SHSMO Center for Missouri Studies
605 Elm St.
Columbia, MO
A new biography of retired Columbia City Manager Ray Beck offers insight into the longtime civil servant who helped shape Columbia from 1960 to 2006 as a sanitary engineer, public works director, planning director, and city manager. Co-authors Ray Beck and journalist Jodie Jackson will share insight into their new book, Fingerprints and Footprints: Ray Beck’s Columbia. It tells the story of annexations that tripled the size of Columbia, leading to the expansion of Columbia Regional Airport, downtown development, sewer and water systems, street construction, Stadium Boulevard and, among others, the history of Columbia's parks and the MKT Trail. Fingerprints and Footprints also chronicles Ray Beck's boyhood days on the family farm in Miller County, his farming ventures in northern Boone County, and his lifelong love affair with Delilah Bugbee.
Join us for a conversation with Ray Beck and Jodie Jackson as they reflect on Beck's life at age 93, as well as how Columbia evolved from the second half of the 20th century to the early 21st century.
This season of History on Elm is generously sponsored by Central Bank and Central Trust, Shortwave Coffee, and the State Historical Society of Missouri.