Rik Andersen, a retired award-winning photographer, started working for West Texas A&M University in 1992. He earned his associate degree in photography from Amarillo College, a bachelor’s degree in applied arts and science as well as a master’s degree in communication from WT. In his time at WT, Andersen has won numerous awards, including the University’s highest staff award, Addy and UPPA awards and the Best in the Nation awards from both Admissions Marketing Report and College Sports Information of Directors.
Andersen’s interest in photography originated in high school when his father built a dark room for photography.
“The first time I saw that, I had to learn how to do that,” Andersen said. “My father taught me the basics of it. I started working on the high school newspaper and yearbook
and after a while, I thought I really liked doing this, and this is what I wanted to do for a living.”
Beyond Andersen’s university photography duties, he also taught photography classes.
“There were days when I would go to work in the morning and feel awful,” Andersen said. “My class would start an hour after working my regular job, and I would go to class and with students and seriously get energized at the end of class. I felt great, and I would go ahead and work through the day.”
Outside of photography, Andersen’s hobbies involve race cars, specifically building and racing.
“When I was younger, my older brother raced cars, and eventually, he started taking me out to the races,” Andersen said. “I started going to the races with him, so my idea was to build a race car of my own. My first car was a 1968 Camaro, and then I turned it into a drag race car.”
Andersen’s other hobbies involve rock bands and music. On the side, he would go do photography for different bands; in doing so, he learned how to tune guitars, work sound systems and set up lights.
“I started doing different things for them,” Andersen said. “Before I knew it, I had learned how to tune guitars. I started putting their sound system together. I started setting up their lights, so I ended up being their stage manager for quite a while.”
