Sower Award Archives
2011 Sower Award Winner
Former
publisher John Gottschalk wins Sower
LINCOLN—Community leader and former Omaha World-Herald publisher
John Gottschalk received the 2011 Sower Award in the Humanities.
 Gottschalk was honored Oct. 5 at Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum in conjunction with the 16th Annual Governor’s
Lecture in the Humanities. American historian Eric Foner
delivered the free public lecture on the topic of his new Pulitzer
Prize-winning book, “The
Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.”
Foner also is the author of “Free Soil, Free
Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the
Civil War,” widely considered a classic for its contribution to our
understanding of the causes of the Civil War and the early ideology
of the Republican Party, and “Reconstruction: America's Unfinished
Revolution, 1863-1877,” which helped redefine how we view the
successes and failures of the Reconstruction period following the
Civil War.
In her nomination of Gottschalk, Natalie Olson of
Lincoln said that “John’s passion for the state of Nebraska and its
cultural endeavors is evident from the long list of organizations
and projects he has volunteered for and generously supported over
the years. I can think of no other person more deserving of the
Sower Award.”
Gottschalk’s current volunteer board service
includes the Joslyn Art Museum Foundation, chair of Omaha Performing
Arts, the National Executive Board (and former president) of the Boy
Scouts of America, chair of the USO Foundation, and chair of the UNL
portion of the University of Nebraska’s $1.2 billion capital
campaign, chair of Omaha Performing
Arts Foundation, vice chair of Heritage Services, the Henry Doorly
Zoo Foundation, and the Nebraska Game and Parks Foundation.
Gottschalk’s efforts to help the NHC promote
Omaha’s cultural treasures to a national audience of humanities
leaders in 2009 resulted in a Friend of Tourism Award to the NHC
from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. Before that he
worked with the NHC to create a collection of “Notable Nebraskan”
programs in its Speakers Bureau, a statewide project that received
critical early funding from the Omaha World-Herald Foundation.
In learning of Gottschalk’s selection for the
Sower Award, Omaha World-Herald editorial page editor Geitner
Simmons said, “John, an Omahan with Panhandle roots, has long
demonstrated a remarkable understanding of the breadth of Nebraska
and the need for us to appreciate its variety and fullness. John’s
generous and wide-ranging support of the humanities has promoted
that all-important understanding of our traditions and our
connections. And in so doing, he has made a lasting contribution to
the life of the state in ways that will enrich Nebraskans for years
to come.”
The Nebraska Humanities Council annually honors
individuals, institutions, businesses and communities with its Sower
Award for contributions to public understanding of the humanities in
Nebraska, based on nominations and letters of support from the
citizens of Nebraska. The Sower Award is an original bronze
sculpture by Nebraska-born artist Sandra Dunn Mahoney.
Presented by the Nebraska Humanities Council and
Foundation with co-sponsors the University of Nebraska, Carol
Gendler and Valmont Industries, the Oct. 5 evening lecture was free
and open to the public.
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2010 Sower Award Winner
Former Sen.
Don Pederson wins Sower Award
Former state Sen. Don Pederson received the 2010 Sower Award in
the Humanities. The bronze sculpture was awarded to Pederson
Oct. 14 as part of the 2010 Governor’s Humanities Lecture in the
Humanities at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, where Christine
Todd Whitman spoke on “Staying Ahead While Going Green.”
“Few public servants have done as much for the
humanities in Nebraska as Don Pederson,” said Rhonda Seacrest, chair
of the Sower Award Committee.
 Pederson
joined the Nebraska Humanities Council (NHC) board of directors in
2002, following his wife Virginia
Pederson, who had served on the board since 1998
and passed away after a long battle with cancer. But his
involvement with the council’s work began long before that. He
recalled a fateful lunch in 1992 with Keith Blackledge, editor of
the North Platte Telegraph, and Jane Hood, executive director of the
council. “I was sold on the idea of the North Platte Rotary applying
to bring the Great Plains Chautauqua to North Platte during the
summer of 1993,” he said. “I was president of Rotary, and once we
learned that North Platte would be one of the two Chautauqua sites
in Nebraska that next summer, it was Chautauqua 24-7!”
