You can go home again

By Cindy Kittelson, Editor

Velva Area Voice, Velva, North Dakota, November 14, 2002, Page 1

The Velva library and conference rooms were filled to capacity last Friday as area residents gathered to find out more about the documentary “Personal Reflections with Monsignor Joseph Senger.”

The film features the former priest of the Velva and Karlsruhe Catholic churches, who was on hand to greet his former parishoners and neighbors. Also in attendance was Michael Miller, a member of the faculty and staff at North Dakota State University and the Germans from Russia bibliographer and photographer.

Miller is one of the driving forces behind the effort to document the heritage of Germans from Russia, and the videotape of Fr. Senger’s story is one part of that endeavor. Miller noted that while he has produced several heritage specials for Prairie Public Television, the project with Fr. Senger was an independent production and privately funded. (Miller served as co-producer on the 1999 PBS documentary “The Germans from Russia: Children of the Steppe, Children of the Prairie,” and as executive producer of “Prairie Crosses, Prairie Voices: Iron Crosses of the Great Plains,” which aired on PPT in September of 2002.)

The Senger videotape was on sale at the Velva reception, and is also available from the NDSU libraries. To order it, or any of the PBS videotapes, visit the Germans from Russia Heritage Collect website at http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc. You may also call the GRHC at 701 231-8416 or write the NDSU libraries at P.O. Box 5599, Fargo, ND 58105-5599.

Prairie Public Television Germans from Russia Videotape Series posters.	Michael M. Miller and Iris Swedlund at the reception program.
Left to right: Hinnerk Gerigk, foreign exchange student from Berlin; Father Daniel Mrnarevic, St. Cecilia's Parish, Velva, and Michael M. Miller.	Monsignor Joseph Senger, Minot, ND.
Monsignor Joseph Senger speaking with reception guests.	Monsignor Joseph Senger describes his trip to Ukraine in May, 2001.
Monsignor Joseph Senger speaks to group.