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These records document the Alpha Rho chapter of Epsilon Sigma Phi, national extension honor society, at Kansas State University from 1930 to 2016. Types of material include programs, constitutions, newsletters, chapter history, minutes, financial information, membership listings, autobiographies, scrapbooks, and photographic materials. Some records from the 1990s are in digital format.

This collection documents the history of Farmland Industries, Inc. from Howard A. Cowden's idea to establish Cowden Oil Company in 1928, through the dissolution of the company in 2004.
The Union Equity series is comprised of 14 boxes. It includes Articles of Incorporation, By-Laws, correspondence, export records, financial and audit records, meeting minutes, meeting agendas, speeches, publicity materials, printed material, audiovisual materials, and photographs.
Women's Cooperative Guild series is made up of five (5) boxes and one (1) box is shared with the Farmland Artifacts series. It includes annual reports, correspondence, financial records, member records, meeting minutes, newsletters, photographs, scrapbooks, yearbooks, and artifacts.
Contained in 126 boxes, the Farmland series is the largest in the collection. It is made up of corporation records, correspondence, financial records, historical records, photographs, negatives, slides, printed material, and scrapbooks. The corporation records include Corporation By-Laws, annual reports, annual meetings, conferences, minute books, Dreyer Award winners, Ampride Incorporation merger with Farmland, Farmland Food Services, Farmland World Trade Company, and Tier II Emergency and Hazardous Chemical Inventory Reports at various locations. Historical records follow the history of Farmland from Cowden Oil Company (1928) through name changes and the dissolution of the company (2004). They also include the history of the changes of the Farmland logo. There are photographs, negatives, and slides of board members, Dreyer Award winners, and employees and non-employees filed in alphabetical order. A possible photograph of interest is of Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. Other photographs, negatives, and slides include annual meetings (1944-2001), Coffeyville Petroleum Coke to Ammonia Project, Co-Op displays, Farmland food plants, Farmland Headquarters, Phillipsburg Refinery, Youth Camp, baseball players, football players, hockey players, barbed wire, barges, cattle, farm meetings, feed mills, feeding containers, fertilizer plants, food storage containers, glo-candles, grease plant, heaters, hogs, horses, landscapes, laundry detergent, livestock shows, paint plant, pipelines, print plant, propane plant, refineries, sheep, soy plants, storage tanks, trains, trucks, warehouses, and warehouse fires. There is also a photo book of Consumers Cooperative Association. Printed material consists of articles, brochures, catalogs, essays, magazines such as Leadership, training manuals, manuscripts, music, newsletters such as Farmland News and Inside Farmland, news releases, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, reports of fertilizer plants and pork processing plants, speeches and radio addresses by Howard A. Cowden, Homer Young, and others and educational and training materials. There are five (5) scrapbooks in this series. Photographs in the scrapbooks include an ammonium phosphate plant in Joplin, Missouri, Coffeyville Refinery, Farmland Headquarters, Lawrence Nitrogen Plant, Phillipsburg Refinery, annual meetings, Co-Op transportation vehicles, feed mills, and warehouses.
Cooperative Refinery Association (CRA) series is made up of one (1) box. It includes information pertaining to the Coffeyville and Phillipsburg, Kansas refineries, CRA meeting minute books (1939-1981), and CRA of Peru, Inc.
Consumers Cooperative Association (CCA) series is comprised of three (3) boxes and one (1) partial box that is shared with CFCA series, Union Oil Company series, and Agricultural Hall of Fame series. It includes the organization's Administrative Orders, Articles of Incorporation, correspondence, conferences, farm program and problems, history of the organization, lists of Board of Directors, minutes, policies, list of personnel, speeches by Howard A. Cowden, subsidiary reports, printed material, and information regarding the Howard A. Cowden Scholarship & Memorial Fund. The one (1) partial box consists of the history of the organization including photographs of laying of the cornerstone of the office building located at 3315 North Oak Trafficway, Kansas City, Missouri, the Neighbor Night Program, and audio cassette tapes. The tapes include the 21st Annual Meeting (1949), Neighbor Night meetings (1951 and 1953), the 24th Annual Meeting (1952), the dedication of the nitrate plant (1952), and short recordings of Howard A. Cowden.
