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StoryCorps Has Arrived in Yuma

StoryCorps has arrived in Yuma and begins its public interviews on Wednesday.

StoryCorps, an audio history project that collects people’s stories and archives them in the Library of Congress, will be in Yuma this month.

This is the second time StoryCorps has visited the region.  In 2010, the converted Airstream mobile recording booth collected the stories of many local residents.

The concept is simple.  Two people, connected by family, friendship, or cause, enter the recording studio and talk about whatever they’d like. 

Two aviation pioneers stepped into the StoryCorps booth in Yuma in 2010. 

Horace Griffen and Jim Gillaspie discussed the Yuma Endurance Flight which set a new record for continuous flight at one thousand ten hours in October of 1949.   

Griffen, a local car dealer, supplied and manned the fuel car for the Yuma Endurance Flight in 1949.

Gillaspie wrote a book about the event and was instrumental in keeping the story of the Yuma Endurance Flight alive.

Gillaspie passed away in 2011, just six months after the conversation was recorded.  Griffen died in 2017, just one day after the anniversary of the flight.

Their words are now archived at the Library of Congress.

Sign-ups for the 2019 StoryCorps visit to Yuma began Nov. 5.  Visit storycorps.org for more information.

For more information, follow KAWC Colorado River Public Media on Facebook.

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