Roots with Wings, a Floyd County Place-Based Education Project:: Intergenerational Connections

Floyd Story Center

Since 1998, a community oral history collection partnership of the Old Church Gallery, Ltd., Radford University’s Center for Social and Cultural Research, Honors Program, Scholar-Citizen Initiative, Appalachian Regional and Rural Studies Center, and Floyd County High School. Our archives now hold over 100 interviews.

In our Roots with Wings project, college mentors, high school staff, and community volunteers meet weekly during the school year to teach the discipline of oral history collection.


Students learn ethical, methodologically sound interview techniques, practice and complete several interviews, transcribe the audiotapes, create searchable content logs, archive interviewee resources and period photographs, learn the technology of audio and video recording, research historical backgrounds, acquire proficiency in iMovie and storytelling, and finally extract a theme from an hour long interview to create a seven minute movie production.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Mrs. Myers' Classes Conduct Four Interviews

Clarence Goad

Thursday, February 23, 2012


Four WWII veterans from Floyd County graciously agreed to talk about their experiences with high school students in the place-based education oral history program here.  The interviews with Clarence Goad, Burnett Marshall, Arlie Thompson, and Sammie Phillips all took place on one day at the Hotel Floyd.  The students were well-prepared--with the help of Radford University student mentors, volunteers from the Old Church Gallery, and their Floyd County High School class teacher, the students learned and practiced professional interviewing techniques, camera and audio operations, as well as their individual roles for the production. 

Burnett Marshall
Mr. Goad and Mr. Marshall were interviewed during the morning; Mr. Thompson and Mr. Phillips' interviews took place in the afternoon.  The students heard about WWII actions in the South Pacific, Europe, U.S. Army Camps, and also about life in Floyd County before, during, and after the war as the interviews were recorded and videotaped.  Assisting during the day's operations: Dr. Melinda Wagner, Radford University, Mrs. Angela Myers from Floyd County High School, and Kathleen Ingoldsby and Alice Slusher from the Old Church Gallery.

Sammie Phillips

Arlie Thompson (2nd from top left)
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