Volunteers eye, and ID, historic photos

Debra Anderson of the Cofrin Library and volunteers Ron Starkey and Chuck Rhyner (above) compared notes as the Library’s University Archives and Area Research Center hosted a “Save Our History” gathering on June 28.

For a few hours, members of the Retiree Association and anyone with a good memory for UW-Green Bay people, places and events were invited to help attach labels, captions and IDs to hundreds of uncatalogued photographs.

“We were able to identify at least a hundred photos,” said Anderson, the University archivist. “The people who attended also shared some great accounts pertaining to early campus history. The reminiscences provided insight into the people and events depicted in the photos.”

UW-Green Bay was founded when Gov. Warren Knowles signed enabling legislation in September 1965. The first employee, Founding Chancellor Edward Weidner, was on board by October 1966, and within three years the first trio of buildings (Laboratory Sciences, Environmental Sciences and the Instructional Services Building) opened on the Shorewood site.

University photographers chronicled those early milestones and the institution’s development over its first decade in thousands of black-and-white photos and color slides, but relatively few of those images were accompanied by identifying captions. Volunteers helping to ID the images included not only retired science faculty members Rhyner and Starkey but former and current staff members Eleanor Crandall, Ginny Dell, Trudy Jacobson and Anne Kasuboski, and Class of 1970 alumnus Keith Pamperin and his wife. Library staff including Dennis Jacobs and Jessie LaCanne assisted with the project.

It is expected many of the images (newly captioned) will be posted online at a later date, as the effort progresses.

Anderson said the group made good progress at its June 28 session, and future photo-ID meetings are likely. A bonus, she said, was that some of the participants brought memorabilia to donate to the University Archives; Pamperin donated an original ballot for the selection of the campus mascot in 1970.