* denotes member of Executive Board
David R. Reetz,* President, Powell, WY.
David R. Reetz is a member of senior management and on the board of First National Bank and Trust of Powell, Wyoming, and the holding company, First Company of Cody, Wyoming. He was Dean of Administrative Services at Northwest College in Powell from 1980-1990 and before that Assistant-to-Assistant Chancellor at University of Wisconsin-River Falls. He provides key leadership in community and economic development. On a state-wide level he has served or is still serving on the Delta Dental Board, Wyoming Economic Development Association Board, Wyoming Community College Commission, Steering Committee for Business Development, the State Parks and Cultural Resources Commission, the USS Wyoming Committee, the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund Board and the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Community Colleges.
Carolyn K. Takeshita,* Vice-President, Denver, CO.
Carolyn Takeshita is currently Vice President of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. She is a "retired" Speech/Language Pathologist and Educator but continues to work at her same job every year.
Carolyn has been the HMWF chairperson of two educational conferences in the state of Wyoming. The first one was for educators, grades K-12, with a focus on the Heart Mountain experience within the context of a multicultural framework. The focus of the second conference was on the experience of the Heart Mountain resisters and their families and on constitutional law.
Carolyn is also very involved in the Japanese American community in the Denver, Colorado area. Her passion is to keep the story of the Japanese American experience in the United States alive by speaking to elementary, middle, and senior high schools and community groups. She has been workshop coordinator for the Day of Remembrance programs and for programs honoring the Rocky Mountain veterans of the Military Intelligence Service. She was also team leader for the book Kids Explore America's Japanese American Heritage and History written by children for children from grades 2 through 6. She is also co-director of Chibi No Gakko-Denver, a Japanese American Heritage Saturday School where students begin to do research on their personal family history, learn to cook Japanese foods and learn about the story of Japanese Americans in the United States.
John H. Collins,* Secretary, Powell, WY.
John H. Collins graduated from New Mexico State University in 1980 with a degree in Agricultural Economics. In 1983 John and his wife Terry started a local retail and mail order business in Powell, Wyoming, where they both presently work today.
John’s work on the Heart Mountain project began in the fall of 1988 when he chaired Powell’s committee of the Wyoming Centennial Celebration. The committee chose to undertake the cleanup and preservation of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center as Powell’s portion of the Wyoming Centennial Lasting Legacy Project. Once Wyoming’s Centennial had passed, in 1990, the committee regrouped to form the Heart Mountain Japanese American Memorial Foundation. John remained the President of this organization until 1996 when it evolved into the present Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation.
Patricia S. Wolfe,* Treasurer , Powell, WY.
Patricia S. Wolfe was born and raised in Powell, Wyoming. She graduated from Powell High School and majored in Geology at the University of Utah. She had always known about the Heart Mountain Relocation Center from her history and personal experiences in Powell but became very interested in the legal implications of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in a Constitutional Law class in 1970. She moved back to Powell and was a founding member of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation. She has served on the HMWF Board as Treasurer since 1996. This is one of the most worthwhile non-profit organizations with which she has ever been associated.
Takashi Hoshizaki, Ph.D.,* Los Angeles, CA.
Takashi Hoshizaki earned his doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1961, worked as a research scientist at the Space Biology Laboratory, School of Health Sciences, UCLA for 13 years and retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology in 1989. He was the principal investigator on several grants from National Aeronautics and Space Administration and United States Public Health Service. Dr. Hoshizaki was also funded by the National Science Foundation and the United States Air Force. He was twice president of the Southern California Academy of Sciences and served in other capacities for many years; published numerous scientific papers and articles; served as a consultant to NASA, Los Angeles County and the Encyclopedia Britannica and has donated his time to various community organizations. Dr. Hoshizaki was one of the 63 Resisters of Conscience at Heart Mountain who resisted the draft in 1944 in order to contest the lawfulness of the internment, and spent two years in a federal penitentiary as a result. He later served two years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
Rick Ewig has a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Wyoming. For ten years he worked at the Wyoming State Archives, Museums and Historical Department. Presently he is the associate director of the American Heritage Center, a manuscript repository at the University of Wyoming. Ewig currently serves as the editor of Annals of Wyoming: The Wyoming History Journal and has published articles on various topics, including Wyoming tourism, the Wyoming State Hospital, and woman's suffrage in Wyoming.
