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A
touch of France in Lynchburg
Related
story:
Manufacturing's upper end
by
John Peters
for Virginia Business
June 2003
It’s
a rite of passage in the springtime. Young and old people
gathered at a hall in Lynchburg to recognize the winners
of a local essay-writing contest.
Yet
this one was just a tad different. This one had (how
shall we put it?) a certain je ne sais quoi. Those in
attendance included an official from the French consulate
in Washington, D.C., and a few folks from Rueil-Malmaison,
a town outside Paris. The essays, composed by students
in middle and high schools, were all written in French.
The
event was just one of a number of such gatherings put
on each year by the Lynchburg chapter of L’Alliance
Française de Lynchburg, the local chapter of
an international organization devoted to the study of
French culture and language. It might seem a little
unusual to find a chapter of the renowned global organization
in a quiet, middle-sized city such as Lynchburg. But
maybe not. Founded 23 years ago, the local chapter has
been enhanced by the growing economic clout of Region
2000 — the area encompassing Lynchburg and several
nearby counties. It got a boost when Framatome, a nuclear
services company owned by Germany-based Siemens and
the French government, moved its North American headquarters
to Lynchburg. The only other Virginia chapters are in
the Richmond area and near the University of Virginia
in Charlottesville.
“You
can find L’Alliance Française in many cities
all over the world,” says Michaela Gabathuler,
president of the Lynchburg chapter. “Lynchburg
has a small chapter, about 80 to 100 households are
represented.” Hailing from Austria, Gabathuler
has lived in Lynchburg for 20 years, teaching French
at area middle and high schools. “I became involved
in Alliance Française because of my international
background. I know all the other French teachers who
work and live in town.”
Another
L’Alliance enthusiast is Therese Namenek, who came
to the United States from France in 1967 and moved to
Lynchburg five years later. She was quite pleased to
learn of L’Alliance Francaise’s presence there.
“Lynchburg is really quite international. It was
quite amazing actually,” she says. And Namenek
has played a part in giving Lynchburg an even more international
flavor, working with others in the city to secure a
sister-city relationship with Rueil-Malmaison, a suburb
of Paris. “It’s best known as the place where
all the impressionist painters painted the River Seine
and for the beautiful castle of Marie Antoinette.”
When
some of the people in Lynchburg decided to become involved
in the sister city program, France was a natural location,
Namenek says, not only because of the existence of L’Alliance
Française, but because of the influence of one
of the region’s major employers, Framatome. “They
have a large number of French people who come and work
here for years at a time,” says Namenek.
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