Local farmer is international at 80

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

FRANKLIN GROVE – When Richard Applequist turns 80 on Sunday, he will celebrate on his farm with the Brazilian exchange student who stayed with his family 40 years ago.

In 1968, Regina Malmazallhaes came to the rolling hills of the Applequist’s quiet Franklin Grove farm from Sao Paolo, Brazil, a sprawling city with more people than Chicago and New York City combined – the largest in the Americas.

At a time when the Vietnam War divided the world, and despite cultures thousands of miles and centuries of history apart, Applequist and Malmazallhaes kept open minds and learned to appreciate each other’s way of life and world views.

“We used to stay up and have long talks,” Applequist said. “We sure learned a lot from each other.”

In English she’s starting to recall 40 years after her stay, Malmazallhaes, described how a year watching the Applequists raise livestock and grow corn showed her “the American way of life.”

“It was really great,” she said. “It was really nice to learn about the American way of life,” she said. “This is the point, right?”

Their relationship is a prime example of what the U.S. State Department’s American Scholastic Associates International exchange program was designed to build – ambassadorship that plunges through official channels and shows participating countries a slice of American life and hospitality as their teenagers live it.

“It was very very fun for all of us, because we were learning from each other,” said Bonnie Wood, Applequist’s daughter, now 57.

Wood bonded so closely with Malmazallhaes that she named her oldest daughter after the exchange student.

Malmazallhaes did the same for her family. Her oldest son, Ricardo, shares the Portuguese name for Richard Applequist.

Both of her sons, Ricardo and Eduardo, have visited the Applequists, Eduardo hopping the 11-hour flight twice because he wanted to see the country.

Malmazallhaes is in town for 10 days, and this is her second return to Franklin Grove. The last time she came was for Applequist’s 70th birthday.