Photo Courtesy of Kelsey West
Kyra Finner
Staff Writer
In a class called ‘Collaborative Creativity’ in the College of Business, Dr. Alex Bolinger put together a project to teach students about teamwork. The project was to write a book about WWII called, “Images of America: Idaho in World War II.”
Bolinger takes care of the real-world setting with Arcadia Publishing Company and the students have 3 months to complete the book on their own. The contributing authors and students at ISU, Kathryn Rose, Sophia Perry, Dalene Hunter and Ashley French, all from different majors, came together through the Honors Program at ISU.
According to Kathryn Rose, local historians in Idaho also played a big role in giving them photos they could use in the book.
“I have always been interested in World War II, and it was the only subject in my history classes in high school that could keep my attention for whatever reason,” said Sophia Perry. “When I was offered to join this class and write a book about Idaho’s efforts in WWII, I was excited because of the topic but also so that I could use the skills from my professional writing minor.”
The book is expected to be published around August or September of 2020. September 2nd, 2020 is the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, which makes it a great time to publish the book. The students are planning on doing a book signing around that time.
According to Rose, the book is about the role Idaho played in World War II. This encompasses the economic impacts Idaho played in the war effort, the local families who made personal sacrifices to serve their country, the military training that happened throughout the state, the Japanese American internment camps in Idaho, and the influence the war had on civilian life.
“One of the most significant aspects of the project for me was learning about the Minidoka Relocation Center in Jerome, Idaho. Going into this project, it was important for us as a group to represent the minority groups during the war. When I discovered the Minidoka Relocation Center, I knew that the stories of the Japanese Americans who were interned in Idaho needed to be shared. Being able to give a voice to their experiences was one of my favorite parts of writing this book,” Rose said.
“The exciting part about this project was seeing a team come together to write a book in three months. It’s a daunting task but there’s always a leader that emerges,” Dr. Bolinger said.
About 100 copies will be sold at ISU and those proceeds will go towards student scholarships at the College of Business.
“With this book, I want people to know how important Idaho was to the war effort. Pocatello especially played a key role with the USO Huts near the train depot. Women in the area would prepare coffee and cookies for soldiers traveling across America through Pocatello to reach the coast where they would then be shipped overseas to war,” Rose said.
“The USO huts provided these soldiers with a brief moment of peace and comfort before they reached the front lines. Many of these soldiers sent thank you letters to the people who worked at these huts, and these letters can still be found in the Pocatello Airport today.”
The contributing authors want to give a huge thank you to the Bannock County Historical Society, the Idaho State Archives, the Marshall Public Library, the Museum of North Idaho, the Densho Digital Repository, and other Idahoans from the area for providing us with photos we could write captions for in the book.
“When I heard about the topic of our book, I thought it was going to be really scarce because I didn’t think Idaho was involved in World War II at all. This is not the case at all. Everyone in Idaho should know what was going on here during the war, and I think we covered a great part of that in this book!” Perry said.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the WWII era, as people like to say- it was good music and bad news. I used to present to the Rotary Club and people would tell me that I needed to write a book so I started this class in 2015 to enable students to learn from teamwork,” Bolinger said.
The book, “Images of America: Idaho in World War II,” will be available for purchase at Barnes and Noble, ISU, Amazon, Albertsons and the Arcadia Publishing Website.
