Friends of Nigeria Board

Alan Frishman, Nigeria 22, taught math at a secondary school in Birnin Kudu from 1966 to 1969.  While working on his doctorate in economics at Northwestern University he received a Fulbright to return to Kano for his dissertation research.  Alan and his wife lived in Kano from 1973 to 1975.  After completing his thesis, “The Spatial Expansion and Residential Location Pattern of Kano,” he taught economics at Hobart and Wm. Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY, from which he retired in 2017 after 41 years.  Over those four decades he returned to Kano and Abuja six times (1980, 1987, 1993, 2001, 2009, and 2016) for further research.  He has remained in touch with many of his former students, and many teachers with whom he worked. One student started a computer school in Kano that has received funding through the FON grants program.

Godwin Ndukwe may possibly be the only U.S. tax man who is also a traditional chief in the Ohuhu Community in Umuahia, Abia State, where he attended the high school where another FON Director, David Koren, was a pioneer teacher. Ndukwe became active in FON by helping to lead the planning for the group's annual meeting in Austin, near his home in Houston, in 2019. Before becoming a senior IRS agent in Houston, Ndukwe served as a systems accountant at the USDA National Finance Center in New Orleans and in various other finance positions in the public and private sector. A graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana, Ndukwe received his MBA in Finance & Human Resources from Florida Institute of Technology. He is married to a fellow Nigerian, Onyi, and has four children, two girls aged 9, a daughter, 36 and a son, 32.

Warren Keller, Nigeria 23, served in Uli with his wife, Jody, teaching chemistry and maths for about 9 months in 1966-67 before being evacuated as the Biafra War began. They served a second Peace Corps year teaching in Uganda before returning home to Berkeley in 1968. After completing an MS in chemistry at UC Berkeley, he spent the next 32 years working for IBM as a systems engineer and a data base instructor. They have three children and four grandchildren. Interests include family, hiking and backpacking, travel, and community volunteer activities. He has been a FON board member since 2006, serving as newsletter editor for 5 years and as treasurer since 2016. He and Jody joined FON's 2008 back to Nigeria trip, enabling them to visit the north for the first time as well as a short trip to Uli.

Spencer Ralston, Nigeria 13, served as a  teacher in Nawfia in the Eastern Region from 1965 to 1966, leaving just prior to the Biafran War. When he returned to the U.S., Ralston worked as an epidemiologist for the Communicable Disease Center of the U.S. Public Health Service while earning his master’s in Health Planning and Administration from New York University. After graduate school he became Executive  Director of two 501(c)(3) organizations dedicated to bringing health care personnel and services to rural, underserved communities in Tennessee and Oregon. Ralston spent the remainder of his health care career as chief operating officer of hospitals in several western states. After retirement in 2006, he and his wife moved to Santa Fe where Ralston became a realtor -- a job in which he remains very active.

Peter Hansen, Nigeria 27, co-founded Friends of Nigeria in 1996 (with Cathy Onyemelukwe, Nigeria 4). He has served on the FON board ever since. Currently the newsletter editor, for many years Hansen served as treasurer and database manager. For 40 years until retirement in 2007, he taught chemistry at the University of Ife, Northwestern College (Iowa), Makerere University (Kampala) and the University of Iowa. Hansen is active in the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council and the local Democratic Party.

Chris Clarkson, Nigeria 22, taught Biology at Government Girls College, Kano, from 1966 through 1968.  He has visited Kano twice since, first in 1973 at the end of a hitchhiking excursion through East Africa, and again in 1998 as an election observer. Since leaving the Peace Corps Chris spent several years as a teacher, first in Biology, later in Physics.  He completed graduate programs in public health and water resources engineering, followed by 25-year career as an engineering consultant.

Jim Clark, Nigeria 12, served from June 1964 to June 1966, in Umuduru in the then Eastern Region of Nigeria as an agriculture/community development specialist promoting Young Farmers Clubs, the use of fertilizer and other beneficial farming practices. After returning to his native North Carolina, he became an educator, retiring as a school principal in 2005. Two years later he became a small business owner, purchasing and operating the restaurant/event center he still owns. In addition, he served for 11 years on the North Carolina Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors, including two terms as Chairman. During eight years on the FON board, he served as  the editor of the newsletter, as a member of the planning committees for the past three annual meetings, and has served on the projects committee and the website development committee.

Mimi Budd, Nigeria 15, taught at the Army Children’s Primary School in Kaduna and at Our Lady of Lourdes Secondary School in Uromi from 1965 to 1967. Mimi returned home to earn a master’s degree in TESOL at San Francisco State College and later became an attorney and worked for several elected members of the California legislature and numerous departments of the state.  At the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs she served as chief counsel. At the Corrections Department she created rehabilitation programs in state prisons. Mimi is active in Emily’s List, an organization that supports pro-choice Democratic women candidates for elective office, the Brady Campaign United Against Gun Violence, and in several neighborhood organizations focused on public policy. As a Director of FON since 2017, she has served on the Maternal Health Committee.

Monique LeBlanc, Nigeria 15, taught English and French at Government College, Kaduna for two years starting in 1965.  Upon her return to the States in 1967, she began a 12-year employment with the Los Angeles Unified School District where she taught French, Spanish and ESL  In 1984, Monique graduated from the UCLA Dental School and joined the National Health Service Corps for three years, practicing in underserved community-based clinics in El Mirage, AZ and Ramona, CA. Preferring to treat patients with limited access to dental care, she became a staff dentist in an LA County Comprehensive Health Center and taught dental hygiene students part time. At FON she serves on the Maternal Health Committee.

David Koren, Nigeria 9, taught English and general science at Ohuhu Community Grammar School near Umuahia from Jan. 1, 1964 to 1966. After Peace Corps service he worked as a counselor in an adult education program in Buffalo, NY., and then as a rehabilitation counselor at Buffalo Psychiatric Center. He also worked as a UNICEF volunteer on the Biafran airlift, performing tasks that included aircraft mechanics and flight cargo manager. Later, Koren returned to school at the University of Pittsburgh, earning a master’s degree in physics and then worked 10 years as an optical design engineer making lenses for industrial infrared lasers. David is currently active in his local community on the township planning commission and the Friends of the Spring Valley Park. He is an amateur astronomer and maintains a 6-acre mini farm with his wife and two tractors.

David Axtell, Nigeria 6, taught biology and chemistry at Williams Memorial Grammar School, in Afugiri, from January 1962 to September 1964.  After completing his BS in Chemical Engineering in 1980, he worked as an engineering technician for the Federal Highway Administration, as an engineer at the Institute for Local Self Reliance in Washington, DC, for Foster-Wheeler Environmental Corporation, and at various other positions until retiring in 2005.  During much of this time he volunteered with Service Civil International (SCI), an international social service organization and a precursor of the Peace Corps, serving as its U.S. president for two years. He has been active in RPCV activities for 30 years, as an organizer of the NPCA conference at UC Boulder in 1988, and helped construct the first FON website.

I taught English and Art at the Government Teacher Training College at Abraka. After returning to the States, I earned a Masters’ Degree in Cultural Anthropology and African Studies at Indiana University and then a Doctorate in Humanities and African American Studies from Atlanta University.  Currently I am a Professor in the Master of Arts in Museum Studies Program at Southern University at New Orleans, where I joined the faculty in 1973.  I am known in New Orleans as both an educator and an artist, and I am happy to serve as the Arts Editor of the FON Newsletter.