October 19, 2005: Headlines: COS - Tonga: Obituaries: Albuquerque Tribune: Tonga RPCV Preston McCrossen dies
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Tonga:
Peace Corps Tonga :
The Peace Corps in Tonga:
October 19, 2005: Headlines: COS - Tonga: Obituaries: Albuquerque Tribune: Tonga RPCV Preston McCrossen dies
Tonga RPCV Preston McCrossen dies
As a Peace Corps volunteer director in the South Pacific's Kingdom of Tonga, McCrossen landed on an island where everybody knew everybody. News traveled fast on what islanders called "the coconut wireless."
Tonga RPCV Preston McCrossen dies
McCrossen set up Indian center
By Jan Jonas
Tribune Reporter
October 19, 2005
In 1977, Preston McCrossen learned how the coconut wireless worked.
As a Peace Corps volunteer director in the South Pacific's Kingdom of Tonga, McCrossen landed on an island where everybody knew everybody. News traveled fast on what islanders called "the coconut wireless."
Only two years before, McCrossen used his own connections to gather money to create the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. But he and the other founders wanted American Indians to run the show. Once the center opened, McCrossen, who is not American Indian, moved on to other pursuits, including his three-year Peace Corps stint.
McCrossen died Saturday at age 72 after battling ill health for five years.
Macon McCrossen, his wife of 49 years, said he was often fearless - but also tender.
"He was the kind of person who we would nominate to say, `The emperor has no clothes on,' when the rest of us were too afraid," she said. "But he had this kind of gentle side. When someone was in distress, he could talk and understand. When you saw it happen, you were never quite expecting it."
Raised in Santa Fe in the 1930s, Õ40s and Õ50s, McCrossen was used to being around all kinds of people. "He didn't know there were differences between people because of race," Macon McCrossen said. He only knew social and economic differences.
A bus trip to Mexico when he was 18 gave him not only a love for the country but a desire to help people living in poverty.
After attending the University of New Mexico and earning a degree in chemistry, McCrossen worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"He didn't want to be a scientist because his interest all along was this international political science," his wife said.
So he became a consultant for American Indians on issues of economy and poverty. He worked with the All Indian Pueblo Council in New Mexico and was sent to New York City to work with urban American Indians.
He did the same kind of work in Alaska and Washington state for tribes requesting help.
"I don't know what reservation you could name he hadn't been on," Macon McCrossen said.
He became interested in American Indian culture because "he just related very well to that."
To develop the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, McCrossen sought government economic development funds and money from local business owners.
He included the arts community, working with native artists to enhance the building and grounds.
As much as he enjoyed working with tribes and pueblos, McCrossen wasn't all work. He liked to play.
"He lived hard," she said. He liked parties and after a few drinks of tequila, he would tell great stories.
"In one sense, he was very conservative and in another he didn't get in this job where he had the retirement and that security" that other people seem to covet, said his wife.
When Macon McCrossen was about to marry him, she sent a photograph to her mother.
Her future husband was "sitting in front of an adobe kiva fireplace and on the mantle is a statue of the Virgin Mary. He's in Pancho Villa huraches with rubber-tire soles, smoking a cigarette," she said. "He was not a Catholic; he was not religious. Here was this statue he had. He was just comfortable with that."
Services were held this morning.
When this story was posted in October 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| 'Celebration of Service' a major success The Peace Corps Fund's 'Celebration of Service' on September 29 in New York City was a major success raising approximately $100,000 for third goal activities. In the photo are Maureen Orth (Colombia); John Coyne (Ethiopia) Co-founder of the Peace Corps Fund; Caroline Kennedy; Barbara Anne Ferris (Morocco) Co-founder; Former Senator Harris Wofford, member of the Advisory Board. Read the story here. |
| PC apologizes for the "Kasama incident" The District Commissioner for the Kasama District in Zambia issued a statement banning Peace Corps activities for ‘grave’ social misconduct and unruly behavior for an incident that occurred on September 24 involving 13 PCVs. Peace Corps said that some of the information put out about the incident was "inflammatory and false." On October 12, Country Director Davy Morris met with community leaders and apologized for the incident. All PCVs involved have been reprimanded, three are returning home, and a ban in the district has since been lifted. |
| Why blurring the lines puts PCVs in danger When the National Call to Service legislation was amended to include Peace Corps in December of 2002, this country had not yet invaded Iraq and was not in prolonged military engagement in the Middle East, as it is now. Read the story of how one volunteer spent three years in captivity from 1976 to 1980 as the hostage of a insurrection group in Colombia in Joanne Marie Roll's op-ed on why this legislation may put soldier/PCVs in the same kind of danger. |
| The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related stories in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can find hundreds of stories about what RPCVs with your same interests or from your Country of Service are doing today. If you have a web site, support the "Peace Corps Library" and link to it today. |
| Friends of the Peace Corps 170,000 strong 170,000 is a very special number for the RPCV community - it's the number of Volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps since 1961. It's also a number that is very special to us because March is the first month since our founding in January, 2001 that our readership has exceeded 170,000. And while we know that not everyone who comes to this site is an RPCV, they are all "Friends of the Peace Corps." Thanks everybody for making PCOL your source of news for the Returned Volunteer community. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Albuquerque Tribune
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Tonga; Obituaries
PCOL22657
11