Denton special collections librarian wins state award for short local history videos

By Christian McPhate Staff Writer cmcphate@dentonrc.com
Jun 22, 2022


Special collections librarian Chuck Voellinger was honored by the Texas Library Association for his “History Moments” video series. He’s shown Wednesday at Emily Fowler Central Library.

Chuck Voellinger wishes there was an aha moment when he discovered his love of history. As the special collections librarian at Emily Fowler Central Library, Voellinger has always loved old, musty things. He’s always been interested in older people and their stories and gravitated toward old architecture, old cars and old guitars. His ’63 white Impala makes appearances in the short historical videos he posts on the Denton Public Library’s Facebook page.

He doesn’t look like the stereotypical librarian. Though he is middle-aged, he doesn’t wear a bun or resemble the sexy librarian trope in his glasses. He isn’t a hipster and doesn’t appear to have tattoos. Some kids would probably call him a superhero librarian for his puppet shows and story time readings. But he doesn’t fly around saving books from bonfires.

Voellinger did come up with a heroic idea when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in March 2020, followed by lockdowns. He saw library staff members were creating videos of story times and craft projects to stay engaged with the community. He wanted to do something similar with the Special Collections Department, a historical collection that showcases Denton’s quirky and unknown history.

So he created “History Moments,” one- to two-minute short videos about obscure Denton history that the Denton Public Library posts on its Facebook page. Since November 2020, he has been posting a collage of historical accounts like the story of dueling dealerships in identical buildings on opposite ends of town in the late 1940s, and stories about places tied to notable figures such as the Betty Jane Blazier Memorial Play Wall in Quakertown Park.

“Yield to the call of the wall and stop and play and remember Ms. Blazier,” Voellinger tells viewers in the April 30, 2021, video.

The Texas Library Association recently awarded Voellinger the 2022 Texas Library Association Branding Iron Award for the short video series.

“I’m humbled by it and that people are interested,” Voellinger said. “It’s gone much further than I expected it to. I want people to learn about Denton history. It’s a town I love, and there are a lot of cool stories.”

Voellinger’s journey to becoming the special collections librarian doesn’t sound like the stereotypical librarian story. He wanted to be a rock star, the next Jimmy Page or, even better, Duane Allman.

A St. Louis native, Voellinger and his family moved to Dallas when he was 14. Back then, Denton and Dallas were a musical oasis for musicians. Heavy metal was dominating Fort Worth and creeping into Dallas. Indie and punk rockers were appearing on the stages.

Voellinger’s father was an accountant by day and a swing drummer by night. He enjoyed music related to the Great American Songbook and by the crooners such as Frank Sinatra. Voellinger’s mother wasn’t a musician but was a child of the 1950s and enjoyed good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll by the likes of Elvis, Ricky Nelson and Buddy Holly.

Voellinger said he always wanted to play music, so when he asked his parents for a guitar, he recalled them saying, “We’ll get you a guitar. It won’t be expensive.”

“They didn’t know if it was going to be a fad,” he said. “But I’m still playing.”

He received an acoustic guitar, a cheap one without a brand name, he said.

Soon he graduated to an electric guitar and found himself playing in different bands after high school and in college in the mid- to late ’80s at what was then known as North Texas State University, where he majored in history. He played mostly indie rock and roots rock and appeared on stages at iconic places such as Club Dada and Club Clearview in Dallas’ Deep Ellum.

Several years later, in the late ’90s, Voellinger needed a job and discovered the Denton Public Library was hiring. He applied and began working as a library assistant and eventually returned to school, received his master’s in library sciences and became a librarian and joined special collections in 2010.

Over the years, he’s done a variety of public outreach work, from participating in the O’Neil Ford exhibit in 2018 at UNT on the Square, highlighting the life of Denton-born architect, to the library’s story time and puppet theater for preschoolers. Voellinger’s host puppet was “Mr. Snappy,” the alligator. He’d also play guitar for children.

In late 2020, Voellinger shared his first “History Moments” video. In Episode 1, he took a trip to Panhandle and Malone streets and told the story of Denton’s Civilian Conservation Corps, a work camp President Franklin D. Roosevelt had established in the Great Depression to give 18- to 25-year-old men environmental conservation jobs to combat unemployment.

“I learned that my house that my wife and I bought on Panhandle was on the property that used to be a CCC camp in Denton,” Voellinger said. “Nobody remembers the camp.”

He followed it with short videos about Eva Swan Hodge, a longtime educator from Fred Moore High School; Crystal Ice, an old ice company from the 1920s; and Nette Shultz, a Denton educator for whom a city park and elementary school are named.

Voellinger said he’ll come up with some of the ideas for the videos. He’s always poring over old newspaper articles. People will often give him ideas. Sometimes he’ll do thematic videos like during Black History Month when he focused on some of Denton’s notable African American residents.

In March 2021, he decided to spice up the short videos and started each one with him getting into his ’63 Chevy Impala, starting the motor and driving off to the historical location he plans to highlight in the video.

He’d gotten the idea from Texas Country Reporter host Bob Phillips, whose long-running program Voellinger used to watch when he was a teenager.

“This nice, affable guy would get into his van and go to offbeat places in Texas and do interviews with people,” Voellinger said. “… I wanted to have [that] kind of intro.”

Voellinger’s next video delves into the old missile silo on the outskirts of town and discusses a nearby neighborhood with unusual street names such as Atlas, Redstone and Pershing.

“People think they were named after Greek and Roman gods,” he said. “They were actually names of old ballistic missiles. I guess the developer thought they would name them after missiles.”

Voellinger still plays music. He’s in the band Trotline, an acoustic porch music duo with his good friend Chris Veon. They recently played at the Denton Redbud Festival.

“We were joking that when we were in our 20s, we played indie rock and punk clubs,” Voellinger said. “Now that we’re older, we play at art galleries.”

CHRISTIAN McPHATE can be reached at 940-220-4299 and via Twitter at @writerontheedge.