The University of Wyoming has thousands of employees. Many of them are professors, departmental staff, administrators, custodians, and chefs. But there is one special person who has a position like no other, University Archivist and Historian John Waggener.

“My position is the University Archivist, and I’m the only one who specifically concentrates on university records,” Waggener relates. “There are two kinds of records. There are permanent records. So those are the ones that get archived. And then there are temporary records, and those are records that, at some point in time, will get destroyed.”

“The historian part is separate – related, but it’s separate.” Waggener notes. “I get to know the university as well as I can. A really good way to do that is to focus your research on the university, so my major research focus is University history.

Waggener is a University of Wyoming graduate, both for his undergraduate and master’s. After receiving his diploma, he was fortunate to be able to stay on campus and work at the American Heritage Center, where he has been for the last twenty-two years.

For the first two decades, he worked in the AHC’s Reference Department, where he conducted research for various patrons in the AHC’s rich collections. Then, in 2022, Waggener entered his current position.

“For 21 years, I worked in the Reference Department,” Waggener recalls. “The Reference Department is the department that works with patrons who are doing research, and basically there are two kinds of research you want to think of. There’s the onsite research – people who are in our reading room doing onsite research. Then there are all those patrons who contact us and say, “Hey, I’m working on a project, but I can’t come to where you are. Can you do the research for me?” John’s experience in Reference allowed him to touch on almost every subject area housed at the AHC – everything from military history to environment and conservation to journalism to UFOs.

While interesting work, Waggener appreciates that his new position allows for in-depth research into one of his favorite topics – the history of the University. “In this position, I have the opportunity…I have some time set aside to dig deeper. So instead of just touching the surface, I’m able to dig deeper.”

Although he loves and appreciates his current role, it does come with its challenges. “Things are constantly coming in. People are constantly asking you, “Hey, what do I do with this? Do I need to keep it longer. Do we need to donate it to the archive?” and that’s constant and then trying to balance that with my own research on the university’s history,” Waggener explains. “Everyone always comes to me. Therefore, I just do whatever’s in front of me at the moment.”

However, his love for UW is never in doubt since Waggener grew up attending football games with his family and is currently working on a history of buildings, past and present, on the University of Wyoming campus.

“​​I’m really focused on trying to get all the histories of the buildings. People are interested in buildings because it’s kind of what we remember. We remember buildings. We remember the campus,” says Waggener. “So numerous buildings still exist on campus. A lot have been torn down. The campus has grown. I’ve spent a year doing basic building history and haven’t even touched the surface yet. So, I’m thinking, “Wow, we don’t even know our own building history here. It hasn’t been well documented. And some of the documentation out there isn’t accurate.”

To learn more about the AHC’s University Archives program and to find John’s contact information, please go to https://www.uwyo.edu/ahc/uw-archives/.

Post contributed by AHC intern Carissa Mosness.

#alwaysarchiving