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Sower Award Archives
Native leader Trimble wins 2007 Sower Award
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.
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."
U.S. Poet
Laureate Kooser wins 2006 Sower Award
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 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.
Lewis & Clark scholar wins
Sower Award
2004
Sower Award winner
Don Welch, Reynolds Professor of Poetry
emeritus at the
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.
September
2004
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.
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,
when horses broke
their hooves, unshod,
she sang high songs.
And we listened
was more enriched
by pain. Her tongue
In loss the dust
assumed her songs.
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2003 Sower Award winner
The Nebraska Humanities Council honored Naugle Sept. 18 during an 8 p.m. ceremony at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, in conjunction with the 8th annual Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities.
A member of Wesleyan’s history department since 1966 and department chair from 1980 to 2001, Naugle also is a noted historian and author. Recent publications include “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Documents in American History," 2 Vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003); “History of Nebraska,” (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), a revision of the 1954 work by James C. Olson; and the “Nebraska” entry in the upcoming Encyclopedia Britannica.
He co-authored with Patricia Crews the Smithsonian Award-winning book “Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991). He also co-wrote the script for the 30-minute Nebraska public television documentary, “White Man’s Way,” first broadcast in 1986.
Naugle is co-founder and director of the Nebraska Institute, a graduate program for social studies teachers since 1998. He has been state coordinator for student involvement in National History Day since 1986.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in American government and politics from Purdue University, a master’s degree in American history from Purdue and a master’s degree and a PhD in American studies from the University of Kansas.
Elaine Kruse, chair of Wesleyan’s history department, nominated Naugle, writing “Ron has devoted his life to documenting and presenting Nebraska history for both the public and academic audiences.”
“Ron has worked tirelessly to make Nebraska history accessible to many people in many different formats,” Nebraska State Historical Society Director Lawrence Sommers wrote in support of Naugle’s nomination.
“His greatest legacy is his ability to empower those with whom he works to carry the vision that humanities is the glue which holds the study of history together and gives it meaning,” wrote Karen Stanley, Lincoln Public Schools curriculum specialist for social studies.
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September 2003 Naugle accepts Sower Award
Ronald Naugle made the following remarks on receiving the 2003 Sower Award Sept. 18 at the Joslyn Art Museum. Kit Dimon, chair of the Nebraska Humanities Council, presented the award.
I don't usually pay much attention to my horoscope, but last week I was trapped in a bulkhead seat on a United Express flight to Chicago, and the pilot has just told us we were in one of those delightful "scheduled delays" for 20 minutes or so.
I thought about grabbing my briefcase from the overhead bin, but the flight attendant looked a bit foreboding--so I picked up the September issue of Hemispheres and started leafing through it until the horoscope caught my eye.
It said, basically, that I should stop pinching myself because good things would fall in my lap during the second half of the month. I had, in fact, been pinching myself from time to time since I was told I would be receiving the Sower Award--and, interestingly, in the second half of the month.
It is, however, more than just a good thing, and I feel honored to be recognized in this way, yet the recognition is not soley deserved. In whatever small way I have contributed to the spread of the humanities in Nebraska, I owe it to the support of many others.
I am deeply appreciative of the great humanities resources we have in our state.
Any one whose interests are in the history and culture of a state and its people would be fortunate to have any one of the aforementioned. I have been fortunate to have pursued my interests in Nebraska. The humanities are well-positioned in Nebraska. We have a rich history and culture which has time and time again intersected with both regional and national events. And we have the institutions and the people dedicated to making Nebraska's stories a public trust. For that we can all celebrate.
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2002 Sower Award winner
The Nebraska Humanities Council honored Thompson Sept. 23 during an 8 p.m. ceremony at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, in conjunction with the 7th annual Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities.
Thompson has been a trustee of the Cooper Foundation for nearly 50 years and chairman of the Lincoln-based charitable organization since 1990. From 1964 to 1990 he served as president of the foundation, which has awarded more than $11 million, much of it to Nebraska arts and humanities organizations.
“The arts should be accessible, not to the exclusion of other things, but as one of the key ingredients of life,” Thompson said in a recent interview.
Earlier in 2002, Thompson won the prestigious Leonard Thiessen Award at the Governor’s Arts Awards. He has served on the boards of many arts organizations, including the Nebraska Art Association, Nebraska Arts Council and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
Thompson also is founder of the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues, a lecture series launched in 1988 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with funding from the Cooper Foundation. He conceived the series as a way to inform Nebraskans "about what was happening in the world and how it affected them," he said.
