Laurie Russell, seen here as a young man, used this camera (he doesn't remember the model) to photograph a partial eclipse in Lawrence back on April 19, 1939. Russell, now 96 and living in Prairie Village, still has old copies of the 1939 newspaper, though he doesn't remember how his photographs, taken from the roof of the old Lawrence High School, ended up in the Journal-World. Russell was a senior at LHS at the time.

You’ll have to forgive Laurie Russell for not remembering exactly how his first — and, to date, only — foray into eclipse photography ended up in the newspaper.

It was called the Lawrence Daily Journal-World back in spring 1939, when Russell, a senior at Lawrence High School at the time, had an image of the April 19 solar eclipse published in that day’s evening edition.

Russell, now 96 and living in Prairie Village, does remember quite vividly parking himself on the roof of the old high school that morning and snapping pictures just about every five minutes as the moon drifted in front of the sun, creating a partial eclipse.

96-year-old Laurie Russell, seen here in a recent photo, still has copies of the April 19, 1939 issue of the Lawrence Journal-World in which his pictures of a partial eclipse seen in Lawrence were published.

“I was just taking them for general interest,” Russell, who at the time was the editor of his school yearbook, recalls of the photos. “I was interested in it, and other people were, too.”

Including the Journal-World’s editors, who ran Russell’s photo series on that day’s front page along with the newspaper’s own coverage of the eclipse. The image that appeared in the paper is actually composed of several shots, each taken minutes apart, showing the moon gradually passing in front of the sun.

Russell, using the high school’s camera, took the photos with a density filter of 100 to 1, according to the Journal-World’s 1939 caption.

It would be his first and only stab at eclipse photography. After graduating from Lawrence High that year, Russell went on to attend the University of Kansas, graduating in 1943 with a degree in mechanical engineering. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he returned to his native Kansas, got married and settled in Prairie Village.

He’s still there now, having moved in recent years to a retirement home. But Russell, who worked as an engineer building power plants for most of his career, says he ultimately became too busy to keep up with his photography hobby.

More than seven decades later, Russell likes to keep old copies of the newspaper. His neighbors, he says, seem intrigued by his brief stint as a photojournalist.

“I was proud. It was good publicity for me,” Russell says of the experience. “It was an unusual event, and I was proud to be a part of it.”

Russell says he plans to view Monday’s big eclipse during a small party at the retirement home. He and his fellow residents will have a luncheon, he says, and then they’ll head outside for the big event.

This time, he says, there won’t be any cameras. Russell — who already has his special eclipse glasses ready to go — says he’ll simply sit back, watch and enjoy.