When: Saturday, January 27 at 10 AM
The speaker for the Saturday, January 27th “Those Were The Days” program at the Oregon Illinois Depot at 10:00 a.m. is Dr. John David Ulferts.
John David Ulferts (1964 – ___) was born and raised in Rockton, Illinois, a small town in north central Illinois. For thirty years, he’s worked in public schools – eight years as a special education and social studies teacher, followed by thirteen years as an Elementary Principal, and, finally, for the past thirteen years, Superintendent-Principal of the Shirland School District, a small Kindergarten thru 8th grade district. John has also taught as an adjunct professor for Concordia University in Wisconsin for fifteen years.
In the 1990s while serving as a teacher with the Department of Defense Dependent Schools in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, John and his wife Christina spent their summer vacations camping throughout Europe with their two young toddlers. During their summers in Europe, they paid homage to the sacrifices the W.W. II Greatest Generation made by visiting the D-Day beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of the Ardennes Forest, Remagen Bridge, the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz, and numerous memorial museums to the victims of the Nazi regime. Auschwitz’s gymnasiums still full of artificial limbs, eyeglasses, stuffed animals, and human hair bear witness to what was at stake in W.W. II. Filled with eternal gratitude, John began writing to W.W. II veterans to express his thanks, and invited them to share their stories if they wished with his students. For every letter John sent out, he received more responses than expected, as veterans shared his letters with their pals and reunion committees. To fully keep his promise to the WW II veterans to keep their stories alive, John had to write this book.
In 2015 John received his Doctorate in Education. His dissertation, An Evaluation of Staff Recruitment and Retention in the Smallest Illinois School Districts, won the Chance Memorial prize from the National Rural Education Association and his findings were published in The Rural Educator and in the AASA School Administrator.
In addition to their passion for education, John and Chris Ulferts are avid environmentalists dedicated to helping save endangered species. In recent years, they have made frequent trips to Africa, where they’ve welcomed elephants into their campsites. John has given numerous free multimedia WW 2 presentations to a variety of groups based on his book. His presentations include Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Liberators of the Holocaust, Minorities in WW 2, Medal of Honor recipients, and, an overview of the book, Always Remember – World War II Through Veterans’ Eyes. Each presentation includes stories from the book as well as photos of the veterans and WW II photos. The book was independently published February 13, 2019.
In addition to his interests in W.W. II and environmentalism, John is also an avid classic movie buff. He is currently working on a shorter book on the first great Hollywood scandal of the 1920’s, comedian Fatty Arbuckle’s scandalous murder trial. He is always appreciative of anyone who reviews his works. Contact John at patriots37@protonmail.com (https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07NQ37ZYM/about)
For more information about this program or other depot programs, call Roger Cain 815-757-9715, Otto Dick 815-440-0639 or Chris Martin 815-742-8471