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Francis H. Voelker was born in Thorp, Wisconsin on January 5, 1931 to Gilbert A. and Josephine Voelker.

After earning a bachelor of arts degree from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, Fran served in the US Army. Upon discharge from the Army in 1955, Fran taught English and coached at Foley High School in Foley, Minnesota. In 1959, Fran left Foley High School and began his collegiate teaching career at St. Cloud State College (later University) in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Fran taught English and Mass Communications at St. Cloud State until his retirement in 1991. He also served as the first president of the Inter-Faculty Organization (IFO) after collective bargaining was instituted in the state of Minnesota.

With wife Ludmila (Mil), Fran co-authored and edited three editions of the book Mass Media: Forces in Our Society, History and Legends of the Padrnos Family, and History of Big Birch Lake.

While a faculty member at St. Cloud State, Fran earned a master of science degree in 1959.

Fran married Mil Padrnos on December 27, 1954 at St. Hedwig's Catholic Church in Holdingford, Minnesota. They had five children: Mary Jo, Marjorie, Catherine, Thomas, and Paul.

St. Cloud State faculty member

Claudia Meier Volk was a Minnesota House Representative of District 18A for the years 1975-1976. She was a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). She lived in Rice, Minnesota until she married, thus the change in name from Claudia Meier to Claudia Meier Volk. She moved to Ray, North Dakota with her husband Martin Volk. She resigned from her political office sometime in 1976.

While serving as a legislator, she served on the Agriculture, Health and Welfare, and Judiciary Committees. She showed interest in issues concerning school aid, family planning, and equal rights.

She was born in North Dakota in 1948 and later moved to Minnesota. She graduated from Osseo High School, attended the College of St. Scholastica, and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in Nursing. She then became a registered nurse and became politically involved. Some of the positions she held include: Benton Co. Chairperson, Vice-President Little Rock Lake Improvement Association, member of Rice Sportsman's Club, and a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association.

The Waverly Literary Society was organized in 1912. They received their name from Sir Walter Scott's "Waverly Novels" and originally began studying these novels. The society also studied poems, mythology, short stories, and opera. Over the years, the society evolved into providing social activities for women. The last mention is from the January 31, 1947 issue of the Chronicle that notes the Waverly Literary Society had disbanded.

Herman A. Wegner was born in 1877. Around 1923, he moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota from Montana. He resided in St. Cloud from that time until his death in 1947. He had worked on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana as a teacher. He also worked on the Blackfeet Reservation as an engineer. He owned some rental property, from which he secured an income. He also worked in Minnesota at the Veteran's Administration Hospital, and did some extra carpentry work.

Wegner married Christine M. Clausen (1889-1980) in around 1912. The couple had two children: Henry Wegner, born in 1915 or 1916, and Rose Wegner, born in 1918. Henry lived in St. Cloud all his life. Rose resided in St. Cloud until about the age of 19. She then moved to Washington D.C., where she worked in the Census Bureau, and later moved to Chicago and Minneapolis, working in federal government agencies. She was with the Department of Interior office in Minneapolis for many years. She returned to St. Cloud around 1973, and died there in 1984.

Gene Wenstrom was born in Fergus Falls, Minnesota in 1946. He was a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1975 to 1978 for District 11A. He campaigned unsuccessfully for the 7th Congressional district, Minnesota in 1982. He has two children, Daniel and Tamara, with his wife LeAnn.

St. Cloud State president from 1965 to 1971. He also served as a faculty member in Speech Communication and, after retirement from St. Cloud State, served as various interim capacities on campus.

Joseph P. Wilson was born in Columbia Falls, Maine on March 16, 1823. Wilson, along with George F. Brott and C.T. Stearns, purchased and platted the land that would become Lower Town of St. Cloud, Minnesota. Wilson studied law in Geneva, Illinois and in 1846 enlisted for the Mexican War as part of an Illinois regiment. After the war, Wilson married Mary P. Corbett and moved to St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota in 1850. Upon arriving in Minnesota, Wilson became involved in real estate, purchasing property in what is now northeast Minneapolis and in St. Anthony Park. Wilson also purchased property in what would become St. Cloud. He also worked in the lumbering, mercantile, and railroad business. He served as a Ramsey county commissioner from 1852 to 1855, was a member of the 1858 Minnesota constitutional convention, and served as a Minnesota state senator from 1864 to 1865.

