Cindy Kelly: All right, I’m Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and today is Wednesday, March 20, 2013. And what I’d like to do is first have you introduce yourself. Tell me your name and spell it.
William Schneller: Well, my name is William F. Schneller, and it’s W-I-L-L-I-A-M, F, S-C-H-N-E-L-L-E-R.
Kelly: Terrific. You did very well. [Laughter]
Schneller: I still remember it.
[Interviewed by Cindy Kelly and Tom Zannes.]
Tell us your name.
Russell Stanton: I'm Russell C. Stanton. R-U-S-S-E-L-L, C. for Crom, S-T-A-N-T-O-N.
Tell us about yourself.
Theresa Strottman: As we start, could you briefly tell me when and where you were born and something about your early education and training?
[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.]
Veronica Taylor: I'm Veronica Taylor, one of the elders for the Nez Perce tribe and I work in the environmental restoration management program for the Nez Perce. One they call the community liaison.
Tell me what the Columbia River means to your tribe?
George Cowan: It's weighted so heavily in favor—not in favor of—but the emphasis on number one Los Alamos, and then Oak Ridge, and then Hanford, as the three secret cities or something. But the fact is the Met Lab at Chicago was enormously important. The Stagg Field reactor was historic in ’42, and its sort of dismissed.
[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.]
Tell us your name.
Rex Buck, Jr.: My name is Rex Buck, Jr. R-E-X B-U-C-K J-R.
What's your Wanapum Indian name?
Buck: My Wanapum Indian name is Puckhyahtoot.
Can you spell that?
Buck: P-U-C-K-H-Y-A-H-T-O-O-T.
What does that mean?
Buck: That means, like, a bunch of birds coming together.
[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.]
Paul Vinther: I'm Paul Vinther. P-A-U-L V-I-N-T-H-E-R.
I have a first name, Alvin, but never went by it so everybody knows me as Paul. And I first came to Hanford on June the 26th, 1950. I remember that vividly because that was the day after the Korean War started. And I'd been in the Navy, went back to college, and came down here for a job, and at that time GE was running the plant and we were known as “tech grads.”
[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly and Tom Zannes.]
Tell us your name.
Steve Buckingham: Steve. S-T-E-V-E. Buckingham. B-U-C-K-I-N-G-H-A-M. (Question off camera)
Cynthia Kelly: Why don’t you start, George, by telling us your name and spelling it.
George Mahfouz: I’m George Mahfouz, last name is spelled M-A-H-F-, as in Frank, -O-U-Z, as in zebra.
Kelly: Is that Egyptian?
Mahfouz: It’s Middle Eastern. The name is Syrian.
Hanford, Washington, on the beautiful Columbia River, was the site selected for the full-scale plutonium production plant, the B Reactor. Today a popular tourist desination, the Hanford Site proved crucial to the success of the Manhattan Project.
