Tuning a New Ear to Seeger

by Carolyn Gonzales

In a 1971 interview folk singer Pete Seeger said he uses songs to illustrate a story and dialogue between songs to carry the story forward. David King Dunaway, UNM professor of English, carries Seeger’s message further.

Dunaway received $15,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Arts on Radio and Television advisory panel to produce three one-hour radio documentaries on Seeger.

Dunaway created, “Pete Seeger and American Folk Music Revivals,” which aired on international public radio stations (PRI). His interviews have resulted in journal articles, archives, books, and radio interviews.

A 2007 film, “Pete Seeger: The Power of Song,” by filmmaker Jim Brown is another format where Dunaway used his interviews. Dunaway even has a cameo or two in the film.

Dunaway authored, “How Do I Keep From Singing: Pete Seeger,” by McGraw Hill in 1981, and he recently updated the biography.

“I discovered that a great deal of the material that I compiled and transcribed from my interviews would never be in the book, would never be found. So I am publishing a book of oral histories on Seeger, based on the interviews,” Dunaway says. He notes that two graduate students from the Department of English, Molly Beer and Felicia Karas, are co-authors on the book.

Dunaway was the only academic at a Seeger symposium and delivered the keynote. The event honored Seeger’s family. Pete’s father, Charles Seeger, was an ethnomusicologist.  Dunaway presented 2,000 pages of transcribed Seeger interviews at the symposium. “They have been digitized, indexed, and made an accessible collection within the folk life archive at the Library of Congress,” Dunaway says.

Dunaway’s connection to Seeger goes way back. “I met Seeger when I was four. He was a family friend. As I grew up in the 50s and 60s, I saw Seeger as one of the few American dissidents who didn’t bow his head low in anti-Communist campaigns,” Dunaway says.

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Charting Health and Development

By Luke Frank

How do air and water quality in a given community affect the development and health of its children growing up? What about local plant life and wildlife habitat? Are there specific genetic trends or predispositions within a geographic area? And what of a community’s food staples and opportunities for activity?

These are some of the questions UNM HSC’s Department of Pediatrics will be answering in its part of the massive 26-year NIH National Children’s Study. The study’s first phase - a five-year, $12.3 million research contract - partners UNM with the people of Valencia County.

Because of factors like birth rate, urban and rural characteristics, ethnicity, health care accessibility, and more, 1,000 pregnant Valencia County women will be recruited and enrolled. Their newborn children will be regularly examined from birth to age 21, to better understand the multiple environmental and genetic influences on their health and development. Researchers will examine how these elements interact with one another across several U.S. sites.

“This is an extraordinary study involving 100,000 pregnant women and their children nationally, the likes of which we haven’t seen in the U.S.,” says principal investigator Robert Annett. “And the potential benefits to the health of New Mexicans and communities in Valencia County are equally large.”

UNM Health Sciences Center’s Clinical and Translation Science Center also will partner in the research. For more information on the National Children’s Study, visit www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov or http://hsc.unm.edu/research/ or call 505/272-3679.

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Dispensing History

By Carolyn Gonzales

The University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy educates the modern pharmacist while cherishing the history of the practice and the college. The college currently houses, in very tight quarters, memorabilia from the profession and the professionals who have served communities statewide.

John Pieper, dean and professor, College of Pharmacy, took several pharmacy students and a U-Haul to Hobbs where they picked up wood and glass apothecary cabinets replete with current and classic chemical concoctions that belonged to Curtis Lindersmith, Jr.., a 50-year pharmacist who owned and operated Nizhoni Pharmacy in Gallup for 30 years.

One small room in the College is dedicated to housing the museum. A traditional medicine display, photos of the college’s early leaders, and a pre-statehood pharmacist’s license vie for space in the tiny room among other objects.

A small case at next to the College’s entrance also features a number of items including the original metal College of Pharmacy sign. The college’s first home, from 1948 through 1975, was in what is now the Biology Annex, designed by John Gaw Meem. 

The Biology Annex bears evidence of its earlier role. Murals depicting traditional and modern medicines were painted in 1950. When the Biology Department took over the building in 1975, the murals were painted over; however, remnants of them remain above the dropped ceiling.

“Pharmacy is the oldest health professional education program at UNM. The college’s first 30 years were in that building. We would like to reclaim a piece of our history and expose the mural remnants to show our heritage to the UNM community,” Pieper says.

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