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William Aberhart was born on a farm near Kippen, Ontario on December 30, 1878 to William Aberhart Senior and Louisa Pepper. He attended Chatham Business College and received teacher training at the Mitchell Model School and the Ontario Normal School in Hamilton, Ontario. He also obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 1911. He taught in several schools in southern Ontario, becoming principal of the Central Public School in Brantford Ontario, before moving to Calgary in 1910. During his time in Brantford, Aberhart also preached in local churches and conducted Bible study classes. Although he grew up in a nominally Presbyterian household, Aberhart and his wife entered the Baptist faith when residing in Calgary. Between 1910 and 1915, Aberhart was principal of three public schools in Calgary: Alexandra, Mount Royal and King Edward. In 1915, he was appointed principal of Crescent Heights High School, a position that he held for twenty years. While in Calgary, he continued to preach in a number of churches and also held Bible study classes. In 1918 he founded the Calgary Prophetic Bible Conference to promote Bible study in Calgary. His sermons and teachings were so popular that the Palace Theatre had to be rented to accommodate all who wished to participate. In 1925, he started broadcasting Sunday afternoon lectures on the radio called the "Back to the Bible Hour". These biblical lectures drew listeners from across the Canadian prairies and the adjacent U.S. states. In 1927 he was appointed Dean of the newly organized Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute. This institute served as a centre of worship and biblical studies, and also produced Aberhart's radio broadcasts. During this time, he was often known as "Bible Bill," in reference to his religious preaching. Aberhart became interested in politics in the 1930s as a result of the Great Depression. He particularly was interested in the 'social credit' theories of Scottish engineer Major C.H. Douglas which addressed the "discrepancy between the costs of production and the purchasing power of individuals." He founded the Social Credit League and began lobbying the Alberta government, held by the United Farmers of Alberta, to adopt some of the social credit policies. When this attempt failed, Aberhart organized Alberta's Social Credit League and the party won the 1935 Alberta provincial election by a landslide. Aberhart himself had not been a candidate in the election, but because he was the leader of the Social Credit League, he was proclaimed Premier of Alberta. He won a by-election in the electoral district of Okotoks-High River two months after being proclaimed Premier. From 1935-1943, Aberhart held the portfolios of Minister of Education and Attorney General. After the general election of 1940, Aberhart represented the multi-member electoral district of Calgary. During his tenure as Premier, Aberhart and the Social Credit government were successful in legislating its "prosperity certificate" program and also in making changes to Alberta's educational system and labour laws. They also established oil and gas conservation practices and provincial marketing boards. However, the Social Credit policies were not fully realized - attempts to change legislation pertaining to the administration of banks or operation of the newspapers in the province were unsuccessful. Although three bills were passed to amend legislation, the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled these bills unconstitutional. William Aberhart married Jessie Flatt of Galt, Ontario in 1902 and had two daughters, Ola Janet and Khona Louise. He died suddenly on May 23, 1943 while in Vancouver, British Columbia. A high school in Calgary and a long-term care facility in Edmonton are named in his honour.

Allan Thomas Johnstone Cairns was born in Edmonton in February 1931. Educated in city schools, he later attended the University of Alberta to study English. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952 and his Master of Arts degree in 1954. He then studied at Oxford with the assistance of an IODE Postgraduate Fellowship, and travelled extensively in Europe. In 1959 he returned to Canada, accepting a position at Victoria College (now the University of Victoria) to teach English and creative writing. In July 1962 he joined the Department of English at the University of Calgary as a faculty member and was promoted to associate professor in 1975. He remained a faculty member of the Department until his death in January 1988. Professor Cairns sat on many committees of the English Department, chairing several of them and acting as advisor to others. He was a consultant to the Norton Anthology of English Literature (4th edition) and to Prentice Hall publishers regarding new texts for students of English grammar. In addition to writing scholarly articles and reviews, he was a dedicated creative writer for most of his life. His first love was poetry, which he began to write at the age of 15. In his early 30s the impulse (as he described it) to write poetry had ceased in him and he decided that it was "[t]ime to turn to prose now". Apparently he did not return to writing poems until ca. 1984. He wrote a large number of short stories as well as several novels, including one of over 1100 pages in length which he dubbed "The Monster". Despite his need to write creatively which resulted in an impressive volume of work, Cairns enjoyed only very limited success in having his writing published.

