William (Bill) DeJohn received his Masters in Library Science in 1967 from the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences. He was the Director of Minitex, which serves academic, public, state agency, and other special libraries in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, from 1984-2012. DeJohn was actively involved in efforts to further library resource sharing throughout the Minitex region and beyond. In the interview he answers questions submitted to him by library staff in the Minitex region. Bill discusses: his first library job at Daniel Boone Regional Library, Columbia, Missouri; early interlibrary loan work at the Missouri State Library; former University of Minnesota Librarian Edward Stanford and the beginning of Minitex; additional funding for technological developments in the 1990's that led to ELM, MLAC, and the MnLINK Gateway; influential people for library services during Bill's tenure; the future of Minitex; his secret reading addiction; and words of wisdom for library staff today.This interview also includes the following: An audio recording, recording table of contents, transcript, and photograph of the interviewee.
In an oral history conducted by David H. Overy on April 9, 1991, William H. "Bill" Nunn discussed his experiences as a personnel administrator in the Army stationed in India during World War II. Born and raised in Texas, Nunn enlisted in the Army Reserve Corps and was called to active duty in 1943. In this interview, Nunn described his experiences as a military administrator in India and his interactions with the Indian population during his tour. He discussed often using his free time to travel to different cities and looked to explore India's culture. Lastly, Nunn discussed segregation in the Army, and how it had begun to integrate by the end of World War II. After his service in World War II, Nunn returned to college and received his master's degree in Political Science in 1948. He taught high school in Galveston, Texas, before accepting a position at St. Cloud State College in 1954. Nunn was born on January 15, 1922 and passed away on April 17, 2016.
Lee Gresser was the first director and employee of Hennepin Technical College. He, the District 287 Board (made up of 15 individual suburban school districts), and Richard Emery were instrumental in lobbying for a suburban vocational-technical school, buying land, deciding which programs to offer, and who to hire to teach the programs. Lee was interviewed by Joyce Randall Senechal. Also present in the room were Carole Carlson and Marty Patterson.
