Bill Hankins, a photojournalism teacher and Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame member, was a photographer at the Missouri Photo Workshop in 1989, the last time it was in Maryville.

“It was 36 years ago, it was much smaller,” Hankins said of Maryville. “This part of town here was probably just corn fields,” he said in reference to the headquarters location. 

Hankins grew up in Kansas City, where he and his wife, Marcia, taught high school. Bill got his masters in English and minored in Journalism at Southwest Missouri State, what is now Missouri State University. 

“I thought I wanted to be a college English teacher, but once I started teaching high school journalism and photography, helping students express themselves photographically, I fell in love with that,” Bill said. 

Around 1987, he and his wife started a workshop for high school students called Heartland Photojournalism Project. Each year, around 70 to 90 students would photograph small towns in Iowa, Kansas Missouri and Nebraska and exhibit their work to the town at the end of the week. It was composed of both his and Marcia’s students. “It was good,” he said. “But we were kind of new at it and feeling our way along.”

Two years later, Bill and Marcia both decided to participate in MPW, where they documented Maryville as photographers. 

“I knew enough about cameras and the dark room stuff to teach, but you want to get better and teach the kids more,” he said. “I learned so much that it changed my teaching. I learned the language of storytelling so much better.”

Before the workshop, Bill had never taken a photo class. He taught himself photography through Cliff Edom’s book, among other resources. Coincidentally, the workshop in ‘89 was one of Edom’s last appearances at MPW before he died in 1991. 

“I got to meet him, I got a photograph on my wall of Edom from that workshop,” Bill said. 

Bill was hesitant to share his story he did at the workshop, a story about the manager of a farmer’s co-op in town, since he felt it was not good. However, he fondly remembered the workshop as a big learning opportunity. His faculty members were Fr. Don Doll, a Jesuit priest and professor from Creighton University whose work is internationally acclaimed and featured on National Geographic and Kent Kobersteen, an editor for National Geographic at the time. 

“The stuff that they taught gets so ingrained in you,” Bill said. “When you’re in the workshop you’re trying to think all that stuff as you shoot. Eventually, you carry that with you that it becomes who you are as a photographer. That stayed with me for my teaching and became second nature.”

Bill remembers his time at MPW as not only transcendental, but also feels grateful for his experience. 

“I met some people who were really just life changing,” he said. "I hope the same for these people, that they get that kind of experience and take it with them when they go.”