Cooperative Farm Chemical Association (CFCA) series is stored in one (1) box and one (1) partial box shared with the CCA series, Union Oil Company series, and Agricultural Hall of Fame series. It includes Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws, annual stockholders meetings and minutes, correspondence, newspaper clippings, revolving fund certificates (1959-1985), and photographs and printed material of the dedication of the Lawrence Nitrogen Plant, Lawrence, Kansas (1951-1954).
Far-Mar-Co series is contained in two (2) boxes. Included are correspondence to the Board of Directors (1976-1985), news releases, newspaper clippings, and the organization meeting of the incorporators of Far-Mar-Co/Farmland Acquisition Corporation (1976-1980).
Union Oil Company series is housed in one (1) box with CCA series, CFCA series, and Agricultural Hall of Fame series. Included are the Certificate of Incorporation, Articles of Agreement, Affidavit of Dissolution of Cowden Oil Company, correspondence, minutes, magazines and newspaper publicity and advertising, radio talks, and speeches, and three (3) scrapbooks with photographs.
The Agricultural Hall of Fame series is stored in one (1) box with CCA series, CFCA series, and Union Oil Company series. It contains the Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws (1958-1961), newspaper clippings (1980-1990), visitors guides (1960-1981), photographs, printed materials with titles such as "What's the Agricultural Hall of Fame Development Program All About?" and "How Farmers Can Take Part in Building the Agricultural Hall of Fame Through Their Local Cooperatives."
Stored in five (5) boxes and two (2) shared boxes and five (5) oversize items, the Farmland Artifacts series contains awards, a keychain that reads "Farmland, Proud to be Farmer Owned," a coffee cup that reads "Co-Op Quality Paint," a deck of playing cards that reads "Co-Op Feed Mill Dedication, Farmland Industries, Inc.," golf tees, paperweights, wooden gavel, a red and white apron that reads "Use Co-Op Products," and a color plate of Co-Op Red and Co-Op Blue. The series also includes one (1) ceremonial shovel dated December 1, 1959, a Recognition Board that reads in part "In Recognition Members of the Original Consolidated Board of Directors of FAR-MAR-CO, Inc." with a list of board members dated June 1, 1968-March 1969, and a silver metal sign that reads "Consumers Cooperative Association" with a list of board of directors dated 1956. It also includes a Bell & Howell Model 1550B 16mm film projector. Note one shared box is with the Women's Cooperative Guild series and the other shared box is with the Farmland Industries series.
Farmland Oversize series are stored in nine (9) boxes and two (2) map cabinet drawers. Included are advertising posters, newspaper clippings, bound advertising pages, photographs, calendars, two (2) scrapbooks, Ken Burdette Sketches, a drawing of Farmland Foods Plant, banners, blueprints, and watercolor paintings. The advertising posters include wheat, farm fuel, and John Denver's TV Special, Farmland Mission Statement, and Farmland Service Pledge. The photographs include aerial photographs, photographs of Howard A. Cowden, barges, harvesting, CCA, National Ag Center, Phillipsburg Refinery, annual meetings (1937-1953), Farmland oil products, and crops. The two (2) scrapbooks contain Co-Op Store Campaign Advertisements and information on presenting Farmland Industries. There are three (3) Ken Burdette sketches. One of Arthur Capper, one of Andrew Volstead and the third of is the mural that was inside the Farmland Headquarters reception area. There are six (6) banners in this series. One banner is painted on oilcloth and reads "Kansas Grassroots Says Stop Floods and Drouth The Watershed Way." Another banner is painted on canvas and reads "Funds Flow Chart, Consumer Cooperative Association, 1947." The other four (4) banners are vinyl and they promote the Phillipsburg Refinery, Farmland, Co-Op, and AG 21. Included in the blueprints are those of Farmland Headquarters and complex and warehouse additions in Iowa and Colorado. There are two (2) watercolor paintings. One of Heartland Wheat Growers Wheat Starch and Gluten Production facility in Russell, Kansas, and the other of the Portland Head Lighthouse.
