THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FORUM (12/15/96)

THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FORUM

The UNA and you
Falling rates spur new loans

by Stephan Welhasch

As many financial analysts predicted, mortgage rates continue to fall. When mortgage rates fell below 7 percent more than three years ago, the lowest rate in 25 years, it set off a wave of refinancing nationally. Then, by mid-1994, interest rates jumped to nearly 10 percent and many home buyers decided to wait it out. Over the last six months rates have dropped to below 7 1/2 percent, prompting many home buyers and home owners to apply for first mortgage loans.

Economists are predicting that these lower interest rates will bring many more home buyers into the housing market. Seasoned real estate agents feel that mortgage rates may not move much lower.

Those home buyers who missed out on the low mortgage rates of a few years ago now have a very good chance of coming back into the market and saving themselves tens of thousands of dollars. Take, for example, those home owners who borrow $150,000 at 7 percent instead of 9.375 percent; they cut well over $200 from their monthly mortgage payment. Over 30 years this would amount to a savings of over $85,000.

It is definitely a good time to get a first mortgage loan on your new dream home or to refinance your existing home loan and maybe do a little work on the house that you've been meaning to do for the last few years, but couldn't afford to.

Being a member of the Ukrainian National Association entitles you to a special mortgage rate, which also includes better insurance coverage for you and your family. If you've been considering looking into a mortgage loan - now is a wonderful time to call the UNA and comparison shop. You never know, rates might begin to move up rapidly again as happened a few years ago.

The UNA offers its members financing for one-, two- and three-family homes throughout the United States and Canada. The UNA's First Mortgage Loan Program is specially designed to meet the financial needs of it members and offers an interest rate that is competitive with the prevailing rates in your area. The UNA also continues to provide jumbo mortgage loans to Ukrainian churches and organizations.

To find out more about the UNA's First Mortgage Loan Program, Jumbo Loan Programs, refinancing or about becoming a member and sharing in many other benefits the UNA offers, please call 1(800) 253-9862.

OBITUARY: Stella Ryan, employee of UNA Home Office for 55 years

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Stella Ryan (nee Levich), longtime Ukrainian National Association Home Office employee died on December 9, at Christ Hospital in Jersey City, N.J. Mrs. Ryan worked at the UNA Home Office for 55 years.

She was first hired in 1931 and retired on July 25, 1986. She worked in the Recording Department under five supreme secretaries of the Ukrainian National Association: Ivan Kashtaniuk, Dmytro Halychyn, Gregory Herman, Jaroslaw Padoch and Walter Sochan.

In addition to working at the Home Office she was elected secretary of Branch 171 in Jersey City and served in that capacity for many years. After her retirement, she handed over Branch 171 to Genevieve Kufta, but took over the duties of secretary in Branch 3.

During her long life, she was deeply involved with the Ukrainian National Association, as an employee, as a branch secretary and as an organizer of new members.

Even after her retirement, the Recording Department could always rely on Mrs. Ryan to help when help was needed. She would gladly come to substitute for an ill employee or lend a hand when the workload was enormous. She worked diligently and tirelessly for the good of the organization. Those who knew her remember her as a hard-working, kind and gentle person.

Mrs. Ryan was born and raised in Jersey City. She finished her schooling in Jersey City and worked and lived her entire life here. She was a lifelong member of Ss. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church and in her youth participated in many clubs and activities in the Ukrainian community.

She was married to Walter Ryan. She is survived by three nephews and two nieces, and cousins Nicholas Fedayko and Anne Weller.

Marta Kolomayets, associate editor, leaves The Weekly staff

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Marta Kolomayets, associate editor of The Ukrainian Weekly since February 1988, has resigned from the newspaper's staff to take up a special assignment as a communications strategist for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) working out of Kyiv.

Ms. Kolomayets' fellow staffers at The Weekly and co-workers at the Svoboda daily, as well as the newspapers' administration and print shop, bid her farewell and good luck at a gathering at The Weekly's offices on December 4.

After serving five tours of duty as The Weekly's Kyiv correspondent, Ms. Kolomayets has decided to work full-time in Kyiv and pursue personal professional interests. She is married to journalist Danylo Yanevsky of Kyiv, editor of the television program "Pisliamova." The couple met in the Verkhovna Rada building in 1991 and were married in May 1994.