As a member of the Nebraska Legislature, he
worked with state Sen. LaVon Crosby to craft the 1998 legislation
establishing the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. The first state
endowment in the nation for both the humanities and the arts, it was
appropriated $5 million that year. After Pederson was term-limited
out of the Legislature, he worked with the endowment to respond
successfully to a challenge by Omahan Dick Holland in 2007 to double
the endowment’s fund to $10 million if it were matched
dollar-for-dollar by private funds.
Pederson was chair of the NHC board from 2006 to
2008. “We have never had a board member who worked harder to
preserve federal and state support for the humanities than Don,”
Hood said. “He is respected by the Legislature and our Congressional
delegation, and it makes it so much easier to demonstrate the
necessity of public support for our statewide work if Don is telling
his former colleagues that the humanities are important to
Nebraskans. He makes that argument in terms that they appreciate:
the impact of the humanities on their constituents’ lives and the
frugality with which we use tax-payers’ dollars to implement our
mission.”
Born in Hastings, Pederson graduated from Benson
High School (where he was named to the Benson High Hall of Fame this
past year), attended the University of Omaha, Grinnell College, and
the University of Nebraska Law College, where he graduated in 1954.
He served in the county attorney’s office in Scottsbluff before
moving to North Platte to practice law in 1957. Gov. Ben Nelson
appointed Pederson to the Legislature in 1996, and he was elected to
the office later that year. He served on the appropriations
committee, chairing the committee from 2004 to 2006.
He is married to June Remington
Pederson, and they live in Lincoln. Pederson retired from the
council board at the end of 2009 but continues to serve the NHC’s
interests as a member of the Nebraska Cultural Endowment’s board of
directors and as chair of the council’s search committee to select a
new executive director after Hood retires at the end of the year.
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2009 Sower Award Winner
Philanthropist
Holland wins 2009 Sower Award
The Nebraska Humanities Council
announced today that Omaha philanthropist Richard Holland will
receive its 2009 Sower Award in the Humanities.
 Holland
will be honored Nov. 4 at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, in
conjunction with the 14th Annual Governor’s Lecture in the
Humanities. Matt Miller, author of “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas:
Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity,”
published earlier this year, will deliver the lecture. The National
Chamber of Commerce named the book a “must-read” book for 2009.
Miller also wrote the best-selling “The 2% Solution: Fixing
America’s Problems in Ways that Liberals and Conservatives Can
Love.”
In nominating Holland, Carol
Gendler of Omaha said, “Everyone knows of Dick Holland’s generosity
to a broad range of organizations that offer the best in the arts
and the humanities. But Dick should also be honored for his
commitment to sharing his intellectual curiosity with his fellow
Nebraskans through the Holland Lecture series, which brings some of
the most stimulating and provocative thinkers to Omaha for everyone
to enjoy at no charge.”
Holland’s generous philanthropy,
with that of his deceased wife, Mary, is recognized publicly in
Omaha’s Holland Center for the Performing Arts, a state-of-the art
facility that features performers ranging from Garrison Keillor to
Yo-Yo Ma and the home of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra.
Holland’s advocacy for the
nation’s first public-private endowment fund to benefit both the
humanities council and arts council, has resulted in an additional
$1.5 million appropriation to the state fund and $1.5 million
contributed to the private side of the Nebraska Cultural Endowment
during the past two years, increasing the original $5 million state
endowment created by the Legislature in 1998 to $6.5 million in
support of the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Humanities
Council.
The Nebraska Humanities Council
annually honors individuals, institutions, businesses and
communities with its Sower Award for contributions to public
understanding of the humanities in Nebraska, based on nominations
and letters of support from the citizens of Nebraska. The Sower
Award is an original bronze sculpture by Nebraska-born artist Sandra
Dunn Mahoney.
