Nazi officer had given her as a sort of passport when she smuggled papers for the French resistance. When Liegeois was 8, he saw the American film “Heaven Can Wait” and thought of the football players as modern-day knights. He was determined to play American football — he did, for a French club team — and went on to become a sports journalist for L’Équipe. He is currently writing his second novel, which he describes as a waltz — with three interlocking steps in three different centuries — all set in Voorheesville. He was here to do research, and shares his passion for truth-seeking in this week’s podcast.

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