Coming from a town where the production of nuclear triggers was kept secret, "Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats" author, Kristen Iversen, brought her story to Otterbein students at the annual Common Book Convocation.
Through a slideshow of personal photos, Iversen intertwined her childhood with Rocky Flats, a nuclear plant that secretly made plutonium triggers, which make up the heart of every implosion atomic bomb. The plant contaminated the surrounding area, but it was shrouded in secrecy, said Iversen. She connected the secrecy of the plant to the secrecy of her father’s alcoholism in the book.
“I was telling the kind of stories I wasn’t supposed to tell,” Iversen said in regards to the book. “I was a writer looking for a story in Europe, when I finally realized the biggest story was in my own backyard.”
Iversen said that due to the secrecy of Rocky Flats, the plutonium contamination caused health issues among those in the town surrounding the plant, including her loved ones.
“It was so powerful to hear about her personal stories,” Melissa Dean, sophomore business major, said. “It was shocking to see the way her home life mixed with Rocky Flats because it’s not like anything you would find here at Otterbein.”
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