Norma Zimmer National Fan Club (Welk Collection 3) The Norma Zimmer National Fan Club records consist of its quarterly newsletters from 1978 to date.A photograph of Lawrence Welk is featured on many of the covers and often the phrase ‘Featured by Lawrence Welk and his Champagne Orchestra’. The vast majority of the titles are from the 1930s through 1950s. Lawrence Welk Sheet Music Collection (Welk Collection 4) The Lawrence Welk Sheet Music Collection includes single sheet music titles and a number of music books that either feature Lawrence Welk or members of his musical family on the cover or were composed and published by them.Due to the fragile condition of the originals, the scrapbooks from 1938 to 1953 have been photocopied and are available in a bound volume at the NDSU Archives Research Room. Lawrence Welk Scrapbooks Collection (Welk Collection 5) The Lawrence Welk Scrapbook Collection is perhaps the most comprehensive collection documenting the career of Lawrence Welk from 1938 to 1981.Hogue, Rolly And Pat (Welk Collection 2) The Rolly and Pat Hogue Lawrence Welk Collection documents the close friendship between the Hogues and Lawrence Welk as well as the Hogue’s arrangements for Welk’s visits back to North Dakota.Of general interest is a scrapbook documenting their lives. It also includes the music playbooks with some music arrangements that were used by the Minnesota Vikings Football Band that Jules Herman directed. Jules and Lois Herman Papers (Welk Collection 6) The Jules and Lois Herman Papers document their musical careers, particularly the music used by the Jules Herman Band that performed for some thirty-five years at the Prom in St.Sending birthday cards had been a hobby of Mrs. Brechtel in response to letters and cards that she sent to various members of the Lawrence Welk Show. Brechtel, Elmira (Welk Collection 1) The Elmira Brechtel Collection consists of correspondence from performers with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra sent to Ms.
Through generous donations by various individuals, a number of manuscript collections have been made part of the Lawrence Welk Collection and are available for public research use. The NDSU Libraries’ Germans from Russia Heritage Collection also includes an extensive collection of Lawrence Welk-related articles, photographs, and other resources. The Institute continues to acquire related music and memorabilia for the collection, and welcomes donations of Welk-related materials. It has been organized and indexed to make it accessible to researchers as well as to interested fans and admirers.
The Lawrence Welk Collection contains over 10,000 music arrangements, as well as scrapbooks, manuscripts, photographs, artifacts, record albums, publications, and oral histories. Welk received an honorary doctorate of music from NDSU in 1965. In 1961 he received the North Dakota’s highest honor by being the first recipient of the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award. Welk is one of North Dakota’s most famous native sons, born and raised in the German Russian community of Strasburg, North Dakota.
Starting in the early years of television in the 1950s, The Lawrence Welk Show was a fixture on Saturday nights. Lawrence Welk was an American cultural icon, whose music and musical family touched the lives of millions of people. The NDSU Libraries and the Institute for Regional Studies Archives were given responsibility for preserving and making available the music and memorabilia of Lawrence Welk. Through a generous donation of the Welk family, North Dakota State University acquired the Lawrence Welk Collection in 1993.