Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

The Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize was created to emphasize the interdisciplinary importance of the Great Plains in today’s publishing and educational market. Only first edition, full-length, nonfiction books are evaluated for the award. The author of the winning title will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a medallion.

The Center for Great Plains Studies is pleased to announce a lecture by the Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize winners.

The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory The story of the Northern Cheyennes' flight from Indian Territory toward their Montana homeland in 1878-79 has been told, retold, and relived by generations of historians, reformers, reenactors, literary figures like Mari Sandoz, filmmakers like John Ford, not to mention white homesteaders and Northern Cheyennes themselves.  In assessing these retellings, two authors explore the relationship of history--an empirical science that attempts an objective understanding of the past--with memory, the stories that people of the Great Plains have used for cultural self-definition, and through them, their connection to a mythic western past. James N. Leiker, Associate Professor of History, Johnson  County Community College Ramon Powers, former Executive Director of the Kansas State Historical Society