From Maple Mud to Ethiopian Miracles - James William Graff

"From Maple Mud to Ethiopian Miracles" is Bill Graff's memoir of a life shaped by service. It opens with a crumpled telegram - that pulled him from a graduate teaching post at Stevens Institute into the Peace Corps in 1963. Sent to Ethiopia, he taught in Addis Ababa, married Betty, and lobbied to be reassigned to Sodo, a remote Wolaita town with no electricity or running water. There they built a home, taught, witnessed the Miracle of Ajura, met Emperor Haile Selassie, and lived through Kennedy's death from afar. Decades later, after a career in technology and publishing, Bill returned to Ethiopia again and again - first stocking school libraries, then funding "Christmas desks," and finally installing RACHEL servers and Chromebooks in Wolaita schools. Locally run, it became his late-life mission. He handed the work to World Possible before passing on September 14, 2025, the day after his 87th birthday.