Michael Taft was born in New York City in 1947. He received his BA from State University of New York at Stony Brook (1968), MA from York University (1971), and PhD from Memorial University (1977). A folklorist, Dr. Taft taught at the University of Saskatchewan for the 1978-1979 academic year, and returned to campus in 1983-1984 to research and write an anecdotal history of the University. Dr. Taft was Head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. from 2002 to 2012.

Anne Szumigalski, poet (b at London, Eng 3 Jan 1922; d at Saskatoon 22 Apr 1999). Raised in rural Hampshire, she served as an interpreter with the Red Cross during World War II, and in 1951 immigrated with her husband and family to Canada. A translator, editor, playwright, teacher and poet, she was instrumental in founding the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild and the literary magazine Grain. She wrote or co-wrote 14 books, mostly poetry, including Woman Reading in a Bath (1974) and A Game of Angels (1980).

Her poetry explores the world of the imagination, a fantastic landscape that stretches between and beyond birth and death and is characterized by the simultaneous concreteness and illogic nature of dreams. She also explores the formal possibilities of the prose poem in several volumes, including Doctrine of Signatures (1983), Instar (1985) and Rapture of the Deep (1991). Because of its appearance on the page, the prose poem is freed from some of the conventions and expectations of the lyric poem, lending itself well to the dreamlike juxtapositions and leaps central to Szumigalski's work.

She also wrote her autobiography, The Voice, the Word, the Text (1990) and a play about the Holocaust, Z. Voice (1995), a collection of poems featuring paintings by Marie Elyse St George, won the Governor General's Award. On Glassy Wings: Poems New and Selected (1997) provides a good overview of Szumigalski's poetry.
-Taken from The Canadian Encyclopedia, Author COLIN BOYD

Peter Michael Swan was born on October 4, 1931 in the village of Kennedy, Saskatchewan. He earned three degrees from the University of Saskatchewan: a B.A. Honours (1952), M.A. (1957), and B.Ed (1959). He completed a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard University in 1965. Dr. Swan became a permanent faculty member of the University of Saskatchewan in 1962. He held a variety of administrative posts and played an important role in the creation of the University's Museum of Antiquities. Dr. Swan served as the Assistant Dean of Arts and Science, Acting Head of the Departments of Art, Classics/Greek and Roman Studies, and Modern Languages and as the Director of the Learned Society Conference, University Studies Group and Undergraduate Programs and Students in the Department of History. His scholarly specialties are the early Roman Empire, in particular the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero (31 B.C. - A.D. 68), and the Roman historian Cassius Dio, on whom he has written various articles and edited two books. In 2004, his book, "The Augustan Succession", was published by Oxford University Press. Dr Swan was honoured by the University of Saskatchewan at its 1989 Spring Convocation with the Master Teacher Award. He was named Professor Emeritus of History upon his retirement in 1999.

Dmytro Stryjek was born in 1899 in the village of Lanivtsi, Ukraine. Leaving Ukraine in 1923, he immigrated to Canada, settling in Hafford, Saskatchewan. In 1926, he joined the Canadian National Railway, retiring 38 years later. During his working life, he gardened and kept bees, but there is little reference to his making art. The outdoor life had its effect, however. Over all those years, he stored up observations of nature that make his landscapes and skyscapes so vital. He once stated that he "...worked 38 years on the railroad and every five minutes the sky is changing." He was also influenced artistically through the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Hafford which is full of folk ecclesiastical architecture and decoration. When Stryjek did start painting, he was misunderstood by local people in his town. He was sometimes referred to as "Durny Stryjek" (crazy Stryjek). A local acquaintance explained that it was very strange for an old man to use crayons and pencils as if he were a child. Stryjek moved to Saskatoon in the late 60's and it was there that he began to show his artwork. He showed from 1975-79 in the Saskachimo Exposition, an annual exhibition of cattle, agricultural industry and homemade goods. One room was set aside for the display of art, all unjuried. It was here that his work started to gain some attention, and he was awarded a red ribbon in 1978. From that time on, Stryjek began to receive support and encouragement, selling his work to local collectors and to public collections, and being included in exhibitions of prairie folk art. His work is now in many public collections, including the Glenbow Museum, the Mendel Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The artist was a prolific worker up until his death in 1991. (Kate Davis, Director, MacKenzie Art Gallery)

Johanna Tappert was born on October 4, 1892 in Meriden, Connecticut. She worked at the Lutheran College on 8th Street in Saskatoon from 1927 to 1933 as a high school teacher, Dean of the Girls Dormitory, and, eventually, Assistant Principal. She served as dorm mother for the girls and taught English to German immigrants on the weekends. At these classes, she met Ernest Lindner, who was subsequently given a room at the dorm in order to do his artwork. Johanna Tappert married Eugene Strack sometime around 1933. She died in Edmonton, Alberta on November 13, 1984.

