Mike Vavrus from Moline, Illinois and his Charleston raised wife Libby Archibald making a rare visit.

Dr. Michael Vavrus and I came to WV at the same time - fall 1978. He was hired to teach at WV State College, I was hired to be the director of Film Services at WVLC. Eventually he would leave the Kanawha Valley, moving to Elkins where he founded the Elkins Film Group around 1981. He and other members regularly screened indie films, some from the WVLC collection, at the public library or at Davis & Elkins College. He finally had the world library premiere of “Matewan” in spring 1988 because the Matewan Public Library didn’t want to show it.

When NPR did a story about our film program on the day after Thanksgiving 1987, he was interviewed about showing films to his students in the Elkins area where he ran an alternative school before becoming the dept. head of education at D & E College. He was also on one of my American Film & Video Festival juries, driving from Elkins down to Charleston on a Saturday to review new films before the festival in NYC. When my friend Les Blank returned to WV in 1988, he arranged for Les to present films at The Augusta Heritage Workshop.

He eventually left Elkins, moving first to Dubuque and then to Olympia, Washington after I told him what a great place it was. He became the national president of an alternative education group and has published a great book on multi-cultural education, Transforming the Multicultural Education of Teachers: Theory, Research, and Practice (2002).

He has always been an advocate of using media in education and continues to do so at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

He and his WV wife Dr. Libby Archibald, dept. chair of St. Martins University  English Dept,  are touring the US for six months, visiting family and friends in their station wagon. He stopped in for a fast lunch at Sahara’s on Summer St. It was nice to see them.

Myself, Les Blank, Margo Blevin of Augusta Heritage and Dr. Mike Vavrus

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