Presented by the Nebraska
Humanities Council and Foundation, the University of Nebraska and
Valmont Industries, the Nov. 4 evening lecture is free and open to
the public.
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2008 Sower Award Winner
NET Radio and
TV wins 2008 Sower Award
The Nebraska Humanities Council (NHC) announced
today that Nebraska Educational Telecommunications (NET) will
receive its 2008 Sower Award in the Humanities.
 NET will be honored Sept. 18 at the Lied Center
for Performing Arts in Lincoln, in conjunction with the 13th Annual
Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities. David Gergen, editor-at-large
at U.S. News & World Report, a popular political commentator,
professor of public service at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy
School of Government and director of its Center for Public
Leadership, will deliver the lecture, entitled “Eyewitness to Power:
The Essence of Leadership.”
“NET has been a strong friend of the Nebraska
Humanities Council and of humanities education in general,” Keith
Blackledge wrote in nominating the statewide public radio and TV
network. “It is committed to cultivating an understanding of our
history and culture by reaching into people’s homes and cars,
kitchens and barns with stories that help listeners and viewers
consider what it means to be a Nebraskan and to connect them with
our national cultural heritage.”
NET Radio maintains a “Humanities Desk,” which
regularly produces humanities features that air throughout the week.
Previously, NET produced an hour-long humanities series called
“Connections,” which brought NHC programs to a statewide listening
audience. NET also maintains an online archive of humanities
programs.
The popular weekly series, “Friday Live” often
includes humanities content from broadcast sites as diverse as the
Neihardt Center in Bancroft, the Stuhr Museum in Grand Island, the
Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, a Chautauqua tent in Alliance and the
program’s original headquarters in a coffee shop in Lincoln’s
Haymarket District.
“From its earliest days, NET Television
(previously Nebraska ETV) has made significant contributions to the
humanities both in Nebraska and nationally,” Blackledge wrote.
Recent programs that received NHC support include “Afghan Journey,”
“Hard Times Swing,” and nationally aired programs such as “Willa
Cather: The Road is All,” which received major support from the
National Endowment for the Humanities.
In earlier decades NET produced hundreds of hours
of educational programming for students of all ages. Now, NET’s
interactive Nebraska Studies website attracts several hundred
thousand users a year and is a unique resource that allows users to
view authentic images and videos that bring Nebraska’s history to
life.
The Nebraska Humanities Council annually honors
individuals, institutions, businesses and communities with Sower
Awards for contributions to public understanding of the humanities
in Nebraska, based on nominations and letters of support from the
citizens of Nebraska. The Sower Award is an original bronze
sculpture by Nebraska-born artist Sandra Dunn Mahoney.
Presented by the Nebraska Humanities Council, the
E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues and the University of Nebraska,
the Sept. 18 evening lecture is free and open to the public.
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August
2007
Native
leader Trimble wins 2007 Sower Award
 The
Nebraska Humanities Council announced today that Charles E. “Chuck”
Trimble of Omaha will receive its 2007 Sower Award in the
Humanities.
Trimble will
be honored Oct. 2 at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, in conjunction
with the 12th Annual Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities. Michael
Beschloss, author of the current best-seller “Presidential Courage:
Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989,” will deliver
the lecture, entitled “Great Presidents Past and Present.”
A respected
and honored member of the Oglala Sioux Nation who has been active on
both the national and state level on behalf of Native Americans,
Trimble is the founder of two companies focused on economic
development for Native American reservations, as well as the Red
Willow Institute, which provides technical and management assistance
to Native American nonprofit organizations. He was executive
director of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington,
D.C., representing the vast majority of tribes in the U.S. He
founded the American
Indian Press
Association, now the Native American Journalists Association.
Trimble is
past president of the board of directors of the John G. Neihardt
Foundation and the Nebraska State Historical Society. He also has
served on the board of directors of the Nebraska Commission on
Indian Affairs, the Nebraska Humanities Council, and the board of
trustees of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C. He has spent a lifetime promoting the common
history of the Great Plains to create bridges between Native and
non-Native peoples. His understanding contributed to the American
Folklife Center’s
work in
preserving, maintaining, and returning cultural documents to
American Indian communities. At the Neihardt Center, Trimble has
encouraged young Native writers to develop their skills and publish
their work. He has worked with the Nebraska State Historical Society
to equip Nebraska teachers to better teach about the Indian
experience in American history.