The Audio-Visual Materials series is stored in 36 boxes and there are loose items on five (5) shelves. Included are 16mm films, CDs, cassette tapes, filmstrips, LPs, and VHS tapes. The 16mm films include films on annual meetings, sales rallies and have titles such as "The is Far-Mar-Co," "Your Cooperative Federation," "Helping You Help Yourself," "You Are Not Alone," "Service From the Ground Up," "Farmland Trails," "Ham to Hot Dogs," and "Better Farming Better Food." There is also a 16mm film of Howard Cowden speaking at a CFCA cornerstone ceremony in Lawrence, Kansas, and of Jim Henson's "Muppets Meeting Films" (1979). The CDs contain a PowerPoint presentation of the Farmland Headquarters Visitor Center, photographs, annual meeting information, Bob Honse images, national beef images, annual reports, history of Farmland (1969-2000), and the Dreyer Awards. Cassette tapes include the Bunny Farm Rabbit Feeding program, annual meetings, shareholders meetings, monthly dairy meetings, and youth leadership conferences. The filmstrips include Neighborhood Councils, refinery news, and the cooperative centennial (1844-1944). There are LPs of 78 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM in this series. They include radio messages and addresses of Howard A. Cowden and Chuck Miller, Co-Op Neighbor Night Program, Battle Hymn of Cooperation Consumers Co-Operative Association Quartet, and annual meetings. The largest section of audiovisual materials is the VHS tapes. Tapes include special events, motivational tapes, annual meetings, employee meetings, Fieldmen's conferences, food safety, pesticides, Coffeyville Refinery tour, quarterly meetings, news broadcasts about Farmland, Coffeyville oil spill, training videos, sales rallies, speeches, and presentations of Harry D. Cleberg, Dreyer Awards, Farmland Industries Project Tomorrow, grain grading, shareholders meetings, Foods Media Shows, Heartland Wheat Growers, and restructuring Farmland. VHS tapes that may be of interest are those of Senators Nancy Kassebaum and Robert "Bob" Dole. Other VHS tapes include voice demos from individuals such as Sam Beck, Bob Benish, Jr., Carla Cooper, Kimball Cummings, Jack Elliott, T. Max Graham, Barbara Houston, Randy Kemp, Mark Mason, Don Miller, Jim Scott, and many others.
There are nineteen shelves of printed material that are bound volumes. The bound volumes are The Daily Scoop, Inside Farmland, Farmland Circles, Co-Op News Digest, Leadership, Bulletin, Teammates, The Cooperative Farmer, Co-Op Reporter, The Cooperative Consumer, Insider, Managers Newsletter, Advantage, The Plant Connection, Farmland Supervisor, and Home-Maker. Note The Cooperative Consumer name changed to Farmland in September 1966 and Farmland changed to Farmland News in 1971.

This collection primarily includes college documents and printed materials from Frances W. ImMasche, who graduated from Kansas State Agricultural College in 1929. Types of material include correspondence, programs, an agriculture handbook, invitations, cards, graduation programs, travel souvenirs, a scrapbook, and newspaper clippings. Correspondence from his time as a student primarily concerned the college and Lambda Gamma Delta, the honorary agricultural judging fraternity. Correspondence after college mainly includes letters from 1948 to 1954 from Carl (also spelled Karl) Hofer, a German abstract expressionist painter. ImMasche purchased four of his paintings and later donated them to Kansas State University, which is now in the collections of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art.
Additional topics in the ImMasche papers include his military service in the United States Army and Air Force, as well as a scrapbook documenting his time as a college student (Scrapbook 34 in the archives' scrapbook collection). Correspondents included Leland Call, C. W. McCampbell, F. D. Farrell, Howard T. Hill, H. H. King, and J. H. Burt. Organizations represented include Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Livestock Judging Team, Alpha Zeta, Aggie Orpheum, YMCA, Student Council, and the 1929 Senior Class.
Finally, a photocopy of "German Expressionist Artist Karl Hofer" from Journal of Popular Culture (Volume 22, Issue 4, Spring 1989) by Jessica Reichman and E. R. Hagemann is included and describes Hofer, his paintings, and his exchanges with ImMasche.

