Author Archives: Lynn Niedermeier

Stickles Collection Now Available at Special Collections Library

Arndt Mathis Stickles

Arndt Mathis Stickles

At the time he retired in 1954 after more than 46 years at WKU, history professor Arndt Mathis Stickles (1872-1968) held the record as the longest serving professor at an accredited institution of higher learning.  His publications included Elements of Government: Political Institutions, Local and National, in the United States (1914), The Critical Court Struggle in Kentucky, 1819-1829 (1929), and Simon Bolivar Buckner: Borderland Knight (1940).  Among more than 2,700 items in this collection, now available in the Manuscripts section of WKU’s Special Collections Library, are his speeches, family and professional correspondence, research materials for his books, and a lengthy personal reminiscence of his life and career written for his children.  A finding aid for the Stickles Collection can be accessed here.

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Witten Collection Available at Special Collections Library

Tempie Jane (Bell) Witten

Tempie Jane (Bell) Witten

Tempie Jane (Bell) Witten (1901-1985), a native of Grayson County, Kentucky, taught elementary and high school for more than 40 years.  This manuscript collection of more than 1,500 items, available at WKU’s Special Collections Library, includes genealogical research on the Bell, McCrady, Skaggs, Salsman, Witten and other families; materials relating to Witten’s teaching career; news clippings on Grayson County history, people and places; and information relating to Grayson County schools and churches.  Of particular interest are four letters describing Japan in 1947-48, and a 1975 sermon by LaVerne Butler of Ninth & O Baptist Church in Louisville on school desegregation and busing of students in that city and Jefferson County.

A collection finding aid is available here.

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