Born in Saskatchewan in 1929 Gertrude E. Story (nee Wudrick) is one of Saskatchewan's best known storytellers and writers. Her early years growing up in a German Lutheran farming environment have formed the background to much of her writing. Starting in the early 1950s, she developed her craft as a freelance writer and broadcaster. Her works include adult and children's fiction, poetry, radio plays, commentary and non-fiction. For many years she entertained CBC Radio audiences with her literary reports from her home in Vanscoy southwest of Saskatoon. An active member of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, her poetry and stories have appeared in a variety of publications across the country. In 1980 her first volume of poetry, The Book of Thirteen, was published. A year later a collection of stories, The Way to Always Dance, was also published. Other major publications include After Sixty: Going Home; Black Swan; Counting Two; How to Saw Wood With An Angel; It Never Pays To Laugh Too Much; and The Last House on Main Street. In addition to her writing and radio work, Story has devoted much of her time to teaching the craft to others through workshops and writer-in-residence programs throughout the province. In 1981 she graduated with a B.A. with distinction from the U of S, winning the President's Medal as the most distinguished graduate in the College of Arts and Science. She passed away on January 18, 2014.

Jean Storey Thompson was born 21 April 1924 and spent the majority of her life in Saskatoon. A graduate of Nutana Collegiate in Saskatoon, enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan (BA 1946) in 1943. She was a member of the Huskiettes basketball team for four years, serving as captain in 1945-1946 and was noted for her playmaking ability. Thompson was also an accomplished tennis player and won the 1946 intervarsity doubles title. Thompson served on the Women's Athletic Board for four years and was vice president of the Students' Representative Council. Following graduation Thompson was an alumni representative on the Women's Athletic Board and was assistant director of physical education at the U of S from 1946-1950. Her first teaching job was at Balfour Tech in Regina. After two years she returned to Saskatoon. Thompson worked at Nutana and Mount Royal collegiates as a physical education teacher. Her love of sports allowed her to enrich many female students and athletes. Her move to Mount Royal in guidance counseling enabled her to focus on her compassion for mentoring students. Thompson was actively involved in the Saskatoon Kiwanis Club, members at Saskatoon Golf and Country Club and Nutana Curling Club. She was inducted into the U of S Athletic Wall of Fame as a two-sport athlete in 1984. Jean Thompson died 23 June 2011 in Saskatoon.

Denis A. St-Onge was born in 1929 in Ste-Agathe, MB. He earned a B.Sc in Geology from the University of Manitoba (Collège de St-Boniface) in 1951 and a L.Sc. from l'université de Louvain, Belgium in 1957. He then joined the Geographical Branch of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys as chair of the Committee responsible for the translation of the Atlas of Canada. A year later, he became a member of the original group of the Polar Continental Shelf Project which took him to Ellef Ringnes Island, carrying out geomorphological surveys during the summers of 1959 to 1961. This work would form the basis of his doctoral dissertation for the D.Sc. granted by l'université de Louvain in 1962. Dr. St-Onge worked as a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada from 1965 until 1973 with a two-year hiatus (1968-1970) as a professor at the University of Ottawa. He rejoined the faculty at the University of Ottawa in 1973, where he held a series of positions including Chair of the Department of Geography, Secretary of the Faculty of Arts and the Vice-dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Research. He returned to the Geological Survey in 1982 as chief of the Quaternary Geology Subdivision and later Director of the Terrain Sciences Division. As an Emeritus Scientist, he served as Scientific Advisor to Polar Shelf and as research scientist with Terrain Sciences Division. St-Onge was also been active in many national and international bodies. He was the first chair of the Canadian National Committee for the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) and was Vice-President of the organizing committee for the 1987 congress. He also served as President of the Canadian Association of Geographers, President of the Geological Association of Canada, Vice-President for External Relations of the Canadian Social Sciences Federation and President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. In May 1996, he was elected President of the Canadian Geoscience Council. Among his many honours are Honorary Membership in the Société géographique de Belgique, a commemorative medal of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II in 1979, the medal of the université de Liège in 1980, Honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Manitoba in 1990, membre honoraire (médaille André Cailleux) from the Association québécoise pour l'étude du Quaternaire in 1991, and election as Honorary Life Member by the General Assembly of INQUA also in 1991. The Arctic Institute of North America made him a Fellow in 1994. In September 1994, he was awarded the Scottish Geographical Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and in 2002 he was appointed chair of the FLUXNET, a national research network studying carbon cycling. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in May 1996. As of 2020, St-Onge was Emeritus Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, at the University of Ottawa.