Most
recently, Trimble collaborated with Opera Omaha to create “Wakonda’s
Dream,” inspired by the trial of Standing Bear. Working with the
composer, librettist, and stage director for nearly four years,
Trimble drew upon his deeply personal experiences growing up as a
Lakota Sioux, attending Indian school, and living with and observing
the realities of contemporary Native American life to create a
profoundly moving work of art about assimilation that successfully
bridged Native and non-Native experience.
The Nebraska
Humanities Council annually honors individuals, institutions,
businesses and communities with Sower Awards for contributions to
public understanding of the humanities in Nebraska, based on
nominations and letters of support from the citizens of Nebraska.
The Sower Award is an original bronze sculpture by Nebraska-born
artist Sandra Dunn Mahoney.
Presented by
the Nebraska Humanities Council (NHC), Creighton University and the University of Nebraska,
the Oct. 2 evening lecture will be free and open to the public.
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October 2007
Trimble accepts 2007 Sower Award
Charles "Chuck"
Trimble, winner of the 2007 Sower Award, made the following comments
on accepting the award Oct. 2 at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.
By Charles “Chuck” Trimble
"Trust is honor…
To be entrusted with the protection
of the rights of our tribes in their sovereignty and their
self-determination is a tremendous honor.
To be entrusted with the protection
and preservation of the history and heritage of the people of my
adoptive homeland, Nebraska, is a great honor.
To be asked to work in providing for
and promoting the arts and humanities is both a pleasure and a great
honor.
To be given the chance to serve the
needs of the poor and the homeless is truly an honor.
So, Nebraska Commission on Indian
Affairs, the Nebraska State Historical Society, the Nebraska
Humanities Council, the Nebraska Arts Council and Opera Omaha, and
the civic and charitable organizations on which I was asked to
serve, thank you for the honor of your trust.
To be recognized with this coveted
award—the Sower Award—is an honor most overwhelming to me. Thank
you, Humanities Council, and thank you Nebraska for giving me a
chance to serve."
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August 2006
U.S. Poet
Laureate Kooser wins 2006 Sower Award
 Ted
Kooser, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner who has served two years as
U.S. Poet Laureate, is the winner of this year’s Sower Award in the
Humanities.
The
Nebraska Humanities Council honors Kooser Sept. 20 during a 7:30
p.m. ceremony at the Lied Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln, in
conjunction with the 11th annual Governor’s Lecture in the
Humanities. Best-selling author Azar Nafisi will deliver the
lecture, entitled “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.”
Kooser
assumed his duties as 12th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the
Library of Congress in October 2004, the first poet from the Great
Plains to be chosen. The following year he won the Pulitzer Prize
for his collection of poems entitled “Delights and Shadows.”
A
professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he is
the author of 13 full-length collections of poetry and prose. Over
the years his works have appeared in many periodicals including The
Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Hudson Review, The
Nation, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie
Schooner and Antioch Review.
 Kooser’s
poems are included in textbooks and anthologies used in both
secondary schools and college classrooms across the country. He has
received two NEA fellowships in poetry, the Pushcart Prize, the
Stanley Kunitz Prize, The James Boatwright Prize, and a Merit Award
from the Nebraska Arts Council.
Kooser
has read his poetry for The Academy of American Poets in New York
City as well as for many university audiences, including those of
the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell at Ithaca, Case
Western Reserve at Cleveland, The School of the Art Institute in
Chicago, and Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He has conducted
writing workshops in connection with many of these readings.
Born in
Ames, Iowa, in 1939, Kooser earned a B.S. at Iowa State University
in 1962 and an M.A. at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1968.
