History project wants your Geneva story

What was it like yelling yourself hoarse cheering on the 2008 Geneva Vikings football team to postseason glory?

Were you in the eighth-grade class President Ronald Reagan visited in 1982 at St. Peter School?

Or maybe you gave birth at Community Hospital, where now stands an office and shopping complex.

Whatever your Geneva story is, StoryCorps and the Geneva History Center want to hear it.

To celebrate the city's 175th anniversary, the center has arranged to bring the nonprofit oral history project here to interview 24 residents Nov. 1 to 4.

The tales will become part of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

And you can eventually hear the stories on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" program, where StoryCorps is a regular feature.

"It is a very fun project," said Margaret Selakovich, the history center educator who made the arrangements. "They don't have to be serious."

Selakovich is taking applications. Each interview involves two people, and lasts about 40 minutes, guided by a StoryCorps expert. They will be recorded with StoryCorps' equipment, and a CD copy given to the participants. With their permission, a second copy will be preserved both at the history center and at the American Folklife Center. Stories may also be made available on the StoryCorps website.

StoryCorps promotes the value of recording everyday folks' observations, for future generations to hear. More than 60,000 people have been recorded since the project began in 2003.

Selakovich has been working with local teachers, and plans workshops this fall to teach people how to record oral histories on their own for the National Day of Listening, scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving. People are welcome to submit those kinds of recordings anytime to the history center archives, she said.

Applications for the StoryCorps project are due Oct. 1. Forms can be found at genevahistorycenter.org or at the center, 113 S. Third St. For more information on the project, call Selakovich at (630) 232-4951.

For more information about StoryCorps, visit storycorps.org.