2010 Poston III Reunion

                                                     Photo: Block 308

                                        Photo: Poston III  Class of 1945

Photo: Mrs. Kiyoko Nakagawa, 101 years of age, attended Poston III reunion with her daughters and son.

At the Poston III reunion held at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas earlier this week, the Poston Restoration Project had on display, enlarged blue prints of the living areas on camp I, II and III.

With the *labor-intensive* work of Bob Iwamasa (block 220-14-G) using the 1944 census and plotting the individual names in the barracks, attendees were seen snapping photos of their family listings on the draft copies of the block maps! Attendees added missing information to the camp I, II, and II directory being created by Dianne Kiyomoto, archivist for the Poston Restoration Project.

Many thanks to Thomas Kurihara (block 308-14-A) for donating copies of his mother's vintage photos, in addition to his more recent photos of the Colorado River near Poston III. Thomas brought in one photo with four unidentified kids and before he left,  all the kids in the photo were identified! Thomas was able to record his oral history with us.

"On the Road Back to Poston"

There were 31 survivors of the "On the Road Back to Poston" educational bus trip. We viewed the documentary film, "Passing Poston" and the silent film on the early days of Poston, featuring the Del Webb construction company. One viewer thought the film may have been an ad promoting the new construction company (Del Webb). The film was discovered among the property of W. Wade Head, former Project Director of Poston, a few years ago. The film was not labeled and had to be spliced together.

Dr. Michael Tsosie, Director of the Colorado River Indian Tribe Museum, was our tour guide, and he joined our bus at the site of the Parker railroad station, next to the current Chamber of Commerce/Visitors Center in Parker, AZ. We started our tour following the same tracks used by the internees/prisoners to Poston in the spring/summer of 1942, starting with the Parker, AZ railroad station.

Mr. Ted Kobata (block 229), head of the Poston Monument & Kiosk construction, was on our tour bus and provided a brief summary of the laborious task of erecting the monument and later constructing the kiosk. Everything was hauled from Sacramento down to Poston in the hot summer.

The tour group entered the Poston Restoration Project site and was able to view the internee/prisoner-made adobe bricks used in the construction of the school buildings at Poston.

I met Barbara Burgess (pictured above), granddaughter of Miss Fredricka (Bardon) Green, former Poston III CORE teacher. Barbara is researching material for a future book about her grandmother's time at Poston, and needs information about daily life and attending school in Poston. 
If you can help, contact her at: missbagpipes@sbcglobal.net 

We continued on the journey down the road to the camp II site, and was able to walk inside the camp II school auditorium, which has an in-door basketball court. The building is in use today by the adjacent school, which was in session.

We continued farther down the road to travel a short distance along the northern border of camp III. We found living evidence of the presence of Japanese Americans. You will have to ask someone who was on the trip if you want to know what we saw.

If you have traveled out to see the Poston Monument in the past, you most likely did not learn of the Japanese-American legacy which lives on in the valley today. 

Don't worry, there are only a few of us who do know, thanks to Dr. Michael Tsosie. 
Next time you see one of us who were on the memorable trip, be sure to ask!