He is a former vice-president of Lincoln Benefit Life, where he
worked as an insurance representative for many years. He lives on an
acreage near Garland with his wife, Kathleen Rutledge.
The
Nebraska Humanities Council annually honors individuals,
institutions, businesses and communities with Sower Awards for
contributions to public understanding of the humanities in Nebraska,
based on nominations and letters of support from the citizens of
Nebraska. The Sower Award is an original bronze sculpture by
Nebraska-born artist Sandra Dunn Mahoney.
The Sept.
20 evening lecture is free and open to the public. It is presented
in collaboration by the Nebraska Humanities Council, the E.N.
Thompson Forum on World Issues and the University of Nebraska.
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October 2005
Lewis & Clark scholar wins
Sower Award
 Gary
E. Moulton, Thomas C. Sorenson professor emeritus of American history at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln and leading Lewis and Clark scholar, is the
winner of the 2005 Sower Award in the Humanities.
The Nebraska Humanities Council honored Moulton Nov. 9 during a 7:30 p.m.
ceremony at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, in conjunction with the 10th annual
Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities.
Moulton received the J. Franklin Jameson Award of the American Historical
Association for his editing of the Lewis and Clark journals, a project of 20
years work. The journals were kept by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and four
enlisted men of the expedition as they crossed the continent from 1804 to 1806.
As a result of his work, Moulton understands how the Corps of Discovery set the
tone for expansion, colonization and transformation as America grew west. He won
the university’s 2002 Research and Creativity Award and in 2004 received the
Addison E. Sheldon Memorial Award from the Nebraska State Historical Society. He
retired from UNL in 2004.
Moulton, who earned his PhD and his M.A. at Oklahoma State University, got his
start as a historian as editor of “The Papers of Chief John Ross,” a four-year
project by the National Archives. After that, the advertisement for editor of
the Lewis and Clark Journals for University of Nebraska Press caught his eye.
Thus began two decades of meticulous toil, the result of which is a 13-volume
work that is considered one of the major scholarly achievements of the late 20th
century. Because of his prominence as a leading expert on the Lewis and Clark
expedition, Moulton frequently is asked to give lectures and speeches on the
subject and to serve as consultant for film documentaries and movies. He even
served on committees for designing the Sacagawea coin.
Most recently, Moulton finished an abridged, single-volume edition of the
journals entitled “The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery.”
“Dr. Moulton has been able to successfully combine exemplary scholarly
accomplishment with a refreshing willingness to engage all of us in the grand
adventure of the Corps of Discovery,” said Allison Petersen, board member of the
Nebraska Humanities Council.
The Nebraska Humanities Council annually honors individuals, institutions,
businesses and communities with Sower Awards for contributions to public
understanding of the humanities in Nebraska, based on nominations and letters of
support from the citizens of Nebraska. The Sower Award is an original bronze
sculpture by Nebraska-born artist Sandra Dunn Mahoney.
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2004
Sower Award winner
Kearney poet
Don Welch wins 2004
Sower Award
Don Welch, Reynolds Professor of Poetry
emeritus at the
University of Nebraska at Kearney, is the winner of this year’s Sower Award
in the Humanities.
The Nebraska Humanities Council honored
Welch Sept. 9 during an 8 p.m. ceremony at the Lied Center for Performing
Arts in Lincoln, in conjunction with the 9th annual Governor’s Lecture
in the Humanities.
A graduate of Kearney State Teachers College
and the University of Nebraska, Welch is a lifelong Nebraskan whose poetry
reflects a deep sense of place in the landscape of the Great Plains. His
latest book is entitled “The Alley Poems,” published in 2002 by Lone Willow
Press of Omaha.
Among his 23 published collections of poetry
are “A Brief History of Feathers,” “Handwork,” “Fire’s Tongue in the Candle’s
End,” “The Platte River,” “The Words Which Marry You to Me,” “Every Month
of Autumn Says Goodbye,” and “The Plain Sense of Things.” More than 300
of his poems have appeared in magazines and journals nationwide, and examples
of his work have been included in many anthologies. He has won seven national
poetry awards, including the Pablo Neruda Prize of Poetry.