The Very Reverend David John Carter was born April 6, 1934 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. He received his BA from the University of Manitoba in 1958 and his L.Th from St. John's College, Winnipeg in 1960. From 1965 to 1969 he was the Anglican Chaplain to the University of Calgary, Mount Royal Junior College and SAIT. He served on the University of Calgary Senate from 1971 to 1977 and was a member of the Honorary Degree Committee and Chancellor's Nominating Committee (1974). Mr Carter was named the Dean of Cathedral Church of the Redeemer (Anglican) in June, 1969, the youngest Anglican Dean in the world.

Merron Chorny was born in Ranfurly, Alberta on August 31st, 1922. He graduated from the Edmonton Normal School in 1942 but interrupted his undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta when he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, serving as a Flying Officer from 1943-1945. He later returned and received his Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta in 1947 and his Master of Education in 1949. Chorny was the principal of Grimshaw School from 1949-1958. He was accepted as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Alberta in 1958 on a program leading to his doctorate. In 1960 Chorny accepted a position at the University of Alberta, Calgary as an assistant professor in English Education.

Chorny played a leadership role in a number of teaching and education organizations and was responsible for several pioneering initiatives in improving instruction and the delivery of English programs. Chorny served on the Alberta Department of Education Junior High School Curriculum Committee and on the sub-committee for the marking of Grade 9 exams. He was publications editor of the English Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) and was on the committee to study teaching loads. In 1964 he organized and was chair of the English Commandos, a group that worked within the structure of the English Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association. The Commandos were teams of knowledgeable resource persons who offered one-day workshops in some area of teaching English, such as reading, composition, or poetry. The workshops provided an in-service approach to assisting teachers, and could take on the role of consultants for projects and other activities. As Vice-President of the English Council, Chorny was also invited to attend the International Conference on the Teaching of English held at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire in 1966. Chorny became President of the English Council in 1967.

In 1966, Chorny chaired a conference that discussed the formation of a Canadian Council of Teachers of English (CCTE). Chorny was active in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), which had a North American agenda but was focussed primarily on education in the United States. Chorny believed that an organization focussed on Canadian English concerns and issues would be advantageous. The CCTE became a reality in 1967 with Chorny as the President of the Council.

Chorny wrote the Just English series of English textbooks; he also wrote Teacher as Learner, and Teacher as Researcher to encourage the further education of teachers of English. Chorny was also a firm believer in writing as an expression of self. He wrote many creative and fictional articles, several of which were later published, including the short story Obitiuary. He also wrote several pieces and had drafted the outlines of chapters for a larger work on the history and people of the Ranfurly area where he grew up.

Chorny retired from the University of Calgary in 1985 and was granted Professor Emeritus status.

Andrew Leo Doucette, 1900-1974, was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. After receiving a BSc degree in Civil Engineering from Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Technical College ca.1917-1920, he taught in rural Alberta schools and received his teaching certificate from the Edmonton Normal School in 1923. He continued teaching in Alberta, including at the Edmonton Normal School (1929-1932, 1940) and the Calgary Normal School (1938-1940), and was Rural School Inspector at Vegreville (ca.1932-1936). He also served in the Canadian Army from 1940-1946, attaining the rank of major. He received an MA degree from the University of Alberta in 1940, and a Doctorate in Education from Stanford University in 1947. He then served as Head of the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta, Calgary Branch and the Director of University of Alberta, Calgary from 1947-1960. From 1960-1961 he was Associate Dean of Education at University of Alberta, Calgary. He received a Doctor of Laws degree at The University of Calgary's first convocation after autonomy. During his years as an administrator, he worked strenuously to establish an autonomous University of Calgary. He also chaired or was a member of several education committees and conferences including the Western Canadian Conference on Teacher Education. He and his wife, Violet Thelen, had three children, Frank, Marjorie and Kay.

Frederick G. Heymann was born in Berlin on December 24, 1900. He studied history, philosophy, economics and sociology at the Universities of Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg and Frankfurt. He received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt in 1922 and spent two years on postgraduate work with Werner Sombart, an historian of modern capitalism.

