We preserve civilization," University of Central Arkansas Archivist Jimmy Bryant said, "from the standpoint of being able to answer the question of how we got to where we are."
Bryant oversees the University's archives. Filling several rooms in the Torreyson Library, the collection contains "tens of thousands of stories," Bryant said, most relating to Conway but all having Arkansas ties.
The UCA archives were founded in 1986. Bryant said he has seen the collection double in size since he was hired as the university's archivist in 1998.
The rare book room contains 11,000 titles, he said. Many are the only known copies. Books of records going back over 100 years contain a wealth of knowledge, he said. Everything from architectural records for every town in the state to what type of soil an Arkansas home sits on can be found there.
In the manuscripts room, row upon row of numbered boxes hold the personal collections of hundreds of Arkansans: their photographs, correspondence, military and governmental records, audio and video recordings—even a few unpublished novels.
One of the "tens of thousands of stories" Bryant shared Wednesday was that of Helen Kent, who joined the Women's Air Corps during World War II and was stationed at Arkansas State Teacher's College (now UCA). Kent's husband, Lt. Earl Kent, was killed in combat when his B-24 Liberator bomber was shot down over Germany. In 1943, a ceremony honoring Kent's husband was the most well-attended event in the school's history, with a turnout greater than the population of Conway itself.
Helen Kent was destined to share her husband's fate. She was transferred to New Guinea, becoming a Sergeant in the WAC. Only days after Allied forces accepted the unconditional surrender of Germany, she was killed in an airplane crash.
"She and several others aboard C-47 Dakota were flying to get some parts to Australia. The pilot took them on a tour of Valley of Shangri-La, a long valley, long and wide with high walls."
The natives living in and around the valley had never seen white people before, Bryant said, and few white people other than pilots had seen the valley. The C-47 crashed after fog obscured the valley walls, killing all except three passengers, who were "spilled onto the ground" when a tree ripped the tail section off the airplane.
"And that's just one story," Bryant said. "One of the areas that I've focused on when I came here was World War II collections. We had three collections when I got here, and now we have 34. I didn't want us to end up in the same situation as we're in with the Civil War, where very few records survived. It's especially important now because of the age of the veterans. They're getting on up in years and they're dying out at a high rate right now and I wanted us to have some primary documents."
The UCA archives are open to the public. Bryant said people from all walks of life have visited the archives, from people seeking to uncover their genealogy to researchers working on books or academic papers.
UCA President Lu Hardin is also a frequent visitor, Bryant said.
"President Hardin is someone who is very interested in history," he said. "He's been a big supporter of the archives ever since he's been here and he's visited the archives numerous times. He's very knowledgeable about Arkansas history and especially Arkansas political history."
For more information about the UCA Archives collection, visit http://archives.uca.edu/index.html
(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