Wilson was an original landowner in the new city of St. Cloud, Minnesota.

He moved to St. Cloud in 1863 and built a house in East St. Cloud in 1888. It was here that he platted more city lots and lived until his death on February 18, 1900. His wife Mary and their five children survived him - Justus A. Wilson (1851), Ida Wilson Van Cleve (1854), Franklin B. Wilson (1859), Edith Wilson Thompson (1861), and Helen Wilson Schwartz (1865). Wilson is buried in St. Cloud's North Star Cemetery.

Joseph was the brother of one of St. Cloud's founders, John L. Wilson.

The Women’s Center was established in late fall of 1989.

Directors:

Jane Olsen: 10/1989-6/2022
Rebecca Kotz :7/2022-6/2023 (interim)
Heather Brown: 7/2023-

Women's Recreation Association was a student organization that was established in March 1929 and was active to around the 1977/1978 academic school year. First established as a chapter of the national Women's Athletic Association to promote women's participation and development in athletics and physical education, the W.A.A. would retain this national affilition through December 1961. The organization adopted the name Women's Recreation Association (W.R.A.) because they believed it would make the organization more inclusive to all female students on campus, as well as be more reflective of all the activities and sports that the group hosted and coordinated on campus.

The W.R.A. also marks the begining of women's intercollegiate sports on campus. The group hosted tournaments for women's volleyball and basketball, as well as organizing leagues for softball, gynamstics, and track and field events alongside the various other extracurricular activities the organization hosted.

The W.R.A. appears in the student handbook for the last time in the 1977/1978 academic school year. It is unclear why they disbanded.

The bi-monthly publication, in which its first issue appeared on June 27, 1980, included historic reviews of the communities in the Wright County area. It also served as a vehicle for advertisers who wanted a large yet concentrated coverage for his/her business or company in the Wright County area.

On June 23, 1981, the name changed to Wright-Way...Sher-Way Shopper to include Sherburne County.

Retired SCSU faculty member

The purpose of the Young Women's Christian Association was to develop Christian character especially through study of the Bible. Additionally, the association conducted active Christian work to extend the Kingdom of God throughout the world. The first record of the YWCA at St. Cloud State was in 1887 and believed the club existed until sometime in the mid-1950s.

The site of 21MO20 first came to Birk’s attention in 1972 via a Little Falls resident who recalled finding artifacts in an uncultivated corner of his uncle’s farm field in 1965. In 1978 Birk examined these artifacts and discovered that they contained 18th century ceramics. Research revealed a candidate for the site's identity: Fort Duquesne, build in the winter of 1752-1753 by voyageur Joseph Marin. Birk realized the potential of the site and conducted a quick survey in 1980 but had to wait until the newly-formed IMA could sponsor an initial dig in 1982. Further excavations in 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1988 produced many artifacts and structural details, but no definitive evidence of the site's identity. The site was added to the NRHP in 1984 and remained a centerpiece of the IMA's outreach activities throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Birk took an interest in the French presence in Minnesota early in his career, stemming from early projects for the MHS including testing at the site of Fort Saint Charles in 1974. As early as 1982, probably inspired by the discovery of 21MO20, Birk began considering a "major study" of French activities in the region that would synthesize archaeological investigations at various fort sites with the written historical record. Birk gathered material for this study throughout the 1980s and 1990s and published multiple articles and studies of limited scope with the intent of incorporating them as eventual book chapters in the larger study. By the late 1990s this planned study had the working title "The History and Archaeology of the French Regime in Minnesota." Birk seems to have worked on this project only sporadically following the collapse of the IMA and no extensive draft of the final manuscript is known.

In 1973 Birk began researching the fur trading fort along the Snake River long identified as "Connor's Post" after local fur trader Thomas Connor. Birk's research disproved that Connor, who was illiterate, could have authored the journal that described the construction of the fort, indicating instead the British North West Company trader John Sayer as author. In 1976 the MHS updated the site's name to the North West Company Post in recognition of this fact. Birk's research culminated in a nearly 500-page report on "the history, ecology, and archaeology" of the fort site published in 1980, by far his most ambitious publication to that date.

