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30 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИСТОПАД 2016 Phoenix Community Celebrates Ukrainian Independence Day by Kristina Efimenko Ukrainian Independence Day Celebration. Clockwise from left: a Polish guest, Mr. and Mrs. Kapko, and the wife of Pro- fessor Stephen Batalden (seated directly across from her), Prof. Mark Von Hagen, and Jim and Patience Huntwork. Celebrating and honoring an independent Ukraine is paramount in the minds of Ukrainians and those who love Ukraine and care about its future. But as August 24 th drew closer this year, members of UN- WLA Branch 3 and UCCA Phoenix, Arizona, chapter began to worry about where the Ukrainian Inde- pendence Day event should be celebrated. Arizona at that time of year is very hot and the antiquated air conditioning units in the Ukrainian Cultural Center (UCC) would not maintain a comfortable tempera- ture. Funds for improving the cooling system were low. Some members even looked into having the cele- bration somewhere else, but for most of us the idea of celebrating Ukrainian Independence Day any- where other than the UCC was unthinkable! Fortunately, the Arizona Ukrainian Community came through by donating and installing several new air conditioning units and the event was a huge success with at least 150 people attending. We even ran out of chairs! There were many new faces besides those of the usual attendees: new Ukrainian immigrants, Polish and Romanian guests, two professors from Ar- izona State University— Mark Von Hagen and Stephen Batalden—and a Ukrainian foreign exchange stu- dent, Olga Tomkevych, from Lviv, Ukraine, who brought several other Arizona State University students with her to the event. Much fun was had by all, with music played by a Polish band and traditional Ukrainian foods prepared by members of the UNWLA and UCCA. The highlight of the evening was a speech about the history of Ukraine, delivered in Ukrainian by Mark Von Hagen, professor and interim director of the Melikian Center at ASU. Professor Von Hagen also announced that a Ukrainian language course would be offered by the Melikian Center’s Critical Lan- guages Institute at ASU in the summer of 1917. Attorneys Patience and Jim Huntwork have already do- nated $2,000 for this purpose. The Huntworks have been to Ukraine a few times to help with legal re- forms; the purpose of their most recent visit was to monitor elections in two Ukrainian cities. An addi- tional $13,000 is needed before the Ukrainian language class can be advertised. The Critical Languages Institute offers many languages which are seldom taught at most colleges and universities, including Al- banian, Armenian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian, Indonesian, Russian, Turkish, Uzbek, and others. We hope to see Ukrainian added to the list, if not in 2017, then in 2018.
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