CAMPUS

News for NMU Employees

Publications

Dan Truckey (Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center) has two recent publications to his credit. “The Most Fertile Source of American Folklore” appears in the May/June issue of Michigan History magazine. It discusses the 1938 folklife study of the Great Lakes region conducted by Alan Lomax at the request of the Library of Congress, but also introduces six lesser-known men and women who were collecting and preserving Michigan’s heritage during the same period: Ivan Walton; Thelma James and Emelyn Gardner; Earl Clifton Beck; Richard Dorson; and Aili Kolehmainen Johnson, a Northern State College (now NMU) alumna. Truckey also wrote an article on the origin of his family name for “The Storykeepers Project” on the blog of the French Canadian Cultural Alliance for the Great Lakes. It can be viewed here

Kevin Waters (Criminal Justice), a former agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, was quoted in an Associated Press story that was circulated by a number of print, broadcast and online media nationwide. Prosecutors accusing former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez of a double murder were seeking tattoo artists as potential witnesses. Hernandez reportedly bears tattoos that typically symbolize crimes committed. “I would say the cops probably see the stars and know, in some circles, that a star does represent a kill and want a tattoo artist to come in and see if (Hernandez) said anything about that,” Waters said in the story. See the full version as it appeared in the Detroit Free Press.