Ms. Kolomayets first joined The Weekly staff in January 1982 and stayed on until November 1984 as assistant editor. She then worked at a trade publication in New York and served as administrative director at the Ukrainian Institute of America.

In February 1988 she returned to The Weekly as associate editor. The Weekly tried to send Ms. Kolomayets to Kyiv in March 1990 to report on the historic multi-candidate parliamentary and local elections - the first to occur during the era of perebudova. However, Ms. Kolomayets was denied a visa by Soviet authorities. She was in good company though, as members of the U.S. congressional delegation that planned to travel to Ukraine under the auspices of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (as well as Eugene Iwanciw of the UNA, who was to act as the delegation's advance man) to observe the voting also were denied entry visas.

Undaunted, The Weekly then tried to get Ms. Kolomayets to Ukraine in time for the opening of the first session of the newly elected Parliament of Ukraine, which took place May 15, 1990. She arrived four days later. After overcoming many bureaucratic hassles, Ms. Kolomayets was permitted to travel to Ukraine, for the first time as a Weekly staffer, with a medical relief mission organized by the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund. She was able to get a three-day visitor's pass to attend sessions of the Parliament on May 21-23, observed ceremonies at the Shevchenko monument commemorating the anniversary of the date the Ukrainian national poet's body was transferred from St. Petersburg to its final resting place in Kaniv, Ukraine, and tracked the CCRF's humanitarian aid mission.

Soon afterwards came the Ukrainian National Association's 32nd Convention, which met on May 28 through June 1. On the final day of its deliberations, the convention passed a resolution that stated: "The convention urges the UNA Executive Committee to look into establishing a bureau in Kyiv and/or Lviv which would provide direct news service on a regular basis to our UNA publications." In October of that year, efforts to establish the bureau began in earnest when a UNA delegation (comprising President Ulana Diachuk, Secretary Walter Sochan and Advisors Eugene Iwanciw and Roma Hadzewycz), while in Kyiv to attend the second congress of Rukh, met with officials of the Foreign Affairs Ministry to discuss the fraternal organization's intentions of opening a press office. Several months of battling the bureaucracy followed, but eventually the go-ahead was given.

In January 1991, the Ukrainian National Association's Kyiv Press Bureau became the first foreign news bureau to receive official accreditation. Ms. Kolomayets became the first staffer of that bureau, arriving in the Ukrainian capital on January 13, 1991, to set up the office. She became the first U.S. journalist and the second foreign journalist to be accredited as a correspondent in Ukraine.

For the first four months, Ms. Kolomayets lived and worked out of a hotel room at the Dnipro Hotel on the Khreshchatyk; she filed her news reports from the Rukh headquarters on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard. (It should be noted that just a few months earlier, in August 1990, The Weekly Assistant Editor Chrystyna Lapychak had worked at the Rukh office, on loan from The Weekly to Rukh Press International.)

Afterwards Ms. Kolomayets succeeded in finding an apartment on Karl Marx Street, now known as Horodetsky Street, that to this day serves as the Kyiv Press Bureau's home. During her first stint in Kyiv, which extended from January to July 1991, Ms. Kolomayets covered demonstrations expressing solidarity with the Lithuanian people following the bloody massacres of January 1991, Ukrainian Independence Day (January 22) celebrations, the fact-finding visit of the John Demjanjuk defense team, miners' strikes, the union referendum and the poll on Ukrainian state sovereignty, among others.

She subsequently served four more tours of duty in the Ukrainian capital - February-August 1992, February-December 1993, June 1994-July 1995, and October 1995-September 1996 - covering many more historic developments in newly independent Ukraine. (Other Weekly staffers who served in the Kyiv Press Bureau were: Ms. Lapychak, Khristina Lew and Roman Woronowycz, who is now serving his second tour of duty.)

While in Kyiv as The Weekly's full-time correspondent, Ms. Kolomayets also served as a stringer for such media outlets as the Associated Press, United Press International and Newsweek. Her free-lance articles have been published also in the Chicago Tribune.

Readers will continue to see the byline of Marta Kolomayets on the pages of The Ukrainian Weekly as our colleague will contribute features and news stories on a free-lance basis. And so, although Ms. Kolomayets is no longer on staff, we will continue to benefit from her experience.