Wichita State U. awaits Parks memorabilia

A major part of Gordon Parks' creative legacy will now be housed at Wichita State University, WSU officials announced Thursday.

Within about seven to 10 days, the university will receive a collection of nearly 150 boxes of private papers, manuscripts, personal items, and other material from Parks, the late Fort Scott native and famed photographer, filmmaker, composer and author who died in March 2006 in his New York home.

The collection has an appraised value of about $500,000. The Gordon Parks Foundation in Chappaqua, N.Y., accepted the university's proposal for the collection over interest from several other institutions, including the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress. Universities such as Harvard and Yale also showed interest in the material.

WSU Vice President and General Counsel Ted Ayres said he began leading the effort to obtain Parks' material in late 2006, and the bidding process for the collection began about six to seven months ago. In November, WSU officials submitted a proposal to the foundation to acquire the papers and also communicated regularly with Park's family members, Ayres said. In December, WSU was chosen by the Gordon Parks Foundation to receive and maintain the collection.

"There was some big league competition out there," Ayres said. "But what's most important is Gordon Parks, and that we bring these materials home. There is a Kansas connection with Gordon Parks."

The collection includes rough drafts and original scripts of Parks' most noted works, such as his autobiographical novel and movie, "The Learning Tree," and the 1971 movie, "Shaft,"as well as unpublished, never-before-seen manuscripts of novels, books and poems; and notations revealing Parks' creative process, an Associated Press story said Friday.

The collection spans much of Parks' career, from the 1930s and 1940s up until Parks quit writing in 2006, Ayres said. The materials include Parks' high school yearbooks, record albums, Christmas cards, and letters from many famous people, such as Gloria Vanderbilt and Kurt Vonnegut.

WSU paid the Gordon Parks Foundation $505,000 from private donations and about $60,000 from the university. The deal also calls for $100,000 to endow a full-time graduate assistant who will focus solely on the collection.

In the coming months, the assistant and other university officials plan to devote countless hours to sorting, researching and documenting the materials for eventual public display. WSU also plans to use the materials for educational purposes at the university, Ayres said.

Ayres, who met Parks when the Fort Scott native last visited WSU in 2000, said it will take about two years to process all of the materials before they will be available to the public and researchers. Photographs of some of the materials could be ready for public display within a few months. The collection also contains some unknown items in boxes that were sealed after Parks' death.

WSU has maintained a special interest in Parks' life and career for several years, Ayres said. Parks had visited the university on several occasions over the years, and had also displayed his work in a museum on the WSU campus.

"There are just lots of connections (to Parks) there," Ayres said.

The WSU Special Collections Department also plans to display an exhibit of the materials; a digital exhibit of selected materials on the university's Web site; host visits by students from WSU classes, local schools and community groups; and host cultural programs for the university and the community highlighting the collection.

In early November, Ayres said, he visited Fort Scott to tour the Gordon Parks Center for Culture and Diversity and to visit with Fort Scott Community College officials about Parks and the university's attempts to bring Parks' collected works back to Kansas. Ayres said he also had the chance to tour Evergreen Cemetery, where Parks is buried next to his parents.

Ayres said FSCC officials have been "very cooperative and supportive" of WSU's efforts to obtain and display Parks' materials, and even wrote a letter of support to the university. In turn, WSU plans to cooperate with FSCC and the Gordon Parks Center for Culture and Diversity, another repository of Parks' collected works. The center at FSCC also hosts an annual celebration in Parks' honor.