Art and Ina Rifkin

Art and Ina Rifkin came late to their enjoyment of Japanese culture. Art, a volunteer at the Boulder Community Network, was given the assignment of creating a home page for the Boulder-Yamagata Sister City Friendship Society, which is what we called ourselves in 1995. In making the pages, he became interested in the City and Province of Yamagata, and he and Ina began to attend the Society meetings and also began taking Japanese people coming to Boulder into their home for homestays. This interest peaked with a visit to Japan in the Fall of 1996, where we stayed with families in both Tokyo and Yamagata and had a wonderful time.

Art is a retired engineering executive, where he worked for Grumman Aerospace Corporation (now Northrop-Grumman), mostly on Naval fighter aircraft. Ina is a retired school teacher , where she taught in the Roslyn, NY public schools, both fifth grade and in Special Education. she was also an adjunct Professor at Queens College where she taught Special Ed courses.

Art and Ina have lived in Boulder for over nine years, but they have been visiting here for almost thirty. They are very active in community affairs. Both have served the Boulder Community Network and Art is a member of the Board. Both of them are on the Board of the Columbine Chamber Players, and Art serves as Treasurer for the Boulder Friends of Jazz. In addition, Ina volunteers as a docent at the Denver Museum of Art, the Denver Museum of Natural History, as well as the Colorado University Museum of Natural history. She is also a Peer Counselor, working for the Boulder Mental Mealth Association.

Their son, John, is a clinical psychologist in practise here, and he and his wife Pam have two daughters, Ariel, 16, a junior at Boulder High, and Jenna, 13, an eighth-grader at Centennial. Their other children are Ned, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and has two sons, Moses, 18, a sophmore at Brown University, and Amos, 16, a junior at the Lawrence School, and Elka Rifkin, the wife of Stephen Covert, and the mother of Bryce, 13, a freshman at the local high school, and Jace, 8, a third-grader. the Coverts live in Sagaponack, NY.