In 1989 Birk published a re-edited transcription of Sayer's 1804-05 journal, part of a series of regional history publications for the Cross Lake Association. He returned to Sayer again for his Master's thesis, completed in 1999, which incorporated much material from his 1980 publication. In 2004 Birk published a short treatment of the same material called "The Messrs. Buid Comodiously," written for a popular audience. Birk turned to Sayer once again in 2014 for an improved and expanded version of his thesis to be published as "Life at Sayer's Fort," a manuscript left finished but unpublished at the time of his death.

In 1985 Birk surveyed the site of an 1839 Methodist-Episcopal mission within the Little Elk Heritage Preserve, beginning an interest in Minnesota's nineteenth-century Protestant missions that lasted the rest of his career. In 1988 Birk, representing the IMA, collaborated with the Cross Lake Association (CLA) of Pine County to edit and publish three sets of historical documents: John Sayer’s Snake River Diary, a set of correspondence regarding the historic community of Chengwatana, and the records of the Pokegama Mission in the Snake River Valley. The first publication came out on schedule in 1989, but the project hit a snag the following year when the CLA pulled out, leaving the IMA to complete the work mandated by the project grant alone. Birk produced the second publication in 1992 as “Purveyors of Salvation: The Pokegama Mission and the Protestant Mission Movement among the Southwestern Ojibwe.”

Birk, however, immediately began working on an expanded version of the same work that was nearly published in 1997 before being dropped for unknown reasons. Birk seems to have returned to the project in 2009, but died before the final manuscript could be published.

Doug Birk’s involvement with Cass county began around 1979, conducting field surveys and surface collections at Gull Lake in connection with wastewater treatment projects. Elden Johnson previously identified sites in the Gull lake area in the 1970s and Birk identified more sites from 1982 to 1984 with Northland Archaeological Services. Birk conducted surveys for sites that were disturbed by road construction, including a 1979 survey of areas around Brockway Lake. There currently are 301 known precontact or early contact (Dakota) Native American archaeological sites in Cass county. An additional 217 sites are located within the Chippewa National Forest, nearly all of which were occupied during the Woodland Period.

The modern-day Camp Ripley takes its name from an early frontier army post called Fort Ripley that operated from 1848 to 1878. This post was the result of a treaty with the Winnebago tribe. It was located on the west side of the Mississippi River, just below the mouth of the Nokasippi River.

Doug Birk first began surveys at Camp Ripley in 1986 with Kolleen Kralick and Jeff Tollefson, completing his final report in 1988. The surveys were authorized by the Corps of Engineers as part of a program to assist the Army National Guard in preparing a Historic Preservation Plan. Further surveys were conducted by other archaeologists during the years of 1990 to 1995 including Rebecca Otto and Virginia Gnabasik that cite Birk’s previous work at the camp.

Doug Birk’s investigations of mounds in Minnesota began in the 1970s but was renewed in the early 1980s when he and Elden Johnson became interested in new, non-destructive methods of studying mounds. Birk continued work on mounds throughout the 1990s and beyond with many other colleagues. Areas with mounds covered by this series include Cass, Morrison, LeSueur, Aitkin, Carlton, Koochiching, St. Louis, Itasca and Crow Wing Counties; Mississippi Headwaters; Pillager Gap; Pine River; Mille Lacs; Various lakes such as Gull, Leech, Cross, Norway and Rice; Also Rice Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

Birk conceived of a summary history of the town of Little Falls in the late 1980s, prompted by a survey project for Minnesota Power and a long-standing desire to increase community support for the preservation of the LEHP. Birk produced many drafts of this work from 1991 to 1999, titled variously "In the Heart of the City," "Through the Heart of the City," and "A Most Remarkable Rapids," with the consistent subtitle "A History of the Mississippi River at the Little Elk Heritage Preserve and Little Falls." Distribution of this manuscript in its various versions appears to have been limited.

The historic community of Crow Wing City (Old Crow Wing) formed on the east bank of the Mississippi river opposite the confluence of the Crow Wing River, about 10 miles southwest of the current city of Brainerd, beginning in the 1820s. Crow Wing became an important link in the fur trade between Saint Paul and the Canadian Red River Colony and attracted a mixed population of European, white American, Ojibwa, and Metis settlers. Clement Beaulieu, a fur trader of French-Canadian and Ojibwa descent, built a prominent house at Crow Wing about 1849. Between 1870 and 1880 Crow Wing was abandoned in favor of Brainerd when the Northern Pacific Railroad routed through the latter community. Beaulieu’s house was relocated south, to the vicinity of Fort Ripley in 1880.

