Southern Illinoisans of older generations have cemented their mark in the region, spending their careers teaching the next generation, serving in the military and leading the Carbondale community. They have volunteered their time, while watching as time shaped and reshaped the region over the years.
The photo students in the JRNL-419 Editorial Portraiture class took to the community through the semester to find residents ages 65 or older in the region, listening and photographing as they shared their life experiences.
The project aimed to highlight and showcase untold stories.
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Motyl has had a fascination with movies since he was a child. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he would constantly go and see movies playing in his local theater. Motyl got his Bachelor’s Degree at Penn State University in 1979. At his time there, Motyl went through five majors, and ended up graduating with an English Degree. Motyl tried studying film at Penn State, but said, “This is what is so bizarre to me, I couldn’t work with other people.”
After graduating university, Motyl worked some restaurant jobs, but eventually decided to continue his education at Northwestern University in Chicago. Motyl would graduate with his Master’s degree in Film and Television. After graduation, Motyl taught for a short time at Northwestern, but quickly began working in production across the Chicago area.
Motyl worked for a number of production companies on shows for the History Channel, National Geographic, and A&E. He additionally spent some time editing in post-houses across the Chicago area, but left editing to become a producer, a role he said he was much happier doing. He began working as the Director of Development for a smaller production company for 4 years. In this role he helped write and pitch shows for cable networks. This is when he began working on shows for the Food Network. “I was just tired of it. It was going nowhere” Motyl said about his time at this company.
After he left, Motyl was hired on as a freelance producer for Towers Productions in Chicago. Motyl had considered moving to Los Angeles around this time, but decided to stay in Chicago. “I felt like I needed to stay in Chicago… I was there until 2007.”
As his time at Towers Productions was coming to an end, an old classmate from grad school reached out, and offered him a 1-year contract teaching position at Columbia College Chicago in teaching Introduction to Film Studies.
After Motyl’s contract at Columbia College Chicago was up, he moved down to Carbondale and has been working for Southern Illinois University Carbondale in a number of positions ever since. Motyl was a professor in the Cinema & Photography and Radio TV departments, and in 2016 became the chair of the departments. He then became the Dean for the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts at SIU. After the college changed to the College of Arts & Media, Motyl worked as the Associate Dean for some time. Motyl eventually moved over to become the Director of the School of Theater & Dance; a position he held until spring of 2025.
“I saw myself as facilitating everyone else being creative. So my job as the producer was to let everyone else go and play. And I had to be the one responsible for the money, and responsible to be sure that they were playing correctly. I didn’t want to do that anymore.” Motyl said while discussing why he decided to step down.
HD Motyl currently holds the position of Associate Professor teaching media production and writing for television at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. (Gavin Melton | @gavinwmelton)
Galloway directed sports television for over thirty years, working for networks such as ESPN, Fox Sports, and the Big East Network. His longest-standing position was with the Pittsburgh Pirates (MLB), also taking on directing roles with the Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL) and Baltimore Orioles (MLB). As a part of the Pirates organization, he had the opportunity to travel with the team and see much of the United States, and even some parts of Canada. He has fond memories of exploring the various cities, as well as getting to be in many different baseball environments. Many of the stadiums Galloway worked at throughout his career have either been replaced or demolished altogether.
As much as the position gave him these exciting opportunities to be around the game he loves, it also came with some brutal realities. There were multiple points at which he lost his job on a whim, either because of poor happenstance or the politics of being in a high profile organization. These experiences leave him a little bit jaded today, especially given the difficult financial situations they put him and his family in at the time.
Galloway became a professor at SIU Carbondale in 2013, where he has been teaching multi-camera production and sports classes ever since. While it’s not necessarily his dream position, one part he really enjoys about it is “seeing what [students] are doing in August versus what they’re doing in December.” The kind of growth he sees over a semester can feel quite rewarding, and make the transition to being a professor more worth it. (Nathan Culli | @nathan.culli)
Price, although born in St. Louis, actually grew up in the Belleville area. Price moved in with her grandparents at a very young age, which she greatly attributes to her personality and demeanor. “I have somewhat of an old head.” Price said in reference to living with her grandparents. “It was interesting. It was challenging being raised by senior citizens.”
Price said her family heavily pushed college onto her growing up, “There was no question about it. But I think they could say that to me because I was studious.” Price said that she was lucky enough to have her tuition covered by grants and scholarships when she was going to school. She started at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, then after a year, did the court-reporting program at Belleville Area College (known as Southwestern Illinois College now) and then finished her bachelor’s degree at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
After she graduated in 1982, she began working as a court stenographer at the Belleville Courthouse in Belleville. “I could never figure out why it didn’t work for me.” she said about this position. After doing that for a few years, she decided to begin freelancing as a court-stenographer in the St. Louis area.
