Fonds med-599 - Frank Webber fonds

Award-winning photojournalist, Frank George Webber, was born in 1941 in Medicine Hat, the son of Frank Webber, Sr. and Hazel Jones of Dunmore. His grandfather, George Webber came to the Feldman Lake district, south of Pashley, Alberta, from Waterton, N.Y. in 1902 to establish a mixed horse/cattle ranch. Frank's maternal great-grandfather, Walter Stanley Jones, enlisted in the Northwest Mounted Police in 1879 and served at Fort Walsh. Upon his discharge, he was granted land in the Maple Creek area, where he established a ranch. Frank, Jr. attended Irvine High School and was the photographer for its first yearbook. After graduation, Frank worked as a heavy machine operator for his father, an owner of Webber & Shannon Construction, but he continued to snap pictures with his Brownie camera. He got a job as a photographer with the Medicine Hat News in 1961 and there he learnt how to process and print his own images. In 1963, he married Eleanor and quit the News for more lucrative employment; he drove taxi, became a ditch digger; and worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a spare brakeman, always carrying his camera with him. In 1967 he returned to Webber & Shannon as a heavy machinery operator. Whilst he became more financially secure, he really missed taking pictures so he returned to the News in 1968. Because of the advances and changes in technology, Frank decided to enrol in the Photographic Technology Program at the Northern Alberta Technology Institute (NAIT) in Edmonton to upgrade his knowledge. Upon graduation, Frank returned to Medicine Hat and the News for good. In 1975, he became a charter member of the Alberta News Photographers Association, which became the Western Canada News Photographers Association in 1980 and was affiliated with the U.S. based National Press Photographers Association. Frank and Eleanor have two children, Jason and Judy and three grandchildren. Officially retired in 1996, it is estimated that Frank shot over three-quarters of a million frames in his 35 years as a photojournalist documenting people and events in this corner of the Province.