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High-Tech Tools Help StudentsPut Veterans in Limelight

By Rhea R. Borja

State College, Pa.

High-wattage floodlights showcased the petite woman perched before a digital videocamera and two high school students here. In a soft, gentle voice, 80- year old Pennsylvania native Ena Belden spoke of a war-torn world thousands of miles across the ocean and of a time almost 60 years past. In 1944, she was a young U.S. Army nurse in Paris as the Allied forces battled Germany, Japan, and Italy in World War II.

As the retired nurse spoke, 17-year-old interviewer Caroline Pearsall sat still, concentrating on the veteran's answers. Next to her, 17-year-old classmate Randy Stark checked the videocamera and listened through headphones. The two are among 16 high school seniors who used digital technologies to interview and record Pennsylvania World War II veterans during a project for the Pennsylvania Governor's School of Information Technology. The school, a six-week summer program, took place at Pennsylvania State University.

The student oral-history project, which will soon link to a student-created Web site, is part of the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project at the American Folklife Center. Established under legislation signed into law in 2000, the national project has spurred volunteers to document the oral biographies of veterans and civilians in World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and...