The papers were assembled by Colonel Frank Caldwell Hershberger (1888-1965) over a long international career as a veterinary medicine specialist. The bulk of the collection consists of photographs and postcards gathered into three scrapbooks dating from 1908 to circa 1955. These albums cover various locations in Europe and Africa, as well as Diamond, Wyoming, and the Philippines. Additional loose photographs date from circa 1905 and document his time at the University of Missouri, Camp Marfa (Texas), Fort Monroe (Virginia), Fort Riley (Kansas), Fort Sill (Oklahoma), and Fort Mills (Corregidor, Philippines). Photographs include military officers, military polo teams, training cavalry horses, and the process of transporting horses via troopship. Augmenting the visual materials are articles, diplomatic papers, typescripts, some correspondence and a diary related to Hershberger's work for the Chinese government (1914-1918). One typescript details the history of the Port Veterinarian for the Port of Embarkation, New York, 1921-1945. The collection also includes the Legion of Merit medal, Legionnaire degree, which is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.

The Franklin A. Coffman papers contain letters, autobiographical materials, paternal and maternal family genealogies, legal documents, literary works, awards and honors, printed materials, photographs, scrapbooks and photograph albums, and artifacts.
Personal correspondence is mainly amongst family members though there is a letter from J. Edgar Hoover regarding a poem Coffman published. Business correspondence is sparse. Coffman received a bound volume of congratulatory letters upon his retirement. The letters provide the best account of Coffman's work with the United States Department of Agriculture within the collection. Many describe interactions with Coffman during field work and visits to experiment stations across the country. There is no official governmental correspondence in the collection documenting Coffman's work.
Coffman handwrote autobiographical accounts of his life during his later years. These accounts are mainly of his childhood, college days and work in the Philippines. The accounts covering the years Coffman spent in the Philippines are extensive. They provide many details and impressions about the native people. The accounts also cover his travels to other Asian countries while based in the Philippines.
Coffman spent years gathering genealogical information from relatives and researching his ancestors. He traced his father's Coffman ancestors back to 1737 and his mother's Bayle ancestors back to 1796. There are notes, different versions of family trees, and extensive narrative written by Coffman describing the lives of his ancestors.
Legal documents are sparse.
Coffman was a prolific poet. There are clippings of poetry published in the Washington Post. Some poems were published without his name. Others have his initials, F.A.C., including two series of poems compiled in notebooks. There are also unpublished poems.
There are certificates for scholarly and service awards and honors, and the registration certificate for the Marion Oat. There are not certificates for all the awards and honors listed on Coffman's resume.
There are just a few United States Department of Agriculture's bulletins and farmer's Bulletins that Coffman authored or co-authored. The vast majority of Coffman's published research is not part of the collection.
One of Coffman's hobbies was photography. There are hundreds of photographs documenting his personal and professional lives. Subjects are wide-ranging. Coffman signed some of his photographs, mainly what he referred to as the "salon prints." There are photographs taken by others including professional portraits and candid photographs of Coffman at various ages. Many photographs are undated and unidentified.
There are seven scrapbooks containing photographs and memorabilia. 1) Photographs and memorabilia document a 10 day automobile trip to eastern cities and New England that Coffman took with his wife and daughter in 1936. Expenses totaled $110.96.
2) "The Farm" album contains photographs of family members, neighbors, friends, crops, farmhouse interiors and exteriors, Rocky Ford School, and Rocky Ford dam and mill. The album is dated 1913 and some photographs are identified. There are also approximately 56 photographs of Manhattan and Kansas State Agricultural College. The subjects are the campus, buildings, classmates, lake recreation, train depot, street car, and a railroad bridge. Some photos are identified and dated 1914.
3) This photo album with narrative is titled "The Many Faces of F.A.C." and is written by "A Couple of Norths and Shanghai Louis Kao." It was compiled in 1962 and contains photographs of Coffman in various locations.
4) The album has photographs of Coffman's family and ancestors (earliest date 1884), Sunday school class, the First Baptist Church in 1902, Kansas State Agricultural College, and Manhattan. There is extensive Kansas State Agricultural College memorabilia including a cadet corps certificate, 1908 fall term schedule, invitations, commencement programs, band programs, banquet programs, clippings and a baseball ticket. The album also has correspondence and drawings. The album has memorabilia from Coffman's transit back to the United States on the Shino Maru including menus and passenger list. There are photographs of the transit and memorabilia from a Hong Kong visit en route. There are photographs of Kansas State Agricultural College, Oklahoma A&M and Akron, Colorado. 1916.