Heymann started his journalism career in 1925 as the assistant economic policy editor for Frankfurter Zeitung, a highly regarded newspaper in pre-Hitler Germany. In 1932 he moved to Czechoslovakia as head of the Prague editorial office. Heymann’s writing came under increasing criticism from the German legation as being too friendly to the Czech people and to Czechoslovak policy. In 1935 the office was taken over by the Nazis and Heymann moved on to the Bohemia, a local daily paper of which he was editor, chief editorial writer and diplomatic correspondent. Both of these positions involved intensive diplomatic travel and study of the politics, economies and history of Eastern European countries.

Several members of the Bohemia’s editorial staff were arrested in March 1939; although Heymann was questioned, he was subsequently let go. With the help of Dr. Zdenek Schmoranz from the Press Department in the office of the Prime Minister, Heymann was able to leave the country with his family, arriving in England in July 1939. He expected to travel on to Australia but the outbreak of the war prevented him from doing so, and also contributed to his 10-week stay in an internment camp on the Isle of Man.

Heymann took classes to become proficient in English and was eventually employed in 1941 by the British Ministry of Information. He wrote and edited articles and became the military correspondent for Die Zeitung, a German language paper sponsored by the Ministry. In 1944 he was hired by the United States Office of War Information, a position that enabled him to travel to Germany as a civilian editor for the illustrated weekly Heute. At the end of the war, Heymann and his family emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York in July 1946.

Once in America, Heymann taught history at high schools and pursued his life-long passion of research and writing. His first book was published in 1955, a major work on John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution. Between 1956-1958 he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and then was Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa 1958-1959. He joined the University of Calgary in 1959 as an associate professor of history, later serving as Head of the Department. Heymann was widely acknowledged as an authority on Czech history and would publish numerous articles, chapters and books, including George of Bohemia, King of Heretics (1965) and Poland and Czechoslovakia (1966). He retired from the University of Calgary in 1973 and was granted Professor Emeritus status for his outstanding scholarship and service.

Heymann and his first wife Edith had two children, Ruth Bean and Frank. Edith died in 1966. Heymann married his second wife Dr. Lili Rabel from the Department of Linguistics, University of Calgary, in 1969. He died in 1983.

Arthur W. Knudsen was a professor of physics formerly of Washington, DC (in the 1950s), Geneva, Switzerland (ca. 1961), and Palo Alto, California (as of 1962). Professor Knudsen joined the staff in the Department of Physics at the University of Calgary as Senior Demonstrator ca. 1966 and remained until around 1984. His interest in precision modelling of reciprocating steam engines prompted the creation of these records.

Arthur Winfred Knudsen was born June 30th, 1920 in St. Louis Missouri. He received his Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1942 and was employed as a researcher on the Manhattan project from 1943-1946. Knudsen later attended the University of Chicago (1946-1947) and Washington University (1947-1948). Before coming to the University of Calgary in 1962, Knudsen was employed as a Physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory and as a Research Associate at Stanford University and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.

From 1962-1965 Knudsen worked as a technologist with the Department of Physics before being appointed as a Senior Demonstrator in 1966. His work primarily involved undergraduate and graduate laboratory supervision and instruction. Knudsen is credited by the Department of Physics with creating and then building upon the laboratory system used today.

Knudsen’s hobby was making detailed and accurate drawings of steam engines. He corresponded extensively with individuals, organizations and industrial companies to gather as much information, schematics and designs on the topic that he could. His correspondence ranged from Texas, Michigan, the Isle of Man, Birmingham and Leicestershire to Australia. Knudsen then used the written instructions, photographs, and schematics he had gathered to re-create historical steam engines on paper. He sent his drawings to many of his correspondents, all of whom remarked on the beauty of the finished products.

Knudsen died in Calgary on December 29th, 1984.

Dr. Herman W. Konrad was born in Poplar Hill, Alberta on November 5th, 1935. In his early 20s he volunteered with the Mennonite Central Committee, serving two years in Paraguay building roads, learning Spanish, and discovering what would become a life-long passion for Latin America. He received his BA from the University of British Columbia (History and Psychology) in 1962 and his MA from the University of Chicago (Renaissance and Reformation, and Early Modern European History) in 1964. His doctoral specializations at the University of Chicago were in Anthropology (Acculturation and Contemporary Latin American Indigenous Sectors) and History (Colonial Economic and Institutional History of Latin America and Spain). He received his PhD in 1973.

