JoRusin.com

JoRusinLeadership

Providing experience-based consulting on issues relating to leadership.

For more information, email:
JoRusin@JoRusin.com

 


 


Author's Biography:

Click Here to See a Flash Movie of Jo's Military and Volunteer Experiences

Old soldiers get into lots of mischief and Jo is no exception. In addition to her writing and consulting business, she is a talented craftsman, who weaves chair seats using a variety of natural materials, both traditional cane and delightfully dyed combinations of reed and twisted paper. Jo began learning this craft over 35 years ago, when she wove a new cane seat and back for an antique rocking chair that had been in her family. She started out learning from a book, but she advanced to an apprenticeship with one of Georgia's preeminent chair caners, Hazel Malone, author of the University of Georgia Extension Service publication Chair Caning.

In addition to operating a business re-caning old chairs and crafting individual chair works of art, Jo has taught chair caning at the John C. Campbell Folk School (www.folkschool.org) in western North Carolina for over ten years. She has also taught the craft at a number of continuing education programs. Her skills have been featured on the Do It Yourself television network and at www.diy.net. Most recently she and one of her classes were filmed by University of North Carolina Television.

An active member of her community, Jo served four years on the Board of Directors of the Association of Village Pride (www.avpride.org), an organization dedicated to developing confidence and leadership abilities among minority young people in the Fayette County, GA schools. In 2005 she was appointed to the Library Board of the Fayette County Public Library, where she led an investigation into an extended pattern of diversion of nearly $1 million of Fayette County taxpayer funds by the regional library that supports Fayette County. Jo believes that there is no better place for books and reading than public libraries that are fully accountable to the taxpayers.

In June of 2005, Jo and her husband, Johnny, embarked on a new adventure when they moved from Fayette County, GA, to Waveland, MS, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast near where Jo had grown up. This turned out to be more of an adventure than they had planned, however, when after three idyllic months in their home on the beach, Hurricane Katrina came roaring ashore. Jo had escaped the devastation of Hurricane Camille, the last big storm on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, by ten days when she joined the Army in 1969. Perhaps it was destiny that Katrina struck exactly ten days after the last of their household goods were delivered to Waveland. The Rusin's house, along with those of all their neighbors, was completely destroyed as Jo and Johnny and their five dogs sat out the storm in Mobile, AL at the home of Margaret Ellis, Jo's publisher ww.magnoliamansionspress.com). According to Jo, if you have to survive a hurricane, it helps to be with friends on high ground and to have a knitting project going and lots of rescued retrievers to pet. Fortunately their home in Georgia had not sold, so they had a house to go to, furnished through the kindness of friends.

Among the few things they were able to take with them before the storm hit, Jo was able to take her computer and her writing. The writing tradition in Mississippi is strong and there are are even more stories to be told now. She is back to writing (see essay Hurricane Katrina) and has returned to seat weaving with renewed enthusiasm.

The beach at Waveland was undamaged and the spirit of the Mississippi Gulf Coast remains strong. Jo and Johnny plan to rebuild on their lot and return to Waveland, so stay tuned. There is no telling where this silver belle from the Gulf Coast will lead you.

 

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