Buffalo Five followed judge's orders

BUFFALO — When U.S. District Court Judge John T. Curtin sentenced five young activists for burgling a federal building in Buffalo 45 years ago, he admonished them to find more constructive ways to channel their idealism. The evidence is in. They did as he asked.

“I’m very proud of all us,” Maureen Considine says. “It wasn’t a phase.”

Considine, 66, is a women’s health care nurse practitioner in Olympia, Wash., and a longtime member of the Rotary Club. Her late father was a Rotarian when she was growing up in Buffalo. “I saw it as a stuffy club for old white men,” she says with a laugh.

A story of fathers and sons, war and peace, and second chances

She says she thinks her father would’ve been amazed and gratified to see her special interest in the club’s Youth Exchange program for study abroad. Her son lived with a family in Mexico and her daughter with one in Argentina. Considine has taken in students from more than a dozen countries around the globe.

“I don’t think there is a bigger leap of faith than sending your child to live in another land or to have someone else’s child come into your home,” she says. “It makes you feel connected to countries that you might not be able to find on a map. What’s the economy there? What’s the climate? What’s the history? I think it’s the most powerful tool for world peace there could be.”