Shirley Ann Higuchi, J.D. , Washington, DC.
Shirley Ann Higuchi is the Assistant Executive Director of the Legal and Regulatory Affairs for the American Psychological Association, where she supervises both legal and non-legal staff in the areas of managed care, test case litigation, state health care reform, Medicaid, licensing, hospital practice, prescriptive authority, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliance, the Parent Coordination program and the Parent Education training program at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Ms. Higuchi has chaired and served on various boards and committees for the District of Columbia Bar, which she also served as President, Treasurer, and Board Member. She was formerly in private practice with the law firm of Epstein Becker & Green, PC in Washington DC. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, and her law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Shirley's parents met at Heart Mountain as children and years later accidentally bumped into each other at Cal Berkeley. Shirley's parents have supported HMWF for many years.
Alan Kumamoto, Los Angeles, CA.
Alan Kumamoto is Founding Partner of Kumamoto Associates, a global marketing, management and communications firm, that brings clients and resources together to achieve results. His career spans leadership positions with private businesses, government agencies and nonprofit corporations. Alan gives back to the community by chairing local, national, and international mainstream and Asian Pacific Islander organizations. He and his family were interned at Heart Mountain.
Joanne Kumamoto, Los Angeles, CA.
Joanne Kumamoto is Principal Partner of Kumamoto Associates, a global marketing, management and communications firm, that brings clients and resources together to achieve results. Her background incorporates understanding government systems, working as a political staffer and commissioner, directing marketing efforts and special events for private businesses and working as staff and a consultant to a variety of nonprofit clients. Joanne has led organizations focusing on international women’s concerns, environmental issues, and social, human resources or arts efforts.
Eric L. Muller, J.D., Chapel Hill, NC.
Eric L. Muller is the George R. Ward Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. He was an Assistant Professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law from 1994 to 1998. Muller has written many articles on the legal history of the Japanese American internment as well as two books: Free to Die for their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II (University of Chicago Press 2001), and American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II (University of North Carolina Press 2007).
Douglas W. Nelson, Baltimore, MD.
Douglas W. Nelson is the President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. He is one of the nation’s leading advocates for children and one of the country’s foremost experts on policies and community-based responses to improve the lives of children and their families. In addition to frequent lectures and addresses, Nelson has written widely on a range of domestic social policy issues. His social history of the World War II relocation of Japanese Americans, entitled Heart Mountain, earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1976. Nelson is a 1968 graduate of the University of Illinois. He holds a masters degree in history from the University of Wyoming, and he studied and taught social history at the University of Wisconsin.
Ann Chambers Noble is a historian from Cora, Wyoming. She received a grant from the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund to write and produce the CD-ROM, "The Heart Mountain, Wyoming Camp Story" that was given to every Wyoming high school and public library. Ms. Noble has also published several articles and teaching materials about the Japanese American internment history. She currently is Chairperson for the Wyoming Community College Commission.
Shigeru “Shig” Yabu was born and raised in San Francisco, California. Soon after World War II started, his family was sent to the Pomona Assembly Center, and in October 1942, they were interned at Heart Mountain Relocation Center.
After the war, he joined the Navy, and worked at the U.S. Naval Hospital and later 11th Naval District Headquarters as a Hospital Corpsman. After receiving an Honorable Discharge, he received an A.A. Degree from San Diego Jr. College and a B.A. degree from San Diego State College.
He started working with the Boys Clubs of San Diego, Santa Monica Boys Club, and became an Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo. He worked 28 years with Boys Club, and also worked for the Camarillo Health Care District. After retiring at age 65, he began working part-time driving cars.
Yabu was chosen as the city of Camarillo's Young Man of the Year in 1968 and Man of the Year in 1974. In 1984, he carried the Olympic Torch in Oxnard, California. He has written two books: Doggone Excuses People Make for Smoking and Hello Maggie. The latter book, a work for children, tells the story of Yabu's life as a boy at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center and his befriending of an injured magpie that he found near camp.
LaDonna Zall is a pipeliner’s daughter and a retired Physical Educator. When she was ten years old she saw the last train leave Heart Mountain and found it a sad sight. There were many questions in her mind about the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. When she retired, she attempted to find answers as to who the people were, why they were there, what happened to them, and where they went. The search has been a gratifying experience. Please come tour with her.