Price said she was looking forward to having more free time and money to do things she wanted. “Well, when you go into business for yourself, you don’t have more time, because you’re working extra hard just to make money.” Price said about the difficulties that being your own business can have. “I started freelancing, and I thought, ‘oh my gosh, this is a nightmare’.
When talking about freelancing in St. Louis, Price said, “I really didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t know why.” When that seemed to not be working, one of Price’s cousins got her a job at IBM in St. Louis. “I guess the bottomline is that when you’re in a place that’s good for you, you’re not stagnant. When you become stagnant, you know, ‘okay, this isn’t the environment for me’.”
“I was all personality. That was the thing that really woke me up. I had trained to be a marketing representative (at IBM), so I got to talk. That’s when I realized why I didn’t enjoy my silent court reporting job. You know? The court reporters don’t talk, they just sit there.” Price said.
Price left IBM in 1985, and after bouncing around a few other jobs, decided to come back to Carbondale to get an advanced degree in 1996.
“I think it was the best experience for me because I got to experiment with everything.” Price said about coming back to school. As an employee of the university, Price is able to take classes across different departments.“I found out I’m very artsy,” Price said. She took a number of art classes in her time here at SIU ranging from oil painting, ceramics, fashion design, theater, and stained glass art, which she instructs the introduction class to every semester now.
Price first began by showing her stained glass art at an art show in Morris Library, and got 3rd place winning a $300.00 cash prize. She additionally has had her art displayed in the Student Center display cases and has gotten a lot of students to join her class that way. “It doesn’t matter if everybody sees what I can do, I finally found that thing. And when you stop trying to prove yourself to everybody else and just do your thing, you will be noticed. And I think that was a turning point for me,” Price said.
Price has been in the same office since 2008 and is looking forward to her retirement in December where she looks forward to renovating her house and having more time for her art. (Gavin Melton | @gavinwmelton)
Avery is a local artist and is originally from Creal Springs, Illinois, Avery went to school there up until eighth grade then he went to high school in Marion Illinois. After he graduated from high school in Marion he married early and was primarily a fine artist with a safety net of graphic design.
“I just fell in love with it, and to me, design is art and art is design,” Avery said.
He went to school at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and was involved in the School of Technical Careers Information. He pursued a degree in graphic design and after graduating from SIU he moved to Houston, Texas. In Houston, Avery worked for a business called Kelman Design Studio where he did a lot of production work. He also worked for ADVO System Inc in Houston, which is a direct mail advertising service.
Avery moved back to Southern Illinois after he and his wife divorced, but didn’t stay long. He moved back down to Houston where he lived for 10 years. He mostly did advertising, but worked for the Houston Chronicle as an assistant printing stripper.
After his time in Houston he came back up to Marion to take care of his mother. He then moved to Carbondale in 2018, where his career focus shifted.
“I realized that I’d been doing advertising all my life, and I wanted to promote organizations and ideas rather than just make more money for somebody who usually had more money than they needed,” he said.
In Carbondale he worked for The Center for Empowerment and Justice which helps provide social and economic justice services to people in Carbondale. After he worked there he found Project Human X. Project Human X is a community Art Center run by Marquez Scoggin and his wife Cree Sahidah Glanz. Through Project Human X he’s created murals, done screen printing and has collaborated with other local artists. Scoggin and Avery have worked together on many projects that are visible in Carbondale like the community mural at the end of Jackson Street, and a mural on the outside of the Project Human X studio.
Avery said, “We’re (Project Human X) more for the common man, you can come in there, feel comfortable. You know?” (Riley Sembler | @riley_sembler)
She began gymnastics at the age of seven when she began going to lessons at a park in Florida near her home. Through all the seasons including hot summers, she practiced. Her career as a gymnast lasted all the way through college where she became part of a national championship team. From uneven bars to floor routines, Dirks participated in most of the offered events.
“We had a lot of good times,” Dirks said. “It was a lot of rough times, long workouts. We would start at three and end at about eight everyday.”
Though gymnastics is not part of her daily routine anymore, she still regularly meets with members of the SIU 1970 national championship team. It started as a gathering that happened just once a decade, but since then has turned into an event every three years. The members live around the country ranging from California to Iowa, Dirks being the only one who still lives in their college town.
“One year coach bought a house and we all lived together,” Dirks said. “There’s no other team I don’t think that has done that. We’re not really sure why we have hooked together like we have, but we have.”
SIU’s men’s and women’s gymnastics programs won a combined 11 national championships from 1964-75, and during this year’s Homecoming festivities on Friday, Oct. 24, the gymnastics programs were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Men’s gymnastics extinguished in 1989 due to Title IX, a law passed to enforce gender equality standards for collegiate athletics, and the women’s team went soon after.
Now, Dirks has retired from teaching and owns Black Jack Vineyard in Makanda, Illinois. (Lylee Gibbs | @lyleegibbsphoto)
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