Archives Digitizes WPA Cemetery Records
A new archival collection has been added to the Family Records Online digital collec¬
tion. The Compiled Cemetery Tombstone records created by the Historical Records Sur¬
vey of North Carolina, under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, were
created in 1937-1938. Workers surveyed cemeteries and transcribed information found on
tombstones. Their reports have been digitized and put online as searchable pdf documents
available at http://digital.ncdcr.gov/.
North Carolina’s State Archivist Retires
After nearly 42 years in the archives field and most of them with the North Carolina
State Archives, Jesse R. “Dick” Lankford Jr. retired in December from a profession he
loved and revered. He was North Carolina’s seventh state archivist.
He started on a different path — as a business major at Western Carolina University
(WC'U) — but soon became “hooked on history” through the inspired teaching of three
dedicated history professors at WCU — Max Williams, John Bell, and Creighton
Sossomon. Armed with a bachelor’s degree in history, Dick headed to the South Carolina
State Archives where he spent over a year as a records analyst in the County Records
Division. It was there that he made a decision to return to his home state and work
toward a master’s degree.
Back in Cullowhee, this time as a graduate student in history, Dick worked as a gradu¬
ate assistant in the School of Arts and Sciences, teaching and conducting research projects.
In 1972 he graduated with a Master of Arts degree in American history and decided he
wanted a job in the North Carolina State Archives, so he called up H. G. Jones, then head
of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History. Jones hired him, and Dick
worked under State Archivist Fred Coker arranging and describing state agency records.
He moved on to become iconographies archivist in 1976. Dick traveled to the Smithso¬
nian, Library of Congress, and the National Archives to see firsthand how photograph col¬
lections were arranged, described, and cataloged. In a recent interview he remembered,
“we were just learning back then how to handle photographs. Now there is so much
information about how to work and preserve photograph collections, but in the 1970s,
there wasn’t much in the literature about how to manage and care lor them.” Dick
remained iconographies archivist until 1 986 when he became assistant state archivist for
the Archival Services Branch responsible for technical services and archival collections in
the State Archives. At that time he decided to take another graduate degree in public
administration from North Carolina State University. “I felt that a degree in public admin¬
istration would help me manage people,” he said. In 2000 Dick became assistant state
archivist for Special Collections, and in 2004 he was selected as the North Carolina State
Archivist and served in that position until December 2011.
He is the recipient of the Governor’s “Order of the Longleaf Pine Award,” the
“Governor’s Award for Excellence, Outstanding State Government Service,” and the
Thornton W. Mitchell Award from the Society of North Carolina Archivists.
During Dick’s tenure he guided the State Archives through several milestones — devel¬
oping a productive partnership with the Genealogical Society of Utah to microfilm thou¬
sands of North Carolina’s public records, making them publicly available, expanding
public records storage space, creating innovative initiatives such as the Traveling Archivist
Program, and helping to coordinate statewide emergency preparedness training. Dick also
expanded the services of the Outer Banks History Center, oversaw the development of a
digital maps project and the expansion into digital collections and electronic records, the
implementation of the Uniform Real Property Electronic Transmission Act, the establish¬
ment of the Archives and Records Management fund, and he coordinated North
Carolina’s historic Bill of Rights on a statewide tour. All the while he taught and
mentored students and colleagues at the university level and in dozens of public work¬
shops and online training opportunities; he served on countless boards, and led the growth
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