Searching for Photos in the Purdue Archives

Erling (Gene) E. Kildahl was born March 20, 1917 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He graduated from Jamestown College in North Dakota in 1940 with a B.A. He received an MFA from the Pasadena Playhouse School of Theater in 1946 where he studied under Gilmor Brown. Kildahl spent two years directing at the Pasadena Playhouse before coming to Purdue University. Prof. Kildahl headed the Theatre Section of the Creative Arts Department in the 1960s and transferred to the Speech Department where he taught Oral Interpretation until his retirement in 1983. He directed thirty-four productions while at Purdue. In 1964 he was selected as an outstanding director of Shakespearian productions and was a member of the national committee to celebrate the quadricentennial of the playwright's birth. During his retirement he edited "Westward We Came: A Norwegian Immigrant's Story, 1866-1898" based on his father's writings. Prof. Kildahl passed away on June 23, 2011.

John Fisher Garr Miller, known as "Long John" to the Purdue community, was born on March 23, 1877, and graduated from Purdue University in 1903 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. He achieved a very illustrious college career and was hailed as one of the most decorated athletes in Purdue history. He played varsity football all four years at Purdue and was captain of the team his junior year. His younger brother, Simeon V. B. Miller, was also a member of the Purdue football team.
Simeon was involved in the 1903 Purdue train wreck, receiving serious injuries that required months of recovery. John Miller also played varsity basketball all four years. An article in the Purdue Alumnus described Miller as one of the first "skyscraper" centers in Indiana basketball. He played first base for the baseball team all four years of his Purdue career. He was also a track and field star, setting records in shot put, hammer throw, and discus, and he won the All-Around Indoor Championship in Athletics his junior year. During his Purdue athletic career he won 9 "P"s. Apart from his decorated athletic career John was equally successful in academic endeavors. Miller was a Wilbur Scholar of Tau Beta Pi, editor-in-chief of the 1903 Debris, class officer for two years, and a member of the Irving Literary Society. He was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, along with his father and younger brother. Miller was also the younger brother of Hugh Thomas Miller, Lieutenant Governor of Indiana from 1905 to 1909. John F. G. Miller died in 1939.

Born in 1882, Guy Raymond Smith arrived at Purdue from Huntington, Indiana, in 1904 and graduated with his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1908. While at Purdue, he participated in a number of organizations including Tau Beta Pi, Emanon Club, and the Harlequin and Mandolin societies. He passed away in Albany, New York, in 1964.

Wilbur A. Schmitt was a member of the Purdue Class of 1928. The 1925 Debris yearbook lists him as a member of Theta Chi.

John W. Hicks was born in Sydney, Australia, where his father was an executive with Paramount Pictures. As a preteen he moved with his family to New Rochelle, New York, and in 1939 entered Massachusetts State College (later the University of Massachusetts). Hicks came to Purdue in 1947 as a student and earned his master's and doctorate degrees in 1948 and 1950, respectively. After completing his degrees, he began teaching agricultural economics. In 1955, he was appointed executive assistant to Purdue President Frederick L. Hovde and later served in the same role under Purdue President Arthur Hansen. Following the retirement of Hansen, Hicks was named acting president in 1982. He held this position until 1983, when Steven Beering became university president. Beering appointed Hicks as senior vice president, a position he held until his retirement in 1987. He was then named an emeritus professor of agricultural economics and senior vice president emeritus. Hicks continued teaching until January 1995.

Robert T. Hatt was a member of the Purdue University Class of 1923, though records do not indicate that he graduated from Purdue. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. His father was William Kendrick Hatt, a Professor of Civil Engineering at Purdue. Hatt graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science degree and from Columbia with master's and doctoral degrees. He was Director of the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield, Michigan, from 1935 to 1967.

Leah Rowena Miller, called Rowena by her friends, was a member of the class of 1927 and was originally from Decatur, Indiana. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics. She married Vernon P. Sharkey in 1948 and lived as a homemaker in Goshen, Indiana. She passed away in 2000.

Alice Shaw Major was born in 1861 in Shelbyville, Indiana. She graduated from the high school there in 1880. Shaw married Charles Major, a prominent Hoosier author and member of the Board of Trustees at Purdue University, on September 27, 1883. Upon her death in 1925, she donated her husband's extensive personal library, papers, and her estate to Purdue. Charles Major was a lawyer and a prominent author. His first novel, "When Knighthood Was in Flower," 1898, was on the best-sellers list for fourteen months, prompting Major to cut back on his law practice so he could devote the majority of his time to writing. Charles Major passed away from liver cancer on February 13, 1913.

The Video and Multimedia Production Services (VMPS) is Purdue University's central video production unit. As an integral part of the Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), it produces a wide range of promotional, instructional, and educational video and multimedia projects, for which it uses state-of-the-art technology. Other services provided by VMPS include digital editing, classroom and conference recording, 3D animation and compositing, and remote-location video recording. It also maintains the university's only broadcast television studio.