An Ohio Township man has been named as the North American representative to an international council focused on Carpatho-Rusyn culture.

John J. Righetti was elected to the North American seat of the World Council of Rusyns, the coordinating body for Carpatho-Rusyn cultural activity internationally.

He was elected at the 10th World Congress of Rusyns held in Ruski Kerestur, Serbia, in June.

Righetti will represent the entire Carpatho-Rusyn community in North America at the Council, which also has one representative each from Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Romania and Hungary.

The World Council of Rusyns was founded in 1993, a few years after communism fell in Eastern Europe and Rusyns, whose cultural identification had been illegal in all of the above nations except Serbia and Croatia, revived their cultural activity internationally. The Council is headquartered in Presov, Slovakia.

The body meets several times a year and, at its biannual Congresses, to which each nation sends delegates, determines its agenda and priorities as a community to keep Rusyn culture alive in all of the lands where Rusyns live.

"We Rusyns are like other stateless people - like Roma (Gypsies,) Alsatians, or Kurds. Since we have no state of our own, we, the community, gather and determine our strategies for how to keep our culture alive," Righetti said. "It's not easy, but it is doable. In a globalized society united by technology, there is no reason a stateless people can't survive and thrive today."

Righetti is only the second to hold the North American chair, previously held by Dr. Paul R. Magocsi of the University of Toronto in Canada since its inception.

Righetti has long been active in Carpatho-Rusyn cultural affairs. In 1994, he led a group of young Rusyn Americans to create the Carpatho-Rusyn Society. He has served since its inception as the group's only national president. Under his leadership, it has become North America's largest exclusively Rusyn cultural organization, with 10 chapters and a membership approaching 2,000. It has developed the nation's first Web-based Rusyn radio programming, developed countless educational programs, created the Carpatho-Rusyn Event -- which it co-sponsored for 10 years at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh -- and developed two permanent Rusyn displays with the Heinz Regional History Center in Pittsburgh. The group acquired a former Rusyn Cathedral in Munhall in 2004 and has been converting it into the National Carpatho-Rusyn Cultural and Educational Center to educate Rusyns and non-Rusyns about the culture. He then assisted in creating North America's youth group, Rusyn Outpost North America (RONA).

He also serves on the advisory board of the Rusyn Academy of World Culture based in Canada; the advisory board of the Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center, the nation's largest developer of scholarly material on Rusyns; and previously as its international communications officer.

He has served as a North American delegate to two Rusyn World Congresses, both in Krynica, Poland, in 1993 and 2005.

Professionally, Righetti has worked in healthcare marketing, public relations, fund-raising and legislative affairs for 30 years. He currently serves as vice president of Strategic Relationship Management at Butler Health System in Butler, PA.

The Carpatho-Rusyns are a small East Slavic group from the Carpathian Mountain chain of Eastern Europe. Their homeland was entirely contained in Austria-Hungary for 1,000 years. Since the end of World War II, their homeland has been split among Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Romania with large immigrant populations in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, Canada and the United States. About 1.2 million Rusyns live in Europe, with another 650,000 in North America and small populations in South America and Australia.