Friends of the UNCG Libraries

Dr. Keith Gorman Ms. Beth Ann Koelsch If you watch C-SPAN programming this weekend, you’ll see some familiar UNCG faces, including two from the University Libraries.  The UNCG related programming will air Feb. 21-22. Recently, C-SPAN came to the UNCG campus and interviewed two faculty members of the Special Collections and University Archives Department in Jackson Library. They also interviewed two faculty members and one emeritus faculty member in the History Department. Ms. Beth Ann Koelsch is curator of the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project in the library’s Hodges Special Collections & University Archives. “Since it’s for C-SPAN2 “the book channel,” I pulled books from the collection including memoirs, books written about particular companies (for example, “The 149th WAAC Post HQ Company, 1940-1943: Our Story”), comics, books on the history of women in the military and books about the role of women in the military,” she said. Dr. Keith Gor...

Charlotte Holder Clinger and Noel W. Clinger have established The Colonel Charlotte Holder Clinger ’65 Oral History Fund as a term endowment gift to enhance the work of the Betty H. Carter Women Veteran’s Historical Project in the University Libraries.  Charlotte Clinger was born in Asheboro, North Carolina.  She graduated from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1965 with a degree in history.  Her love of history motivated Charlotte to support the oral history project of the Women Veterans Historical Project.  She recognizes the importance of capturing first-hand accounts to document history. Charlotte joined the U. S. Air Force in 1967.  She attended Officer Training School and was then sent to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado for intelligence training.  It was there that she met her future husband, Noel Clinger.  Charlotte was the first woman ever stationed with the 553rd Reconnaissance Wing.  She did intelligence br...

Dorothy Rechel of Hendersonville, NC has established the Dorothy J. Rechel Women Veterans Historical Project Oral History and Program Fund to support the work of the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project at the University Libraries at UNC Greensboro. Her gift will support the collections and ongoing educational programming of the project. Rechel was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.   At the age of eighteen, following graduation from high school, she enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps and began a highly varied twenty-three year career which included overseas assignments in France and Viet Nam.  Her military education was gained in specialized training at several service schools and the US Army Sergeants Major Academy from which she graduated in 1974. Sergeant Major Rechel’s final duty station was Fort Monroe, Virginia, beginning in 1971, at the Headquarters, US Army Training and Doctrine Command.   There she was privileged to have been involved in pl...

Ms. Kathryn F. Wirkus has established The Kathryn F. Wirkus Women Veterans Historical Project Fund at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Her gift will enhance the work of the Betty Carter Women Veterans Historical Project of the University Libraries.  Born and reared in Miami, FL, Wirkus received her BA in Early Childhood Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an MA in Guidance and Counseling from Webster University.  Kathryn served in the United Stated Air Force for 27 years on active duty, the Guard and Reserve components, serving in various capacities as an education & training and personnel officer.  Following retirement from the USAF in 2006, she began a second career as a Colorado State Veterans Service Office, and as the Colorado Women Veterans Coordinator.   She was chair of the planning committee for the first Colorado Women Veterans Conference 2011 and the subsequent Resource Fair 2012.  In 2...

Ms. Ann Fisher of Hendersonville, NC has established The Audrey Ann Fisher Women Veterans Historical Project Oral History and Program Fund at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Her gift  will support the collections and ongoing educational programming of the project.  Fisher enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps in 1946. During her career she served in Korea and Vietnam, among other posts.  She was assigned to work in the Pentagon in 1967, and retired as a Commander from Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, VA.  She received a bachelor’s degree from Park College in Missouri in 1965.  Her papers and  oral history interview are included in the Betty Carter Women Veterans Historical Project in the University Libraries at UNC Greensboro.

What do your snapshots say about the way you look at the world? Andi Gustavson wants to know.   The recipient of the University Libraries’ Research Travel Grant this year, Gustavson has an unusual dissertation topic for her work in American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, one with a somewhat unconventional methodology. Her dissertation, “What Comes Home: Vernacular Photography and the Cold War, 1945-1991,” explores how American nurses, servicemen and servicewomen, and diplomats used their cameras to construct their own worldviews, posing and positioning themselves within an emerging new global order. Because these personal photographs depict the ordinariness of life lived amidst violence, she believes that they are key to understanding how Americans became accustomed to a culture of endless war. Andi Gustavson in Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives Research Room Gustavson says her work bridges a gap in the scholarly research o...

Military Times Edge magazine has named UNCG a “Best for Vets” school. UNCG is the only public university in North Carolina included in the annual ranking.  As the home of the Betty Carter Women Veterans Historical Project, the University Libraries takes special pride in receiving this recognition.

Miss Irene Parsons of North Wilkesboro, NC has created the Irene A. Parsons Endowed Fund for the benefit of the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project in the University Libraries of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Project acquires and preserves resources documenting the history of women veterans and women serving in related service organizations. Chancellor Linda Brady said of the gift, “it represents a meaningful investment to sustain and further advance the level of excellence for which the University Libraries’ Special Collections has become known.” Irene Adelaide Parsons was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina and graduated from high school in nearby Taylorsville. She attended Brevard College for two years and then worked in Wilkes County prior to enrolling at Woman’s College in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1939. She graduated in1941 with majors in business administration and education, and later received her master’s degree from George Washington...