Peter Stevens was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England in 1927. He received his B.A. (honors) in English, Cert.Ed. 1951 from Nottingham University, his M.A. from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, and his Ph.D. from the University of Saskatchewan in 1968. He taught English at the U of S from 1964-1969 and then he taught English at the University of Windsor until his retirement in 1993. He edited the Canadian Forum and the Literary Review of Canada. He passed away in 2009.

Ron Steer received his B.Sc. (1963), Ph.D. (1968) and D.Sc. (1995) degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. From 1968-1969, he did postdoctoral research with Jim Pitts, Jr. at the University of California, Riverside, where he first became interested in the chemistry and relaxation dynamics of electronically excited molecules. He returned to the University of Saskatchewan in 1969 as Assistant Professor of Chemistry. He was promoted to full Professor in 1978, served a term as department head from 2002 to 2005, and served as the elected representative of the faculty on the University of Saskatchewan's Board of Governors from 2001 to 2004. He has taught at all levels, from introductory general chemistry, through introductory and advanced undergraduate physical chemistry, to graduate courses in laser chemistry and physics and excited state chemistry. Steer received the Master Teacher Award in 1996; was awarded the title of distinguished professor by the University in 2011; and received the John C. Polanyi Award (from Canadian Society for Chemistry) in 2013.

Marie Elyse St. George is a visual artist, poet and author. Her work has been used for the covers of several Canadian books, and she has exhibited in both Canada and the United States. She has won numerous awards for her writing, including the Saskatchewan Writers Guild first prize for poetry (1989); The League of Canadian Poets National Poetry Contest first prize (1989); and the Saskatchewan Book Award for Nonfiction (2006). A collaboration of St. George’s art and Anne Szumigalski’s poetry at the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, resulted in Voice, 1995 winner of the Governer General’s Literary Award. Her other books include Heading Out (1986), White Lions In The Afternoon (1987), and Once in a Blue Moon: An Artist's Life (2006). In 1996 she was given the Saskatchewan YWCA’s Women of Distinction Award for Arts and Culture. Born near St. Catherine’s, Ontario, St. George has lived in Canada, England and the United States but her home is in Saskatoon.

John William Tranter Spinks was born in Methwold, England 1 January 1908. He attended the King's College at the University of London, recieving both a BSc (1928) and PhD (1930) in Chemistry. Spinks joined the University of Saskatchewan in 1930 as Assistant Professor. He spent the 1933-34 academic year at the University of Darmstart, Germany, where he first met Dr. Gerhard Herzberg. Spinks was promoted to Professor (1938); named Head of the Department of Chemistry (1948); Dean of Graduate Studies (1949); and became the fourth President of the University (1959). Spinks led the university through its most active period of development. He retired from the presidency in 1974 but continued to pursue his academic interests. Spinks published more than 260 scientific fonds and larger works including a study for the Massey Commission, a translation of "Atomic Spectra and Molecular Spectra," "An Introduction to Radiation Chemistry," and an autobiography, "Two Blades of Grass." His many honours include a MBE (1943), LL.D (Carleton University, 1958), D.Sc. (Assumption University, 1961), Companion of the Order of Canada (1970), and a LL.D. from the University of Saskatchewan. He died in Saskatoon in 1997.

Marguerita Spencer (nee MacQuarrie) was born 28 December 1892 in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. She received her early musical education in Glace Bay and Halifax's Academy of Music, Lady's College. From 1918-1921 Marguerita trained as a nurse at Toronto General Hospital. Shortly after graduation in 1921, she married R.A. Spencer, who had recently been appointed Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. In Saskatoon, Marguerita continued her musical education, locally with Lyell Gustin, and in Montreal at McGill's Department of Music, where she earned a L. Mus. degree. Spencer was extremely active in the Saskatoon music community: playing organ or singing in the choir for a number of churches; performing with the Saskatoon Symphony and on CBC radio; and teaching. She was both a gifted player and a composer of music, with several published songs and suites for voice, string quartets, piano, and cello to her credit.