Over the years, many former elected officials in Washington have given their papers and other documents to the State Archives for safekeeping and making them available for public viewing.

The latest former official to turn over papers to Archives is one of my predecessors, Bruce Chapman, who served as Secretary of State from 1975 to 1980. Bruce’s papers cover his years on the Seattle City Council, as Secretary of State, and when he was U.S. Census Bureau Director and Deputy Assistant to President Reagan in the 1980s, as well as personal papers.

You can see the inventory of his papers here. Bruce, shown here with his wife and State Archivist Steve Excell (right), currently is president of the Discovery Institute in Seattle.