Exchange program creates lasting bond
If you’ve ever hosted a foreign exchange student, or are considering doing so, this story might inspire you. Lee Glesne has been retired in Wisconsin for 35 years, but there’s a good chance many former St. Charles School District students and employees remember him.
Glesne, 86, worked in the district for 30 years, with long stints as principal at Davis and Munhall schools.
His name came up last week when Bill Warner, himself a former teacher and dean at St. Charles High, mentioned he received a letter from Glesne that had some significance with current events.
Glesne knew this letter would trigger Warner’s interest because he was in charge of the American Field Service student exchange programs in the late 1960s.
In 1968, the Glesne family hosted Masashi Kodama, a foreign exchange student from Japan. Kodama, today a doctor in Akita City, Japan, spent that school year in the Glesne home and embraced the St. Charles community.
After the earthquake earlier this year, Glesne was relieved to get a letter from Kodama, saying his family was fine.
While the news about a family in Japan not suffering from the terrible quake was great to hear, this was just as much about the power of the bonds created through AFS.
In Kodama’s letter to Glesne, it is clear he never forgot St. Charles. And this is something to remember if you ever host an exchange student.
“Every year I get a Christmas card from you, it reminds me of my AFS year at St. Charles and it makes me want to hurry to see the Glesnes,” Kodama wrote. “I never forget the happy and significant days that the Glesne family gave me. I miss you and I want to see you.”
Boogie along Third Street: This Matt Rodewald fellow has the dancing bug and he can’t seem to get rid of it.Those who want to be part of it can join Rodewald, an NBC-TV traffic reporter, on Friday along Third Street in Geneva.Rodewald will bring the TV cameras back to his hometown, as the Geneva High School graduate will get to brag about Swedish Days a bit during his traffic report and #147;Dance Friday#148; segment that ends his Friday telecasts.Rodewald is no stranger to this dancing stuff. He joined other TV celebrities to participate in a dance contest last year to raise money for cancer research and has been involved in fundraising dance challenges with reporters from other parts of the country. Here#146;s the catch: Chamber officials are encouraging residents to don Swedish blue and yellow colors to participate in the broadcast by coming to Third Street starting at 5 a.m. Yes, that#146;s 5 in the morning.Live shots of Geneva will take place throughout the broadcast, until the dance segment closing at 6:55 a.m. #8212; and, you guessed it, everyone is invited to join in on #147;Dance Friday.#148;Not hotel#146;s call: Those driving through downtown St. Charles during evening rush hour June 10 probably weren#146;t too pleased to see Main Street blocked to traffic.At first glance, one might think the Hotel Baker had something to do with work crews choosing that time to fix an antenna on the hotel roof.Cricket cellphone company owns the antenna, and there was concern about it falling off the roof after damage from strong winds the night before.An engineer from Cricket looked at the antenna in the morning and felt it would be OK until it could be replaced, but another engineer in the afternoon felt it would be better to err on the side of safety and get it more secure that day in case of another storm, Mayor Don DeWitte said.#147;By the time a crane was ordered and showed up, it was getting late in the afternoon, but fire Chief (Pat) Mullen determined for safety that Main Street traffic had to be stopped, even though it was one of the busier times with Pride of the Fox going on,#148; DeWitte said. #147;When the antenna is replaced in the future, we#146;ll have more say about when that should happen ... like on a Sunday morning.#148;Stars shine at Baker: The broken antenna wasn#146;t the only reason Hotel Baker has been on my mind. Recent visits at the hotel by the rich and famous had me thinking about my friend Mary Ferson Fuller, who was a descendant of the Ferson family that was among the first settlers in St. Charles.Mary spent most of her life in St. Charles and we became friends after she asked me to visit to look over her history scrapbooks and listen to her stories about the parties at the Club Arcada and Hotel Baker. She waxed nostalgic about the days when the hotel hosted Hollywood actors and musicians who would be performing at the Arcada Theatre. She kept those memories with her until the day she died, and she would have been excited to hear that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Hollywood star Hugh Jackman were mingling with area residents the past few weeks during their stays at the hotel.Jones was here on NFL lockout business, while Jackman joined songwriter Richard Marx onstage during a recent show at the Arcada.Mary would also be quite pleased to know that night life in St. Charles is doing quite well these days.dheun@sbcglobal.net