5) The Philippines album contains photographs of Coffman's trip across the western United States to board the S.S. Manchuria for transit to the Philippines. Coffman photographed the Golden Gate Park, the Panama Pacific International Exhibition grounds, onboard ship recreation, Honolulu, Tokyo, Nagasaki, the Philippines' countryside, Filipinos' daily activities, Philippine experiment stations, cultural activities, villages, Coffman's office and co-workers, YMCA sports, Viscayia (German naval ship), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kobe, Yamaa, Yokahoma, the voyage back to the United States on the Shino Maru (not to be confused with the Shinyo Maru), Honolulu experiment station, Universal Film City, and the San Diego Exposition. 1914-1916.
6) The photographs and memorabilia in this album are compiled in honor of Coffman's brother, Will, who died in 1920. It contains drawings, report cards, class schedule and photographs of Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan, University of Kansas, and Will's travels. Loose commencement programs from Kansas State Agricultural College, 1913-1915, are with the album.
7) The album contains photographs from Coffman's days in Akron and his travels to Amarillo, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Arlington, New York, Philadelphia and Mount Vernon from 1919-1922. There is memorabilia from Washington, D.C., New York including a Metropolitan Opera House program and a Hippodrome souvenir book, Coffman's wedding and showers, and a program from the American Society of Agronomy 1922 meeting. Morrill, Kansas, Twin Oaks, Estes Park, county fairs, and Manhattan are also subjects of photographs. Alta Johnson's School Girl Days: A Memory Book from Washington County High School, 1914, is boxed with the scrapbooks.
The most notable artifacts are four cameras, presumably used by Coffman: Univex Model A, 1933; No. 1-A Kodak Junior Model A, 1914; No. 2 Folding Autographic Brownie, circa 1915-1916; Kodak Six-16 camera and leather case, circa 1932-1936.

The Owens Papers (1890-1946) contain ten items consisting of a scrapbook, two diplomas, two certificates, and five photographs. They were donated to the University Archives by his daughter, Ana Elnora Owens. The scrapbook contains a handwritten autobiography (20 pages) and a "History of Agricultural Instruction in Virginia" (14 pages), both written in 1945-1946. Owens' autobiography describes his childhood in Kansas (near Alma in Wabaunsee County) and his experience at Kansas State Agricultural College as the first Black person to graduate from the institution in 1899. It provides a description of his employment at Tuskegee Institute after graduation where he worked under Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. He left Tuskegee in 1908 to take a position at the Virginia Normal and Industrial School (Virginia State College) in Petersburg where he had a very successful career.
His writings describe the agricultural program at the school and his work in Virginia as the leader in vocational agriculture, including his organizational efforts for the New Farmers of Virginia that became the New Farmers of America. He provides an extensive list of others who were involved in vocational agriculture throughout the state. The two diplomas were awarded at the time of his graduation from high school in Wabaunsee County, Kansas in 1890, and Kansas State Agricultural College in 1899 where he obtained a bachelor of science degree in the "general course." The two certificates in the collection were awarded by Virginia State College. The first is a "Certificate of Merit" for ten years of service in 1945 and the second in appreciation for his teaching and service presented by the Alumni Association in 1946. Two of the five photographs show Owens as a student at KSAC in 1899 (one in his cadet uniform), two with his wife, Waddie Hill (a wedding photo in 1901 and another in 1903 with their newborn child), and one taken at the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute in 1920.

The bulk of this collection documents the academic career of Gerry L. Posler from 1965 to 2008 with materials that include his resume, awards, research and presentation notes, course materials, correspondence, and printed materials. Additionally, there are articles he authored and photographs of graduate students and department experiments, as well as research manuscripts from the early twentieth century. The collection also includes materials related to the creation of a departmental history edited by Gerry Posler and Gary Paulson in celebration of the department of Agronomy’s centennial in 2006. Posler collected, assembled, edited, and author several of the chapters in the publication titled “A Centennial History of the Department Agronomy, Kansas State University”. Additionally there are about 721 files (761MB), of digital files provided by Posler. The digital files include course materials, publication drafts, presentations, retirement biographical information, resumes, and photographs. These files have been kept in their original order.

