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Bay Area Residents Tape Memories For StoryCorps Project

Tribune photo by MICHAEL SPOONEYBARGER

Facilitator Anna Walters instructs Fanni Green, her daughter Danyealah Green- Lemons and Gary Lemons before recording their interview in the StoryCorps mobile tour set up in Ybor City Thursday.

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By WALT BELCHER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 11, 2008

TAMPA - Bill Brown had a story to tell. So did Fanni Green.

Brown, 58, a radio engineer, recalled a time in Naples when he was hired to be a "prisoner" at the local jail. Green, 48, a theater professor at the University of South Florida, told of how her life has changed since her 78-year-old mother fell, injured her shoulder and was diagnosed with dementia.

Brown and Green today became the first two Tampa area residents to record 40-minute personal accounts for the StoryCorps project. This nonprofit effort to collect personal oral history has set up a mobile recording studio in Ybor City.

"Over the next four weeks, we will be collecting about 125 personal stories," says Whitney Henry-Lester, manager of StoryCorps' Airstream mobile booth. "The response has been tremendous, but we can only do so many."

The StoryCorps visit is sponsored by community radio station WMNF, 88.5 FM, with help from the Ybor City Museum Society and Ybor City Development Corp.

Henry-Lester says the rich history of Ybor City alone should provide stories about cigar rollers and the making of Cuban bread.

But stories are not limited to Ybor or Tampa history; they cover a wide range of experiences.

Brown, for example, recounted a time in the 1970s when the jail in Naples ran short of inmates to work on road-cleaning crews. "They hired me and some other people to be 'prisoners' so the work would get done," he says.

He also talked about other events in his life, including being a disc jockey. "I thought it would be hard to go for 40 minutes, but it was easy once I got started," he says. "I had a lot of memories because I have had a lot of jobs."

Brown, who works for WMNF, told his stories through an interview conducted by co-worker Sheila Cowley, the station's operations manager.

Green was interviewed by her 15-year old daughter Danyealah Green-Lemons. "Originally, I wanted to interview my mother about how drastically her life has changed since she fell last April, but she is too ill," Green says. "Now I have almost become like a mother to her."

Henry-Lester, who has heard hundreds of stories, says she learns something every day from the experience. "Not only does this give two people a chance to sit down and have a real meaningful conversation, it provides us with real personal histories that can be shared by future generations," she says.

Launched in 2003, StoryCorps has recorded tens of thousands of everyday people in the largest oral history project ever undertaken. The project is sponsored by NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Participants get a CD of the interview. With their permission, a copy is sent to the Library of Congress and kept in a digital archive.

Henry-Lester says the booth is booked through the end of the month. A limited number of reservations for the first two weeks in January will become available Friday at 10 a.m. The slots are expected to be filled in a matter of minutes. For information, call 1-800-850-4406 or go to www.storycorps.net.

About 1 percent of the stories are edited down to two-minute clips that air on National Public Radio on Fridays. In 2009, WMNF wants to start collecting and airing similar personal stories because there is so much interest, Cowley says.

Reporter Walt Belcher can be reached at (813) 259-7654 or wbelcher@tampatrib.com.

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