More than 50 speakers have appeared in the series, including Paul Ehrlich, Bernard Kalb, Hedrick Smith, Martin Marty, Elie Wiesel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Robert McNamara and Mikhail Gorbachev. The Sept. 23 appearance by New York Times foreign affairs columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman is a collaboration of the Thompson Forum, the Nebraska Humanities Council and the University of Nebraska.
Born in York in 1913, Thompson has degrees from the University of Nebraska, Columbia University School of Journalism and New York University School of Law. Before returning to Nebraska, he worked as a news reporter and in several government positions, including deputy director of the Office of U.N. Affairs under Dean Rusk. Since his return, he has worked at First Trust Company of Lincoln, serving as president from 1954 to 1961, and the Cooper Theaters Inc., where he was president from 1964 to 1979.
Thompson and his wife, Katherine, are generous donors to many organizations, including the E.N. Thompson Forum and the Lied Center for the Performing Arts. They have established an endowed professorship on World History in Contemporary Perspective at UNL.
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September 2002 Thompson accepts Sower Award
E.N. "Jack" Thompson made the following remarks on receiving the 2002 Sower Award Sept. 23 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Bette Anne Thaut, president of the Nebraska Foundation for the Humanities, presented the award.
Thank you very much Bette Anne. I cannot find words to fully express my thanks for receiving this award, but I do appreciate it more than I can say!
I have been uncommonly lucky all my life, for which I give thanks every day. It has been my good fortune to work as a reporter in Europe and Washington, D.C., as a State Department staff member at the founding and early development of the United Nations, as an executive in the financial and entertainment worlds. I have enjoyed every minute, especially my 40 years at the Cooper Foundation.
In every setting, I have tried to do my best, but as my revered father and talented mother would have said, "Isn't that what you are supposed to do?"
So one cannot accept this as honoring one individual, but only as it represents the singular importance of the humanities in all of our lives and in our civilization! There can be no substitute for the teaching of the humanities at every level of our educational system, in the grade schools, high schools and the university level. The University of Nebraska, as the premier educational institution of our state, emphasizes the humanities throughout the College of Arts and Sciences. The study of history is a leading component of the curricula without which a democracy cannot function intelligently. It has been aptly said that those who do not know history are condemned to relive it!
Journalists with the integrity and quality of our speaker tonight contribute immeasurably. Our professors, teachers, ministers, artists and musicians make real the humanities in our civilization. Our art galleries and museums stimulate our imaginations. Humanities are the lifeblood of civilization! Languages illuminate life! Mothers can, and often do, create understanding of the humanities at a very early age in our children. My wife, Katherine, grew up in a family with a large library where she read world history and literature in her high school years. She read to our children as soon as they could listen and played records to create an interest in music. And she imparted the early love of the humanities in our grandchildren.
For these and countless other leaders in the humanities in Nebraska, our country and around the world, this award testifies not to the importance of one person but to all who are contributing to the understanding of the humanities essential to this civilization as we know it.
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2001 Sower Award winner
Campbell was honored Sept. 20 during a ceremony in the Witherspoon auditorium at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, in conjunction with the 6th annual Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities.
A longtime associate with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in Lincoln and president of Compensation Programs Inc., a Nebraska-based employee benefit organization, Campbell was the founding president of the Nebraska Foundation for the Humanities and served in various leadership positions during his six years on the Nebraska Humanities Council. In his volunteer capacity, he spearheaded fundraising efforts, assisted with donor research and even signed membership renewal letters.
Campbell serves on the board of directors of the new Nebraska Cultural Endowment, charged with raising $5 million in private matching funds. He was a member of the committee that originated the endowment legislation and helped it win the overwhelming support of the Nebraska Legislature. Established in 1998 with a $5 million appropriation, the endowment is the first of its kind in the nation. In its first year, the endowment earnings funded a 41 percent increase in NHC grants and a 60 percent increase in NHC Speakers Bureau programming.
A graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Campbell has served in numerous administrative positions with national insurance industry member organizations and local civic organizations. He is a past president of the Nebraska Art Association, The Wagon Train Project, Nebraska Jaycees, the Lincoln Library Board and the Nebraska Library Commission. A trustee of the University of Nebraska Foundation, he received the school’s Alumni Achievement Award in 1987. He is a life trustee of Nebraskans for Public Television.
Campbell and his wife, Sally, are longtime contributors to the Nebraska Foundation for the Humanities. The Sower Award recognizes individuals, institutions, businesses and communities that have made a significant contribution to public understanding of the humanities in Nebraska.
