William M. Wiest, Professor Emeritus at Reed College in Portland,
Oregon, will address this year's annual meeting. Wiest, who grew up in Reedley,
California, spent most of his professional career as a teacher of Psychology at
Reed, a prestigious small college in Oregon.
During the last ten years his personal interests have been the history of German colonists in Russia and Ukraine. Since 1988 he has made five visits to the former Soviet Union. Those travels have been to research his family history and to find relatives still living in Russia. In the course of those five trips he has visited the sites of former Mennonite, Lutheran and Catholic colonies. Several reports of his findings have been published in the Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia.
Wiest's address will place the Mennonite story within the context of
this larger story of differing kinds of German colonists in New Russia.
Professor Wiest is a frequent speaker at various kinds of meetings. The Society
is very fortunate to have secured him for this year's annual meeting.
6:00
Dinner in the British Columbia Lounge, MB Biblical Seminary,
followed by a brief business meeting
7:30
Program in the MB Biblical Seminary Chapel, featuring William
Wiest