The Frederick C. Luebke Award is given to the best article published in the Quarterly each year. A $250 prize is also awarded to the winner. This recognition is named after Frederick C. Luebke who was the first editor of the Quarterly, the third director of the Center, and is Professor emeritus of History at UNL.

In 2022, The Center for Great Plains Studies instituted the Charles A. Braithwaite Award for Student Publication in conjunction with Charles and Dawn Braithwaite. This award distinguishes the best article published by a student in Great Plains Quarterly during a volume year. This student award will be offered annually beginning with submissions included in Volume 43 of the journal; all articles submitted to Great Plains Quarterly while the author was a student are eligible for this award. Judges are drawn from the Publication Committee of the Board of Governors for the Center for Great Plains Studies. The award will be presented at the Center for Great Plains Studies’ annual meeting of Fellows and includes a cash stipend of $300. Charles A. Braithwaite was the longest-serving editor for GPQ; he served at this position for 20 years, retiring in 2021. A Senior Lecturer at UNL’s Department of Communication Studies for 21 years, he was a Fellow and active scholar of the Center for Great Plains Studies doing work in the areas relevant to the center, including the award-winning book, African Americans on the Great Plains: An Anthology (Univ. of Nebraska Press: 2009).

Past Award Winners


FREDERICK C. LUEBKE AWARD

YearName
2020 Paul McKenzie-Jones
Sending a Sailor to War: The Ponca Singers, California Hobbyists, Vietnam, and the Rejection of the Counterculture Myth of the New Age Indian, Volume 40, Number 2, Spring 2020
2019 Elaine Marie Nelson
Draft by Draft: The Battle of Sandoz and Her Bighorn Manuscript, Volume 39, Number 2, Spring 2019
2018 Joel Zapata
Taking Chicana/o Activist History to the Public: Chicana/o Activism in the Southern Plains through Time and Space, Volume 38, Number 4, Fall 2018
2017 Kiara M. Vigil
Who Was Henry Standing Bear?: Remembering Lakota Activism from the Early Twentieth Century,Volume 37, Number 3, Summer 2017
2016 Mark A. Griep, Beverly R. Devore-Wedding, Janyce Woodard, and Hank Miller
The Sharing Cycle of Science Learning: Connecting Community Topics to Tribal College Science Lab Courses, Volume 36, Number 2, Spring 2016, pp. 131-146
2015 Rachel Wolters
As Migrants and as Immigrants: African Americans Search for Land and Liberty in the Great Plains, 1890–1912, (Fall 2015, Vol. 35/No. 4).
2014 Linda English
Southern Reflections: Evolving Attitudes on Race and Region in Indian Territory, (Fall 2014, Vol. 34/No. 4).
2013 Jay M. Price and Sue Abdinnour
Family, Ethnic Entrepreneurship, and the Lebanese of Kansas, (Summer 2013), Vol. 33/No. 3; 161-188.
2012 Harvey Markowitz
Converting the Rosebud: Sicangu Lakota Catholicism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, (Winter 2012), Vol. 32/No. 1; 3-23.
2011 Kathy Bahr
From 'No Place' to Home: The Quest for a Western Home in Brewster Higley's 'Home on the Range
Fall 2011, Vol. 31/No. 4
2010 Kathy Bahr
Collateral Damage: Veterans and Domestic Violence in Mari Sandoz’s The Tom-Walker
Spring 2010, Vol. 30/No. 2
2009 George Colpitts
The Methodists' Great 1869 Camp Meeting and Aboriginal Conservation Strategies in the North Saskatchewan River Valley
Winter 2009, Vol. 29/No. 1
2008 Linea Sundstrom
'The Pageant of Paha Sapa: An Origin Myth of White Settlement in the American West'
Winter 2008, Vol. 28/No. 1
2007 Shawn Lee Alexander
Vengeance Without Justice, Injustice Without Retribution. The Afro-American Council's Struggle Against Racial Violence
Spring 2007, Vol. 27/No. 2
2006 Peter Feron
Relief for Wanderers: The Transient Service in Kansas, 1933-35
Fall 2006, Vol. 26/No. 4
2005 Linda Clemmons
We Will Talk of Nothing Else': Dakota Interpretations of the Treaty of 1837
Summer 2005, Vol. 25/No. 3
YearName
2004 Andrea G. Radke
Refining Rural Space: Women and Vernacular Gentility in the Great Plains, 1880-1920
Fall 2004, Vol. 24/No. 4
2003 Jill E. Martin
'The Greatest Evil': Interpretations of Indian Prohibition Laws, 1832-1953
Winter 2003, Vol. 23/No. 1
2002 Bernard Lemelin
Congressman Usher Burdick of North Dakota and the 'Ungodly Menace': Anti-United Nations Rhetoric, 1950-1958
Summer 2002, Vol. 22/No. 3
2001 Jeffrey Ostler
The Last Buffalo Hunt' and Beyond: Plains Sioux Economic Strategies in the Early Reservation Period
Spring 2001, Vol. 21/No. 2
2000 Barbara Risch
The Picture Changes: Stylistic Variation in Sitting Bull's Biographies
Fall 2000, Vol. 20/No. 4
1999 Kari Forbes-Boyte
Litigation, Mitigation, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act: The Bear Butte Example
Winter 1999, Vol. 19/No. 1
1998 Blake Gumprecht
Giants on the Plains: Grain Elevators and the Making of Enid, Oklahoma
Fall 1998, Vol. 18/No. 4
1997 Linea Sundstrom
The Sacred Black Hills: An Ethnohistorical Review 1997
Vol. 17/No. 3/4
1996 Gerald Zahavi
Who's Going to Dance with Somebody Who Calls You a Mainstreeter': Communism, Culture, and Community in Sheridan County, Montana, 1918-1934
Fall 1996, Vol. 16/No. 4
1995 Frederick C. Luebke
The Progressive Context of the Nebraska Capitol: The Collaboration of Goodhue and Tack
Fall 1995, Vol. 15/No. 4
1994 David Murphy
Jeijich Antonie: Czechs, The Land, Cather and the Pavelka Farmstead
Spring 1994, Vol. 12/No. 2
1993 Russel L. Barsh
An American Heart of Darkness: The 1913 Expedition for American Indian Citizenship
Spring 1993, Vol. 13/No. 2
1992 Betsy Downey
Battered Pioneers: Jules Sandoz and the Physical Abuse of Wives on the American Frontier
Winter 1992, Vol. 12/No. 1
1991 Joseph V. Hickey
'Pap' Singleton's Dunlap Colony: Relief Agencies and the Failure of a Black Settlement in Eastern Kansas
Winter 1991, Vol. 11/No. 1
1990 Janet E. Schulte
'Proving Up and Moving Up': Jewish Homesteading Activity in North Dakota, 1900-1920
Fall 1990, Vol. 10/No. 1
1989 Nancy Tystad Koupal
The Wonderful Wizard of the West: L. Frank Baum in South Dakota
Fall 1989, Vol. 9/No. 4
1988 Carolyn Garrett Pool
Reservation Policy and the Economic Position of Wichita Women
Summer 1988, Vol. 8/No. 3