News: Southwestern Writers Collection Acquires King of the Hill Papers

Hank, Peggy, and Bobby Hill, along with all of their Arlen, Texas, friends and neighbors have found a permanent home in Alkek Library’s Southwestern Writers Collection (SWWC). In 1999, Jim Dauterive, a Dallas native and staff writer for the Mike Judge & Greg Daniels King of the Hill television series, began donating his personal papers to the collection, the bulk of which consisted of scripts, research materials, memos, promotional items, and other production records documenting the popular animated series. In 2005, as the show prepared to wrap up its final seasons, Mr. Dauterive contacted SWWC Curator Connie Todd to inquire whether the SWWC would be interested in the comprehensive archives of the series. Since one of the driving missions of the Southwestern Writers Collection is to collect and preserve papers and manuscripts documenting southwestern culture and literature, Ms. Todd was quick to accept, and over 75 boxes of scripts, artifacts, and production records arrived on campus during the spring of 2006.

Along with all of the scripts and production records documenting the show, there were a few other items Jim Dauterive thought we’d be interested in: a number of four-foot by six-foot whiteboards that had hung in the writer’s room of the suite and contained text and sketches documenting the show’s production history. The way that the writers of King of the Hill used these boards was unique, and the text and images on the boards tell as much about their creative process as they do the production of the show. We immediately agreed with Jim that they were worth holding on to. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get them from Los Angeles to San Marcos without erasing them!

Queries to other archives professionals, discussions with conservators, and even a phone call to a company that makes whiteboards, yielded little advice about how to preserve the boards. "You want to keep the ink on the board permanently?" the whiteboard company rep asked incredulously, clearly at a loss.

Finally, a conservator we’d been referred to suggested using a fine-art shipper to build crates for the boards and pack them in the same way one might a fragile charcoal drawing. We settled on that approach, deciding we could use the crates for the whiteboards’ permanent storage. So, within weeks, the whiteboards arrived via eighteen-wheeler at the loading dock of our archives—safe and sound. As an added preservation caution, we immediately photographed the boards to record their informational content.

The King of the Hill papers are currently being processed and will be available for research in fall 2006. For access, please contact archivist Katie Salzmann ks31@txstate.edu or 512-245-3861.