Rita Impey-Imes, former Curator of the KSU Bently Rare Books Gallery, died Thursday Feb 14.

Impey-Imes was born in 1954, in Houston, Mo. and graduated from Houston High School in 1972.

In 1977 she graduated from the University of Missouri with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History. Impey-Imes married Thomas Imes, in Boulder, Col. in 1980, and worked for the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper from 1980-1987.

In 1996 she began working for KSU’s Sturgis Library in the inter-library loan unit, providing bibliographic reference and working as a reference librarian. During this time Impey-Imes also worked with the Sturgis Library staff to coordinated disaster planning and recovery, training, outreach, book repair and cataloging.

She began working with the Bentley Rare Book Gallery in 2005. The gallery is a collection of rare documents, manuscripts and books illustrating the history of the book, specifically in the English Speaking world. She worked under the former director of the Sturgis Library, Mr. Robert Williams, as the assistant curator. Impey-Imes moved to the Department of Archives and Records management in 2009 following the move of the gallery. Here she continued her work doing outreach for the gallery and curatorial work with the collection.

In October of last year, KSU Archives honored her with the creation of the Rita Impey- Imes Rare Book Conservation Fund. This fund is dedicated to conserving books, manuscripts, documents, prints and leaves in the Bentley Rare Book Gallery.

Her son Alex, and her Husband Thomas of Kennesaw; her parents, Rose and David Impey, and brothers, Mike, John and Joe of Houston Mo, sister, Julia Aubrey of Oxford Miss, and brothers Jim and Robert of Columbia Mo survive her. Her brother Dr. William Impey, an associate professor at KSU, preceded her in death.

A memorial service was held February 23 at the Winkenhofer Funeral Home in Kennesaw.