As an educator, Welch received the Pratt-Heins
and the Nebraska State College Board of Trustees awards for teaching excellence.
He was a Nebraska Arts Council poet-in-residence in Nebraska public schools
from 1975 to 1988 and was a participant in and consultant to the Nebraska
Public Television documentary “Last of the One-Room Schools.” His composition
handbook, “A Shape a Writer Can Contain,” was published by the Nebraska
Department of Education in 1979 and is still widely used in high school
curricula throughout the state.
After a 38-year career in the University
of Nebraska at Kearney’s English Department, Welch retired in 1997, but
he continues to pursue his dual, lifelong professional passions in the
creative and always surprising manner that characterized his distinguished
tenure as a professor.
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September
2004
Welch accepts
Sower Award
Don Welch made
the following remarks on receiving the 2004 Sower Award Sept. 9 at the
Lied Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska. Kit Dimon, chair
of the Nebraska Humanities Council, presented the award.
 I would like to
thank the Nebraska Humanities Council for this award. On behalf of my family,
I would like to say we are all deeply grateful.
The humanities always
begins with humane people, those who in one way or another give resonance
to their voices, extending their wisdom and compassion into our lives.
Two such people came together in the music room of our house 50-some years
ago. A Metropolitan Opera soprano, denied a room in our community's hotel
because she was an African-American, not only stayed with our family; every
morning she sang with my mother, who was herself a magnificent contralto.
It was a moment in
which the ghosts of worth found expression in two wonderful voices, and
it would eventually teach me that no matter the place, the Met in New York
City or a music room in a small house in Kearney, Nebraska, there are those
who, in singing, tune and re-tune our lives.
I would also learn
that the humanities consist of the kinds of acts which magnify themselves,
which give off a radiance in excess of what we might expect, then go on
as victories in worlds of loss; and that because of this, the business
of the humanities is, and has always been, the business of spirit-lifting.
In worlds gone wrong, humanists are the ones who sing our counter-songs.
Because we are in
the fifth year of drought in central and western Nebraska, let me try to
relate the humanities to the 1930s, a decade when the faces of farm families
were as gaunt as their eroded land. Late one afternoon, after milking her
two cows, my grandmother, who was widowed in 1934, and who had no horse
or car, took me on an eight-mile walk down the railroad tracks to Ansley,
Nebraska, where, sitting in the weeds, we watched a movie projected onto
the wall of the post office building. In the Great Depression no movie
could have been more spirit-lifting. It was called "Pennies from Heaven."
Then, after the movie,
we went to the grocery store where she spent one barely affordable penny
on a stick of candy which, licked slowly, lasted me almost all the way
home. It was a moment in which first she, then I, shaped the acrid air
of the "dirty '30s" into an original kind of love.
Because most of my
life has been spent in trying to grow up to what I felt I knew, and to
record it in the kind of words which put their hands on thoughts, I would
like to conclude by reading a short poem I wrote for my grandmother. But
I would hope the poem is as much about the humanities as it is about a
woman who was as sensitive as she was tough.
When Memory Gives
Dust a Face (for Vallie Welch)
When dust like flour
sifted the road,
and weeds were skeletal
corsages,
when horses broke
their hooves, unshod,
with careless grass
their only forage,
she sang high songs.
And we listened
as we walked to
town. No throat
was more enriched
by pain. Her tongue
cleaved to love
to make it new.
In loss the dust
assumed her songs.
And clods assumed
they had been sung to.
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Historian Ronald Naugle, the Huge-Kinne
professor
of history and director of pre-college programs at Nebraska Wesleyan University
in Lincoln, won the 2003 Sower Award in the Humanities.
E.N. “Jack” Thompson
of Lincoln, a longtime
philanthropist of the arts and humanities, won the 2002 Sower Award in
the Humanities.
The Nebraska Humanities
Council announces that
longtime humanities advocate Jack Campbell of Lincoln is the winner
of this year’s Sower Award in the Humanities.