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What Would You Have Us Do? By Jack D. Campbell Some years ago it was my privilege to sit at the knee of a fabled Jewish merchant and absorb the wisdom he imparted. In the observations and stories were many transferable human relations truths. One day he recounted how he took over the complaint department of his giant complex department store. This was after a storewide meeting wherein the current department head was seemingly overwhelmed by the position. This was a store which built a regional reputation for its policy of accepting all merchandise returns -- no questions asked. Ever. Less principled people took advantage of this policy. But the store thrived as customers knew of the assurance they had of quality merchandise and unexcelled services. Something about promises kept! With a wry smile, he told of his period in the complaint seat. As he picked up the phone personally (no voice mail here) and identified himself, he noted that many callers hung up quickly. Of course, others continued to outline their concerns, large or small. Two transferable management axioms were then in play. As he listened, he took notes about the problem and also mentally determined what a fair resolve might be -- what the store would provide to satisfy and keep this customer. Second, however, and before negotiating what he had predetermined, he would ask the question, "What would you have us do?" Surprisingly, in many cases, he found the response was simply, "We don't want anything. We just thought someone ought to know!" All people don't play hardball. They just want someone to know of their concerns. Then he noted that many of the others were satisfied with much less than he was prepared to offer. In one instance, he was prepared to replace a refrigerator, but the customer only requested new ice trays! Most folks are fair in their dealings. So what do we learn by this in our current everyday world? To listen before we react. To treat our customers with personal care. To do unto others... . But instead we find a barrage of e-mail, Internet, voice mail, 800 service numbers, responses from "service" departments hundreds of miles away. A redundant message: "All or our operators are busy. Your call is important to us. The next available representative will be with you shortly." The message is repeated for five to 10 minutes while we wait -- while listening to a recorded promo telling us how great the company is or cross-selling another product or service! Or "if you have a touch-tone phone, push '1' for a menu of services available." How often have you found that the simple inquiry you have is not available -- but only after listening to the long, overly detailed menu? Have you ever (as I confess) in frustration lamented into the non-hearing phone, "Can't I talk to a real person?" Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear a human voice -- an interested, concerned person asking simply, "What would you have us do?" In this high-tech, impersonal world, are those days really gone forever? Are we promising more than we are delivering? Or am I just getting grumpy as I age?
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2000 Sower Award winner
Ron Hull, associate general manager of the Nebraska ETV Network and the manager of KUON-TV in Lincoln, is the winner of the 2000 Sower Award in the Humanities. Hull was honored Sept. 7 during ceremonies surrounding the 5th Annual Governor’s Lecture in the Humanities. From 1982 to 1988, he was director of the Program Fund for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., administering some $40 million in funding support annually to public television stations, independent producers and minority producers for nationally distributed programs. In that position, he advocated the support of important programming in areas ranging from drama, performance and science to cultural affairs, documentaries and biography, including the landmark series “The American Experience” and “Eyes on the Prize.” Hull has been described as the quintessential champion of the humanities, devoting his professional life and personal life to bringing special presentations in the humanities to television and to building constituencies that will promote the humanities. Most recently, Hull co-produced the highly regarded “In Search of the Oregon Trail,” working with producer-writer Michael Farrell to create the program. He also co-developed a series of six Mark Twain novel dramatizations that were broadcast on television stations throughout the United States and Europe. Hull has been especially active in supporting Nebraska’s native sons and daughters. In creating an archive for hundreds of the best programs produced by NET, he helped to preserve historic interviews with Nebraska writers John G. Neihardt, Mari Sandoz and Wright Morris, actress Sandy Dennis, talk show host Dick Cavett and UNL professors Bernice Slote, Robert Knoll and Virginia Faulkner. In accepting the award, Hull noted the value of the humanities by quoting two of the state’s historical figures. “Willa Cather said, ‘The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.’ She also said, ‘Where there is great love, there are always miracles.’” Hull said Sandoz often quoted Crazy Horse’s observation that “a people without a history is like wind on the buffalo grass.” “We’re talking about relationships when we talk about the humanities,” Hull continued. “To me, relationships are the essence of our lives, the relationship that we have with each other… The predominant thought that I have at this moment is simply how fortunate I am, how thankful I am to have the privilege of being a part of you, in this city, in this state.”
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The
Nebraska Humanities Council announced today that Charles E. “Chuck”
Trimble of Omaha will receive its 2007 Sower Award in the
Humanities.
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.
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.
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. 
University of Nebraska at Kearney, is the winner of this year’s Sower Award
in the Humanities.
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.
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.
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Phone 402-474-2131 or e-mail nhc@nebraskahumanities.org. |
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