U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (second from right) chats with (from left) State Historical Society of Missouri Executive Director Gary Kremer, University of Missouri President Mun Choi and University of Missouri–St. Louis Chancellor Kristin Sobolik last Tuesday during a visit to the UMSL campus. Blunt was attending a public reception celebrating the 125th anniversary of the State Historical Society and the legacy of former U.S. Representative and federal judge William L. Hungate.

Archivists at the State Historical Society have begun organizing, describing and making available four collections of Missouri congressional papers, including those of U.S. Representatives Dewey Short and Bill Emerson and U.S. Senators John Danforth and Thomas Eagleton, through a federal grant. The next phase of the project will include the papers of Hungate, which reside at the State Historical Society’s Saint Louis Research Center on the UMSL campus and chronicle his career representing Missouri’s Ninth Congressional District (1964-1977) and as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (1979-1992). Hungate, who grew up in Bowling Green, Missouri, received national attention during his political career as a member of the House Judiciary Committee investigating President Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal and later as one of several judges who oversaw the desegregation of St. Louis Public Schools. He died in 2007.

This photograph was taken by UMSL photographer Derik Holtmann and is the latest to be featured in Eye on UMSL.