Since leaving Springfield and MSU for James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA) to accept the Director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery (CISR), I’ve had one opportunity to return to MSU – for the Public Affairs Conference. It was joyous to be back on campus, see great friends and enjoy the wonderful beauty.
My family and I are currently living in the gorgeous Shenandoah Valley. Besides spending too much time at the office and overseas, I enjoy being with Kim and our children – including attending their activities, and joining me on overseas trips when they can – and trying to find the time to garden, serve on several charity boards, and write – current book project is the Confederate use of landmines during the American Civil War tentatively titled “Landmines in Our Backyard: The U.S. Civil War’s Buried History.”
The recent significant re-emergence of nation-building violence in many countries around the world, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine are harbingers of a new age of conflict patterns. Finding sustainable ends to conflicts to build sustainable peace and bridge societal cleavages have become fundamental necessities to international stabilization. The residents of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County are uniquely positioned to provide a framework to do just that with the lessons from the surrender 150 years ago on April 9, 1865, of Gen. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at nearby Appomattox.
Kim and I arrived in Springfield and SMS in 2000 with our four children, who were all five years old or younger. They are all teenagers now. Many of my former SMSU/MSU colleagues and students may remember my better-half – Kim – and our kids from our dinner parties, around town or loudly running the Strong Hall and PLS hallways. Here is a brief update:
Kim holds the busy home front together. While trying to find time to keep her runs and hikes on schedule, she works part-time as a critical nurse. Hayden (20) is in Golden, Colorado as a sophomore at Colorado School of Mines, where he is majoring in mechanical engineering, and minoring in explosives engineering, and playing linebacker on the football team. Campbell (18) is wrapping up his high school senior year and celebrating with an appointment to the Corps of Cadets at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he plans to major in biology, commission into the US Army or Marines on way to a medical or Veterinary career. Duncan (16) continues his serial entrepreneur interests with a few business ventures, including leading our chicken raising and bee keeping efforts, and remains an engaged debater both at school and at home. He is going to Morocco this summer to study Arabic. Lucie (15) is enjoying her first year of high school, occupying her days with volleyball, basketball, track and newspaper reporting.
Last year, I enjoyed visiting with former PLS student Munisa Vahobova in her beautiful home country of Tajikistan and the year before having the honor to officiate the marriage of another PLS student – Scott Waddle in Chicago.
Here’s a link to Ken’s JMU webpage – https://www.jmu.edu/cisr/staff/rutherford-ken.shtml