Frank Bates was born in Colorado in 1909 and moved to Luseland, Saskatchewan at a young age. He attended elementary and high school there and then attended Normal School in Calgary, Alberta for 1927-1928. At the University of Saskatchewan he completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1942 and a Bachelor of Education degree in 1944. Frank was married to Martha Eilene Mathias in 1938. At the University of California in Berkeley in 1947 he completed a Doctor of Education degree with emphasis on Elementary Education and Educational Psychology, most of his education past high school was completed by correspondence.
Bates began teaching in 1958 at the Saskatchewan Teachers' College in Moose Jaw and Regina and in 1963 became Principal of the Saskatchewan Teachers' College in Regina and acted as Dean of the new Faculty of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus from 1964 to 1967 while teaching in the faculty until 1977 and retiring in 1978. Bates also served on the University Senate for a number of years and in the fall of 1984 Bates received an honorary.
Frank Bates passed away in June 2003.
Lloyd Ingram Barber was born in Regina, Saskatchewan on March 8, 1932. He grew up and received his primary and part of his secondary education in Regina Beach then completed it at Luther College in Regina. He was married in 1956 to Muriel Pauline (Duna) and together they had six children.
Barber attended the University of Saskatchewan and received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics in 1953, a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Administration and from the University of California he received a Masters degree in Business Administration (marketing) in 1955.
He joined the staff at the University of Saskatchewan as an Instructor in 1955 and obtained a Doctoral degree in Philosophy from the University of Washington in 1964. Barber served as Dean of Commerce in 1966 and as the University Vice-President of the University from 1968 to 1974. After a leave of absence, he was named President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Regina on January 1, 1976 a position he held until he retired in 1990.
Barber became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1976 and was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada 1993 and in 1995 invested as a member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. He received the Aboriginal Order of Canada in 1985, was an honorary professor at Shandong University in China, had honorary degrees from the Universities of Alberta and Concordia. He acted as Canada's Indian Claims Commissioner for the Privy Council of Canada from 1969 until 1977 and was very involved in the establishment of the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College.
Barber has been on the Board of Directors for the Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Pacific, and Husky Oil of Canada, Can West Global, Molson Limited and the Winnipeg Commodities Exchange. He was awarded the Vanier Medal in 1979 by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada. He was President of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, served on the executive council of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, was a founding member of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and in 1967 was appointed to the North West Territorial Council.
Brett Balon, who has also written under the name John Peterson, was born in Regina in 1953. He studied at the University of Regina from 1971 until 1976, when he received his Bachelors of Arts (Honours). He also studied French at the University of Victoria in 1971, the CEGEP de Jonquiere in Quebec in 1973, and at the Universite de Laval, also in Quebec. He received a Master of Library Science from the University of Western Ontario in 1978 and his Ph.D. from Greenwich University, Hilo, Hawaii, in 1993.
Balon was branch supervisor at the Southeast Regional Library in Weyburn from 1978 until 1982, when he joined the City of Regina as records management supervisor.
He contributed to various anthologies such as Cracked Wheat (1984), More Saskatchewan Gold (1985), Heading Out: the New Saskatchewan Poets (1987), 200% Cracked Wheat (1992), and Black Water II (1990). He edited Survival of the Imagination: The Mary Donaldson Memorial Lectures (1993) with Peter Resch, and wrote many articles on records management, librarianship and archives for a number of different publications. Balon received an Honourable Mention in the Children's Literature category of the Saskatchewan Literary Awards for 1981.
Among his various activities, Balon co-founded and was president of the Weyburn Writers Group, chair of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, president of the Saskatchewan Library Association and a board member of Coteau Books.
Elsworth F. Baker was born in 1903 in South Dakota, USA and was a 17 year old student at Regina College during the school year 1920/21, and won first prize in Mathematics that year, he later attended the Regina Normal School. Baker became a psychotherapist who studied and worked with Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) for 11 years. Reich is credited with the discovery of a biological energy, “orgone energy”, the study of which is Orgonomy, and which follows along Freud’s idea on the libido. In 1967 Baker founded the Journal of Orgonomy and the American College of Orgonomy located in Princeton, New Jersey.
Dr. Baker’s publication, Man in the Trap was published 18 times during 1957 and 2000, he died in 1985.
Helen (Nell) Arzab was born in Melville, Saskatchewan in 1955, she was a student at the University of Regina from 1973 to 1980 studying art and political science. Arzab was a founding member of the Regina Group for a Non-Nuclear Society in the early 1980's, and along with other Regina citizens, was concerned with the on-going nuclear arms race and the complicity of Saskatchewan’s uranium mining industry in supplying high grade uranium for nuclear warheads.
This public awareness group arranged marches and demonstrations, and leaflet campaigns. On the steps of the Saskatchewan Legislative building a staged public performance skit was held to help get their message out and to further protest uranium dust being transported on Saskatchewan highways, a sign was placed near the north end of Albert Street declaring the city of Regina a Nuclear Free Zone.
In 1997, Nell took part in the first international labour studies debate, held online through Solinet, a computer conferencing system designed for trade unions. She has co-taught courses at the University of Regina and was an online copy editor for an American labour e-zine called Disgruntled; later the e-zine evolved into a book (by Daniel Levine). For five years Nell was an online arts columnist for a women’s creative arts journal called Moondance.
Today Nell is a Special-Education Educational Assistant in the Regina Public School system and an encaustic artist who paints abstract organic designs with hot wax. She remains politically active making the world a better place by recycling and gardening, choosing public transportation over owning a car and has planted hundreds of trees.