Students in the TV production program at Oyster Bay High School recently partnered with members of the Life Enrichment Center of Oyster Bay on a project aimed at preserving local history through personal storytelling.
The collaboration brought six high school students together with six senior center members for recorded interviews focused on oral history.
Students filmed and produced short, documentary-style video packages focusing on the seniors’ stories, which ranged from experiences during major historic events to reflections on life in the 20th century.
The project began when the Life Enrichment Center reached out to teacher Alex Dallin, who leads the high school’s TV production program. The center had previously collaborated with students to write “Silver Threads,” a book composed of the memories and stories of center members.
“They had reached out to us and said, you know, we’re looking for a way to collaborate,” Dallin recalled. And we said, you know, this actually would be a great thing for our digital reporting class, because we were looking for some new project ideas.”
Center members shared their experiences in on-camera interviews with students, who later edited the footage into short videos. The process, Dallin said, mirrored the workflow used in professional broadcast journalism.
“The students did everything for this,” he said. “Each student in the class was paired with a senior with an interesting history, and the students came up with the questions.”
For students accustomed to interviewing classmates for short news segments, the project offered a new challenge.
“They’re used to being able to come up with their own news story, and then do quick little interviews to turn that into a story that’s maybe 90 seconds,” Dallin said. “So this was the first time where they sat down and really did an in-depth interview with one person.”
The interviews also required students to condense longer conversations into short narratives.
For Life Enrichment Center members, the experience offered a chance to share personal histories with younger generations. Katherine Gibson, 89, of Bayville, said the project highlights the value of oral history in understanding the past.
“It’s one thing to read about a historic event in your history book, and to me, it’s kind of flat,” Gibson said. “If you can talk with a person who has lived through that historic event, the event becomes very real, and this is what we have had with this program.”
The students, Gibson said, arrived well prepared for their interviews, and she was impressed with the breadth of their questions.
She shared a childhood memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. “They broke into whatever program was on the radio to announce that Pearl Harbor had been bombed,” Gibson recounted. “And I’m 5 years old and I’m trying to ask my father, ‘What are they talking about?’ And he kind of patted me on the head and he said, ‘Be quiet, Honey, be quiet. Our country is going to go to a war’— and I lived through World War II on the radio.”
Projects like the students’ interviews, she added, help bring historical events to life in ways that textbooks cannot.
“The members have shared their own memories of their teenage years, their young years,” Gibson said. “They have shared memories of their grandparents, their family, their neighborhoods.”
Another participant, Bayville resident Robert Goodyear, 80, recalled the Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center.
Goodyear he had been scheduled to attend a meeting at the complex that morning related to fire-protection systems, he said, but he was delayed by another work issue.
“As I was walking down Lower Broadway, we saw confetti floating in the air,” Goodyear said, “and somebody said that a plane crashed into the north tower.”
From his office nearby, he saw the second plane strike the south tower.
“As we were standing there at the window watching it, we heard the engines go to full throttle and crash into the south tower,” he said.
Goodyear later helped direct people away from the disaster area as the towers collapsed. He said that sharing the story with younger generations is important, and helps preserve the memory of the thousands who lost their lives.
“I want to share this story with people so they don’t forget,” Goodyear said. “It’s something that should be passed on to the younger generation.”
According to Dallin, the students responded in different ways to the interviews. Some felt overwhelmed by the challenge of shaping long conversations into short stories, while others were deeply moved by the lives they encountered. And the seniors, he said, were equally appreciative of the experience.
“They loved that these students took an interest in their lives,” he said, “and took the time to sit down and really listen to them.”
The completed videos were screened for participants and community members on Feb. 26 in the high school’s auditorium. The seniors also received copies of their interview to share with family members.
Gibson emphasized the importance of preserving personal stories for future generations. “You die when you take your last breath, and you die when nobody remembers your name,” she said. “So to record your grandparents, where they came from, what they did when they were teenagers, themselves, their early life, their careers — it’s important.”
