Information from Stephen - Stephen Bishop [bishopsorchard@completebbs.com]

There were 78 trainees in a combined Agrarian Reform and Rural Cooperatives group. We trained at the University of Arizona, then later at Maracay. Those of us in the ag program were mostly farm people. The Coop people were mostly liberal arts types coming from social sciences backgrounds. 17 of us made it all the way through to the end of the normal two-year term, and a few of us remained to finish up projects.

These are the Volunteers that remained for the entire term:

Mark and Carol Battin,

Jim Butler,

John Cullen,

Danny Hancock,

Tom Hoener,

Charles Landau,

Bill Lawless,

Giff and Jane Lawrence,

Frank and Victoria Modic,

Mike Mosely,

Bill Powell,

Mike Sheppy, and

Ken Shwedel.

I do not recall where most of these ended up - in fact, after we dispersed to our sites, I lost contact with all but Bill Powell, Danny Hancock, and Bill Powell. Our group had some kind of get-together at the one-year mark, but I somehow missed it. However, over New Years 1970, met up with Hancock and Powell, and we traveled to Trinidad, then on to Grenada. I remember having coffee at the "Nutmeg" restraurant in St. Georges, Grenada, on New Year's eve. A few years later on New Years eve, one of my younger brothers and his new bride, on their honeymoon from his Peace Corps site in Jamaica, had dinner at the same restraurant. It wasn't until later, when comparing notes about the West Indies, that we realized we had not only both been to Grenada, but we had been in the "Nutmeg" on New Years eve.

Once when I was passing through El Caballo, I ran into Mike Sheppy, and I saw the Lawrences just as they leaving Venezuela in October, 1970. Also, in about 1975 or '76, Bill Lawless and Ken Shwedel called me. They have remained in contact over the years, I believe.

Stephen Bishop