This collection contains items related to the military service of Henry F. Kupfer, a Kansas State University alumnus of the class of 1940, including military service records (personnel records, medical examinations, certifications, memoranda, discharge documents, etc.) dating from 1940 to 1953, the February 28, 1944 issue of the 6th Air Force magazine Caribbean Breeze, a leatherbound scrapbook/photo album dating from 1942 to 1944 (the binding is likely from South or Central America), and Kupfer's service diary, containing entries from 1936 to 1944 including recollections of travel, duty assignments, promotions, medical examinations, and social activities. (Note: the blank diary itself has a copyright date of 1941; entries from 1936-1940 were entered later, and briefly delineate Kupfer's time in the Kansas State University Reserve Officer Training Corps). Also included is a compact disc labeled "Henry Kupfer - Veterans History Project," which was not readable at the time this entry was written.

The collection was created by three members of the Hill family --Randall C. Hill, Maurice L. Hill, and Opal B. Hill. The earliest document in the collection is a contract from 1929, and the manuscripts continue into the 1980s.
The bulk of Opal B. Hill's collection is her personal files that pertain to fabric and fabric history, and they are divided by subject. Also, the museum material is divided by subject for convenience and accessibility.
The first series in the collection pertains to Randall Hill and concerns his involvement with Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity at Kansas State. The first five folders deal with the early years, starting with the house contract in 1929. The theme of his collection centers around financial responsibilities and dues that former members owed to the house. The correspondence from 1932 to 1942 is mainly letters to former members reminding them of their obligations and dues.
The next series, that of Maurice Hill, is very similar to Randall Hill's papers. Maurice Hill was also involved with a fraternity, Phi Sigma Kappa, although his collection is smaller. In this series, however, there are a variety of formats; photos of former members, a newsletter, two fraternity songbooks, letterheads and envelopes, a gavel, and a large metal ring. There is a folder with a few letters from Hill to former members pertaining to dues owed to the fraternity.
The third series, and the largest of the Hill Family Papers, is that of Opal Hill. The first folder pertains to a dinner recognition for Hill and her involvement with the establishment of a museum at Kansas State University and her contributions to Kansas State. Since she was an art instructor, the rest of her collection relates to fabrics and tapestries, including Peruvian, Irish, Persian, and Japanese. The collection contains mostly printed material on various subjects in the form of news articles, essays, pamphlets, and booklets.
The fourth series, part of Opal Hill's papers, deals extensively with the proposal of a museum at Kansas State University. There are six folders, 1) letters, 2) proposals, 3) information about a curator, 4) grant information, 5) printed material about other university museums, and 6) articles about the museum. Another person who was heavily involved with the museum and is frequently mentioned throughout all six folders is Patricia O'Brian, who was a friend and fellow professor at Kansas State University.
The donation includes a collection of photographs associated with Maurice Hill and members of Phi Sigma Kappa. They are of members who were involved with K-State athletics including football, baseball, and track. Also, there are some photos of the Phi Sigma Kappa members who participated in the military training program, and a few group photographs of the fraternity members. The photographs have been removed and filed in the Photograph Collection, Vertical File-People, and in flat storage boxes. An inventory can be found following the container list in this register.
Also, there are six artifacts associated with the Hills that have been stored with the artifacts collection in the University Archives. These artifacts include 1) Phi Sigma Kappa metal nameplate, 2) Phi Delta Tau metal nameplate, 3) metal ring, 4) Gavel and base with Phi Delta Tau insignia, 5) Metals and ribbons with Phi Delta Tau insignia and 6) Lighted sign with Phi Delta Tau in Greek letters.

The Horticulture, Forestry, and Recreation photographs were generated by the Department of Horticulture. These photographs, slides, and glass slides document horticulture areas near campus, as well as in Honduras, Costa Rica, Florida, and elsewhere. Images largely include crops, trees, floriculture, and landscapes. There are also photographs of various events held or attended by the department, notably Kansas State Fairs, the apple blossom festival, and the 1921 Potato Show, as well as student and faculty awards. Medals and framed certificates are included. Approximate years covered by the records are 1876-1991.