Photo studio owner donating negatives to Murray State

February 3, 2015

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MURRAY, Ky. (AP) — The owner of a western Kentucky photo studio has donated hundreds of thousands of negatives to Murray State University.

The negatives cover the period from 1938 to 1979, giving a look at the university’s early days and the surrounding area.

Jill Celaya is owner of Wells Studio in Murray, which was started in 1939 by Kenneth Wells. She has worked with the university and Wells’ family through the years to hold exhibitions on campus featuring Wells’ work. Now she hopes the 300,000 negatives she is donating can be digitized, preserved and archived.

The collection will be housed in Murray State’s Pogue Library.

Wells was official photographer for the Murray State Shield yearbook from 1942 to 1956 and continued to provide special feature photos for the yearbook into the early 1960s.