William D. Chapman Collection

William Chapman was born in 1927 and grew up in Meridian, Mississippi. He was drafted in the middle of World War II and stationed twice, first as a Staff Sergeant and later on served as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was injured during the Korean conflict and was retired when he was twenty-four years old. After service, he came back to United States and took advantage of the G. I. Bill and went to college. He graduated with a degree in Business Administration on December 2, 1950, at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, he served for the Mississippi National Guard to earn money. Later on William decided to attend Louisiana State University due to the fact that Dr. T. Harry Williams, Boyd Professor of History, was teaching at the institution. After graduating from LSU, he went back and joined the East Central Junior College in Decatur, Mississippi, and thought there three years. Then he moved to Florida and taught Civil War and reconstruction history at Manatee Junior College at Bradenton, Sarasota for ten years.

On December 1966, the President of the Florida Technological University, Dr. Charles N. Millican, visited Dan Chapman in Manatee to see his operation and was pleased with what he saw. Soon Millican offered the registrar position with the Board having to approve it later. After accepting the job, Dan started working at the Florida Technological University as a registrar on March 1, 1967. He started off reporting directly to the President; then the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. C. B. Gambrell. He successfully occupied as a registrar close to twenty-three years. Due to health conditions and a motorcycle accident, William retired at the age of 62. After William retired from University of Central Florida, donated his personal Civil War objects he recovered in Citronelle, Alabama to UCF Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives on February 2, 2005.