Birk’s involvement with the Beaulieu House began in 1985 when the property owners offered the structure as a tax-deductible donation to any interested cultural agency or nonprofit. A coalition including the IMA, the state Department of Natural Resources, the state Historic Preservation Office, the Crow Wing County Historical Society, and interested citizens organized as the Friends of Old Crow Wing formulated a plan to relocate the Beaulieu House back to its original location in what was now Crow Wing State Park. Birk conducted in-depth research on the house, its occupants, and the community of Crow Wing, and helped lead the relocation effort on behalf of the IMA. In 1988 the house was moved to a temporary storage area in the park. In 1990 Birk and IMA colleagues conducted a brief excavation of the original house site in preparation for the permanent relocation of the house, which was accomplished in 1993.

Birk's boyhood home of Pine River was surrounded by remnants of the "golden era" of Minnesota's logging industry from the turn of the twentieth century. As a teenager Birk spent much of his free time speaking to elders in his community and tracing the routes of abandoned industrial railroads through nearby forests. This project continued as a semi-hobby throughout his career. In 2009 Birk began collaborating with colleague Jeremy Jackson on a two-volume book series that would publicize the results of his decades of research, a project left unfinished at the time of Birk's death.

Birk was approached by the Wadena County Historical Society in 1990 to conduct archaeological surveys of several historic properties within the Old Wadena County Park north of Staples, Minnesota. Birk, who had briefly surveyed the area in 1972, returned to the area with IMA colleagues in 1992 and conducted excavations at the site of the Little Round Hill trading post. From 1995 to 2002 Birk conducted further surveys and excavations at the Cadotte trading post and the elusive "Aspinwall site." Birk also assisted the Historical Society and the separately organized Wadena Historic and Environmental Learning Project (WHELP) to design interpretive material for the site including signage and a proposed visitor center.

Chengwatana was a historical community near the present town of Pine City occupied from 1848 to the early 1870s. Chengwatana was the original Seat of Pine County and served as a military post in the 1860s. Railroad construction in the 1870s bypassed Chengwatana in favor of Pine City, and the former town disappeared as a result.

Birk conducted a brief, walkover survey of the Chengwatana site in 1988 for the Cross Lake Association (CLA) of Pine City in 1988. Later that year Birk agreed to include Chengwatana as a subject of a series of edited historical manuscript publications for the CLA, to also include John Sayer’s Diary and the records of the Pokegama Mission. Birk identified the correspondence of Judge Charles Daly, held by the New York Public Library, as the main source for his proposed “Chengwatana Papers.” This project ran into trouble when the CLA dropped their participation in 1990, leaving Birk to renegotiate the conditions of the grant funded by the MHS. As a compromise, Birk agreed to focus on the Pokegama Mission papers only (Purveyors of Salvation) and dropped work on the Chengwatana publication.

Birk led IMA excavations of Lieutenant Zebulon Pike's 1805 wintering fort site south of Little Falls in 1984 and 1985. These projects were made possible by scheduled maintenance on the Blanchard Dam, which dropped the Mississippi's water level and briefly exposed the normally underwater site. This was Birk's closest associated with a nationally-known historical figure, and he capitalized on the resulting publicity to promote the IMA and nearby LEHP. The end of the 1985 excavation was marked by a formal celebration of “Pike’s Fort Day” on September 26, an event proclaimed by Governor Rudy Perpich and featuring an address by Lieutenant Governor Marlene Johnson at the site.

No further site work was done, but Birk and the IMA kept up the production of Pike-related research and interpretation for the next decade. Immediately after the excavation the IMA began working on a travelling exhibit showcasing the history and archaeology of the site, a project that was finished in 1989 and renewed in 1995. In 1988 the fort site was entered on the NRHP. Finally, from 1990 to 1992 the IMA prepared a short documentary on the fort site and Pike’s travel route titled “Archaeology Beyond the Walls: Tracing Zebulon Pike’s Travels in the Mississippi Headwaters.”