Jim Argo was Kansas born and Texas reared. His photojournalism career began in 1960 while a student at Texas Tech University. He worked for two Texas newspapers before coming to the The Daily Oklahoman and Oklahoma City Times in 1963. He developed a passion for photographing his adopted state, winning numerous awards for photography and writing.

Argo co-authored two books on Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Historical Society and was a major photographic contributor to 12 others. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 1997.

Argo retired as The Oklahoman photo editor in 2003. He has done three books on Oklahoma since retirement, Images of History, Oklahoma Impressions, and Oklahoma City Impressions.

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This collection is comprised of the School Drive Scrapbooks, prepared from 1942-1943 by 253 individual Oklahoma schools both private and parochial. Images in the scrapbooks include school buildings, students, towns, and cities where schools are located.

Schools at War Scrapbooks
World War II on the Home Front lesson plans

After graduation from Southeast High School in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1953, Bryan received a one-year scholarship to study at the Kansas City Art Institute, courtesy of the Kansas City Advertising Club.

At the end of that first year, her father's untimely death prompted her to leave academia and go to work. Bryan joined a crew of window decorators at the Palace Clothing Company in downtown Kansas City. They were responsible for three stores: downtown, North Kansas City and Prairie Village. Bryan enjoyed creating window displays, but after several years went scouting for better pay.

Bryan was working for IBM Corporation and transferred to their Oklahoma City office in 1961. After marrying Don Bryan, she was officially an Edmondite and took advantage of the close proximity to UCO to attend art and creative writing classes.

Bryan has designed greeting cards, teaching aids, business logos and the Official Seal of Edmond. Designed and produced with art partner, Pat Darcey, the MY-TOWN-TOO project which is small wood replicas of Old North Tower, the old police station, Wide-A-Wake Café and Rodkey Mill. This project was one of the official mementos of Oklahoma City's Centennial Celebration.

But, chiefly, Bryan is a watercolor artist, inspired by my collection of photographic images of "old town" Edmond and its environs. When Edmond's pre-statehood homes and farms began to make way for tract homes, strip malls, and parking lots, her photographic intent took a serious turn to document the area's architectural history that she loved so much.

Essay: Frances Bryan on photography and the growth of Edmond.

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Drummond began as a cattle rancher but eventually amassed huge land holdings and widened his business interests to include oil and gas exploration and production.

 

Five panoramic paintings on the north wall in Archives & Special Collections show Drummond's cattle ranch in Madill, Oklahoma. Drummond commissioned artist Richard Goetz for these paintings. Goetz's work is examined in this PBS program: Paint What You See, Part 1 | Paint What You See, Part 2.

Rubye McCan taught in the Oklahoma City public school system for 27 years. She contributed photographs to Oklahoma Today magazine for more than 15 years and had more than 40 full page published photos. She was the only female photographer for the publication at that time. She also had photographs published in Orbit Magazine and the Daily Oklahoman.

As a founding member of the Oklahoma Watercolor Society she exhibited her one person show developed to take art and Oklahoma history to small towns across the state. Her works have also been shown several times at the Oklahoma State Capitol and around Oklahoma City.

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Dr. Ed Pugh was a professor in the History & Geography department at the University of Central Oklahoma from 1997 until 2006. His photographic subjects reflect his professional interests in human and topographical geography. Many of the photos feature geological concepts such as the effects of erosion on watersheds, sociological concepts such as suburbs and public housing, and aerial views that illustrate geographical concepts.

 

Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Edward Jackson Pugh was a geographer, resource conservationist, faculty member and a prolific researcher and writer. Ed Pugh spent three years in the U.S. Army serving in Europe and South Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star and Purple Heart before his discharge in 1969. He would go on to earn a B.A. in Geography from Central State College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma.

In 1979 he joined Governor George Nigh's staff serving as Senior Executive Assistant for Natural Resources, Energy and Environmental Affairs advising on the management and protection of Oklahoma's natural resources. Dr. Pugh would also serve President George Nigh as Executive Assistant at the University of Central Oklahoma where he would later become a full time Assistant Professor in the History and Geography Department.

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The photography class was founded by Professor John Davis and offered for credit in the Department of Physics and Chemistry, since photographs were as much a work of chemistry as they were works of art.

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