Date: Fri 10-Jan-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Tracey-Willis-Peace-Corps

Full Text:

Tracey Willis, 1992 NHS Graduate, Will Serve In Peace Corps

Tracey Willis

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

Six months after graduating from Bucknell University, Tracey Willis, 23, is

headed for Panama to serve in the Peace Corps for two years.

Although she majored in math in college, Ms Willis will use her minor

concentration in environmental studies and life science to teach elementary

school children in rural schools about the importance of preserving their

natural environment.

She will also be assisting the Panamanian government's ministry of education

to develop new curriculum studies in environmental education.

"I'm pretty confident" of a good reception by the local families, Ms Willis

said recently, even though her teaching would deal with the potentially

sensitive subject of widespread environmental damage occurring in Panama, such

as deforestation through what she called the "unsustainable" clear cutting of

the virgin rain forest through slash and burn techniques.

These practices are frequently employed by Panamanian farmers to increase

their available acreage, but are targeted by environmentalists worldwide as

causing irreversible destruction to the tropical ecosystem.

Possible political overtones were not her primary concern, however, as Ms

Willis noted that the Peace Corps had been a presence in Panama since 1989-90.

"This has been on the request of the Panamanian government, not the other way

round," she noted.

Ms Willis will be using her skill in speaking Spanish to get to know the

children and families of Panama, as well as to teach school, and she commented

that she "hopes it comes through for me!"

Her first experience in that language was gained in the Newtown schools, she

recalled, and it was at Newtown High, as a graduate in the Class of 1992, that

she was first exposed to environmental studies, through her earth science

class taught by Larry Ashmore and social studies taught by Jan Brookes.

This won't be the first time Ms Willis has traveled to a Third World country,

since she spent a semester in Kenya and Tanzania, Africa, while she was a

junior at Bucknell studying wildlife ecology.

"That was an incredible learning experience," she recalled.

While in Tanzania, Ms Willis climbed Mount Kilimanjaro on a guided tour - an

adventure she remembers as "awesome."

The idea of joining the Peace Corps after graduation from college was one

she'd been entertaining for quite some while, she said, speaking January 2

from the Winding Brook Road home of her parents, Frank and Claire Willis.

Notified in July 1996 that she was a finalist for a Peace Corps assignment, Ms

Willis didn't know until October where she would be sent or when she would go.

After she got the good news of her appointment, she's worked hard to finalize

all the necessary preliminary papers, so that now, she's "ready to go."

Included in the mountain of work to be completed before her departure, were

"medical clearance, finger printing, IDs, going through the FBI, legal

clearance and extensive references from teachers and friends," she said.

Now all that was behind her and she was ready for departure for Africa through

the Miami airport, leaving Tuesday, January 7.

"I'll be traveling with 25 or 30 other Peace Corps trainees who have also

concentrated in environmental education," Ms Willis said.

Many of them were trained at the University of Vermont in Burlington, she

added, where she worked for a while as a Peace Corps recruiter.

"It's quite competitive," she observed, noting that despite its altruistic

mission and long history of service in Third World countries, the Peace Corps

is laden with the usual bureaucratic pitfalls that encumber any large,

federally funded organization.

Her Panama assignment will last two years and four months.