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Bill Jamerson knows a good story when he hears one. For the past sixteen years he has been collecting stories about people both ordinary and extraordinary and turning them into films and songs.
Bill reviews a book draft with Mike Rataj a former CCC enrollee.
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Bill’s interest in history began as a child when he loved to read biographies of famous people. His grandfather sparked Bill’s curiosity with stories about his life as a lumberjack and fighting in the First World War. Bill studied history at the University of Michigan, but it was not until he saw the Ken Burns film on The Civil War, that Bill was inspired to make the leap from advertising into documentary film production.
In 1993, his second film, Camp Forgotten – The CCC’s in Michigan, aired on over sixty PBS stations. Bill received two “Awards of Merit” from the Historical Society of Michigan for his films. His association with WCMU Public Television in Mt. Pleasant continues.
In 1999, he moved to the Upper Peninsula
 Bill interviewing former ski jumpers In a restaurant in Ishpeming |
and immersed himself in the study of the regions history by visiting important landmarks, meeting with scholars and collecting oral histories. Two years later, he began writing songs about Upper Peninsula history. He soon began to appear in schools, libraries and festivals telling stories and performing his original songs about iron miners, lumberjacks and CCC Boys.
Since 2005, Bill has focused his creative efforts on writing his first book, a historical novel about the Civilian Conservation Corps. Drawing on the dozens of interviews he conducted over a fifteen year period, the book follows the life of a Detroit youth sent to Camp Raco in 1937.
Whether it is producing films, composing songs or writing a book, Bill’s love of history
shines through  in everything he does.
Bill believes that history is not just
about the past, but something that
helps us understand who we are
and how we got to where we are.
Bill confers with former iron
miner and union leader,
Ernie Ronn over some new
songs. |
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