During his post-graduate studies, Konrad worked as a researcher for the Interdisciplinary Water-Management Research Project, Department of Geography and the Social Psychology Laboratory at the University of Chicago. He also directed the Institute Interuniversitario para Investigaciones Fundamentales en ciencias Sociales en Yucatán, in Mérida, México where he met his future wife Candelaria Arceo and began work on his long-term research into the chicle industry. He joined the University of Calgary in 1969 and held a position in history and anthropology until his death in 1996.

Konrad traveled extensively throughout México, gathering information from the field and from the archives for his studies. He was active in the Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, holding various executive positions including President. He founded the Canadian Association for Mexican Studies and in 1996 was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest honour for a non-diplomatic, non-Mexican citizen. The award was bestowed on Konrad by the President of México in recognition of academic contributions to Mexican studies, and to the establishment of Canada-México academic relations.

Konrad’s scholarly activities were voluminous, stemming primarily from both his academic and personal interest in Latin America in general and the area of Mérida, Yucatán in particular. He was also an excellent interdisciplinary researcher: one of his many research projects involved viewing the Calgary Stampede through an anthropologist’s lens. He wrote almost fifty articles and chapters, gave over a hundred presentations and addresses, and published five books including his doctoral work A Jesuit Hacienda in Colonial México: Santa Lucia 1576-1767, NAFTA in Transition co-edited with Stephen Randall, and Los estudios sobre México en Canadá. Logros y nuevas direcciones. He was planning on publishing four more books, including his work on the chicle industry, when he died in 1997. He was posthumously awarded the prestigious Tremblay Weaver Award from the Canadian Anthropology Society in 2005.

Victor Edward Mitchell was born January 29, 1929 in Vancouver B.C. He graduated from Victoria High School in 1947 and received his B.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1950. After completing a Professional Teaching Certificate he taught drama in Ladner and served two years as the High School principal in Slocan. He moved to England for a short time to study theatre at the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama and was a tutor at Westminster City School in 1959. Mitchell received a Canada Council grant to study theatre production at Stanford University where he received his Master of Arts in 1964. He was in the midst of writing his PhD dissertation when he was hired at the University of Calgary.

Mitchell was the Head of the Drama Division in the Department of Fine Arts from 1965-1968. He then became first Head of the new Department of Drama 1968-1974 in the newly formed Faculty of Fine Arts. Under his direction the department grew rapidly in the 1970s, following Mitchell’s production centred curriculum that blended academic and practical studies around the preparation and performance of stage plays. Mitchell chose plays that challenged both his students and the audience including Volpone, The House of Atreus, In the Penal Colony, and Spring Awakening. He also conducted summer theatre study tours for the Faculty of Continuing Education: London, Stratford and Edinburgh in 1982; and Stratford, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and New York in 1983. Mitchell retired from the University in 1984 and was awarded Professor Emeritus status.

Mitchell was very active in educational and community theatre groups in Calgary. Among his many activities he was a founding member and on the Board of Directors of MAC 14 Theatre (1965-1968), the Musicians and Actors Club that was the precursor to Theatre Calgary; a founding director of Prairie Players, a professional touring company (1966-1968); and a founding member with Joyce Doolittle of Calgary Youth Drama Society and the Pumphouse Theatre. Mitchell was also the founder and director of several productions for the Riverside Theatre Company and The Alternative Theatre Company. Among the many productions he directed and/or acted in were: The Importance of Being Earnest, Every Man in his Humour, Ten O’Clock Mail, Echoes in the Attic, Hosanna, and Saved. Mitchell continued to act and direct in his retirement in Victoria, and was honoured with a theatre named for him at the Pumphouse Theatre in 1984.

Mitchell travelled widely in his retirement, touring Vietnam and Turkey, visiting friends in England and Europe and frequently spending his winters in Thailand and the Philippines. He died in Victoria, B.C. on July 22nd, 2006.