Related Collections

Janet Cooper Collection
Files and legal papers from the court cases of Janet Cooper vs. Kingsville Independent School District. Janet Cooper sued for nonrenewal of her contract due to a teaching method she employed called the Sunshine Project. The Sunshine Project involved role playing and simulation to dramatize conversion of a radically segregated society during Reconstruction to one less segregated. Eight years of litigation resulted and the case went to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Cooper won the case, was reinstated, and received back pay, retirement pay, and lawyer fees.

Maggie Blanco Salinas Papers
This collection describes Maggie Salinas’ community involvement and contributions to Kingsville during the last half of the twentieth century and first part of twenty-first century. A business owner, Salinas volunteered her time and resources to many local and regional organizations. The projects range from La Posada de Kingsville to being a member on the Advisory Board with the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Engineering Department.

Gray & Jesse Golden Collection
The collection of 2,325 Texanna volumes contains many rare and out of print editions that tell the history of South Texas from San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley.

Robert Runyon Collection
The South Texas Archives houses over nine hundred volumes of books relating to botany, entomology, and succulents primarily from the Lower Rio Grande Valley, a gift of Robert Runyon's family. Runyon's Botanical Library was the largest and most complete private botanical library in Texas in 1970 when the collection was donated. The collection includes correspondence to and from Robert Runyon. Runyon went to the Rio Grande Valley area in 1909 and before 1920 began a decades-long campaign to save the Sabal Texana, a palm tree that was indigenous to the area, through preservation of an ancient grove and planting thousands of seeds in city parks. Runyon is widely known for cataloging the flora of the Rio Grande Valley. With only a rudimentary education and no formal training in botany other than what he learned through correspondence, reading and observation, Runyon, in 59 years as a resident of the Valley, discovered no less than 20 formerly unknown species of plants and one new genus in his area of South Texas. This correspondence relates to his studies in botany.

Olan E. Kruse Collection
Olan E. Kruse came to Texas College of Arts in Industries as an undergraduate and received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics in 1942. After serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he earned advanced degrees in Physics, taught at Stephen F. Austin College and ultimately returned to Texas A&I as chairman of the Physics Department where he supervised the design and construction of Hill Hall, the Physics Building, served as chairman of the ad hoc committee which established the Faculty Senate and was the founding president of the campus Faculty Senate.

J. R. Manning Collection
Dr. J. R. Manning was elected Head of the Department of Business Administration at the South Texas Teachers College in 1925. Throughout his forty-four year career, from 1925 to 1969, Dr. Manning directed the growth and direction of the Business Administration Department and was actively involved with several business-related student fraternities and clubs. Upon his retirement in 1969, the University named the building that housed the Business Administration Department since 1925 in his honor, Manning Hall. He went on to become Kingsville's mayor for three terms. Dr. J. R. Manning was given the status of Professor Emeritus in 1982 and he was the last surviving member of the original faculty of the South Texas State Teachers College, now Texas A&M University-Kingsville. His papers show his academic achievements and his dedication to the Business Administration Department and the University.

Dr. Z.T. Scott Family Collection
Dr. Zachary Thomson Scott was the director of the Texas Tuberculosis Association in Austin, Texas. This collection contains 46 photographs of the Mary Kleberg’s maternal family (Masterson), publications, books, genealogical information, and one soil map of Corpus Christi. The genealogical information are on various members of the Scott family and their lineage, along with biographical information on members of the King, Kenedy and Kleberg families.

S. Burgin Dunn Collection
S. Burgin Dunn was a veteran of the navy in World War II, taught physics and mathematics at Texas A&I University (now Texas A&M University-Kingsville,) had a family and was involved with the First United Methodist Church in Kingsville, Texas. This collection reflects the professional life of Burgin Dunn and his love of astronomy and physics.

Dr. Edwin R. Bogusch Collection
Dr. Edwin Robert Bogusch was born at Mason, Texas in 1905. He received his BA, MA and Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Texas. Dr. Bogusch began his teaching career at the age of eighteen in a one-room schoolhouse in Helotes, Texas. Dr. Bogusch was a professor at Texas A&I College from 1941 to 1974 when he retired. He was named Chairman of the Biology Department in 1948 and served in that capacity for twenty years. While he was at Texas A&I College, he wrote many articles and a few books, produced many films and audio tapes all on the subjects of the flora and fauna of South Texas. Dr. Edwin R. Bogusch died at the age of 80 years old in 1986.

Irma Lerma Rangel Collection
The legislative and personal law collection of Irma Lerma Rangel, the first Mexican American legislator elected to serve in the Texas House of representatives. Representative Rangel served the Forty-ninth and Thirty-seventh legislative districts of Texas for twenty-six years as a legislator. Papers and cases from her law office in Kingsville are included. The collection was given in three accessions one each in: 1989, 1999, and 2003. The collection includes all of her papers from government proceedings, correspondence concerning the bills, and a log with constituent opinions from the 65th legislature to the 78th legislature. Representative Rangel considered her greatest achievements as a legislator, the introduction of House Bill 1755 designed to provide employment and educational programs for mothers on welfare with dependent children; House Bill 1629, the Good Faith Donor Act, designed to exempt retailers and manufacturers from liability when food was donated to the needy and to the Food Banks; House Bill 588 requiring all state colleges and universities to automatically admit all students who graduate in the top ten percent of their high school class and Merging Texas A&I with Texas A&M. She tirelessly promoted education as a way to break the cycle of poverty.