For our annual Fourth of July show, and our 250th episode, we invite our very first freshly-minted high school graduate, Phoenix Moomaw of The Bear Creek School, to discuss his recently completed senior project investigating the faith of President Ronald Reagan. Phoenix is well-positioned for this research project given that his grandfather â?? Donn Moomaw â?? was Ronald Reaganâ??s pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church from the time that Reagan was an actor, his tenure as governor of California, and during the White House years. To add to this, Phoenixâ??s family discovered a set of letters written by Ronald Reagan that had previously gone undiscovered and uses this correspondence (dating form the governorship and presidency years) to build his thesis.
We begin the discussion talking about the nature of Mr. Moomawâ??s senior project. He provides his schoolâ??s rationale for requiring such a project and mentions a few of the other activities his classmates did. He then talks about how he came about his project in particular. The impetus for his investigation of Reaganâ??s faith was prompted by the discovery of several folders of letters in his grandfatherâ??s garage that dated back to the 1960s and 1980s. He takes time to give us a taste of these letters and reads one them related to the treatments of Presbyterians under the Sandinista regime. Phoenixâ??s desire to scan these discovered documents to pass around to his family then became a project designed to determine how much of an influence religion played in Reaganâ??s life, and we walk through the steps of his research project discussing his three days spent in the archives at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. It is also noted during the interview that Phoenix relied upon personal discussions with his grandfather about his recollections of Reagan, including a time when Reagan reached out to Rev. Moomaw regarding a decision whether or not to pardon a death row inmate.
Read Full Article »