Author: Paul Neevel

Sister Margret Graziano (revisited)

Happening People

May 1996: Although she works 40 hours a week as a counselor at Willamette Family Treatment Services, 79-year-old Sister Margaret Graziano finds time to volunteer at the Lane County Jail, continuing a prison ministry she began in the early 1970s. A former school teacher and Catholic chaplain, Sister Margaret conducts classes in art and “leisure wellness,” helping prisoners find a healthy balance of work and play to reduce dependence on drugs and alcohol once they leave jail. Continue reading →

Harper Keeler

Happening People

When his father, an Air Force pilot, died in Vietnam, and his mother remarried, Harper Keeler went from grade school at the Air Force Academy to middle and high school in Pleasantville, N.Y. After two years of college at SUNY Potsdam, he worked for five years at a plant nursery in Bedford, N.Y. “That got me interested in plants and designing with plants,” says Keeler, who spent two years living the “hippie life” off the grid in Vermont before he moved west in 1990 to study landscape architecture at the UO. Continue reading →

Fran Calciano

Happening People

“Middle-school kids are an exciting age-group to work with,” says Fran Calciano of Roosevelt Middle School. She was named Oregon School Counselor of the Year for 2012-13 by the Oregon School Counselor Association. “They come in looking and acting like children. They leave looking like young adults.” Calciano grew up on Long Island, N.Y., studied at Boston University, then moved to Eugene for her final two undergrad years. She graduated in 1979 and taught at Spring Creek, Bailey Hill and Roosevelt schools, while enrolled in a UO counseling psychology masters program. Continue reading →