Winners of Great Plains Studies Awards Announced

The Center for Great Plains Studies, an interdisciplinary study center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, announced the winners of its annual literary, science and history awards.

Included were the Charles E. Bessey and Leslie Hewes Awards for the best articles published in 2004 in Great Plains Research, and the Frederick C. Luebke Award for the best article published in Great Plains Quarterly. The center also presented its Great Plains Research Science awards at the 2004 Nebraska Junior Academy of Sciences annual meeting in April, and its Great Plains History awards at the Nebraska History Days at Nebraska Wesleyan University, also in April.

Mark P. Vrtiska and Nick Lyman, both of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, received the Bessey natural science award for their article on wintering Canada geese along the Platte River from 1960-2000.

The Hewes social science award went to co-authors Mary S. Willis and Constance J. Fernald for their article on Sudanese refugee resettlement as viewed through Nebraska's print media. Willis is assistant professor of anthropology and geography at UNL. Fernald, an undergraduate student majoring in anthropology at UNL, worked with Willis through the university's UCARE undergraduate research program in 2003-04.

Andrea G. Radke's article on women and vernacular gentility in the Great Plains received the Luebke award. Radke is assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University-Idaho and earned her Ph.D. in history at UNL.

Tim Soenksen from Lincoln Lutheran High School won the first place Great Plains Research Science award for his paper, "Organic Matter -- Does It Matter?," and Elizabeth S. Curry's paper, "A Two-Year Study of Toxic Effects of Tobacco on Daphnia magna" received honorable mention. Curry is from Laurel-Concord High School.

Tamar Harrington, Lincoln Public Schools Science Focus program, won first place in the Great Plains History awards with her paper, "'Forward, Fearless, and Fair': The Nebraska Woman Suffrage Movement and the Printed Word." Second place went to Jacob Behrends, Johnson-Brock High School, for his paper, "Buffalo Bill: Communicating the 'Wild West' to the World."

The judges for the Bessey and Hewes awards were University of Nebraska at Omaha faculty Sharon Wood and UNL faculty Rochelle Dalla, Clint Rowe, Larkin Powell, all of whom serve on the center's publication committee. Judges for the Luebke award were last year's Luebke winner, Jill E. Martin of Quinnipiac University, and advisory editor Timothy J. Kloberdanz of North Dakota State University.

Susan Tunnell, a post-doctoral research associate in the UNL Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, judged the Great Plains Research Science awards, and historian Charles Vollan served as judge for the Great Plains History awards.

Great Plains Research and Great Plains Quarterly are published with the support of the Center for Great Plains Studies and the UNL College of Arts and Sciences. Robert F. Diffendal Jr. serves as editor of Great Plains Research, and Charles A. Braithwaite is editor of Great Plains Quarterly. For more information, contact the Center for Great Plains Studies at (402) 472-3082.

CONTACT: Linda Ratcliffe, Center for Great Plains Studies, (402) 472-3965