The Arkansas Historical Association announced the following awards and recognitions at its 75 th annual
awards banquet on Friday, April 22, 2016, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Lifetime Achievement Award:
Carl H. Moneyhon – for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and outreach to the general public
Ruth A. Hawkins – for her signal contributions to historic preservation, public history, and
historical tourism as director of the Heritage Sites program
Diamond Award – plaque
Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail, a project of UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity – for
honoring and increasing public awareness of the freedom struggle in Arkansas
J. G. Ragsdale Book Award for the best book-length study in Arkansas history:
LaGuana Gray – We Just Keep Running the Line: Black Southern Women and the Poultry
Processing Industry (Louisiana State University Press)
James H. Atkinson Award for excellence in the teaching of Arkansas History:
Marietta Kay Johns – in County Line School District, Branch
Lucille Westbrook Award for the best manuscript essay on a local Arkansas topic:
Revis L. Edmonds, Jr. – “The Kream Kastle and its Place in Blytheville’s ‘Barbecue Mecca’”
Violet B. Gingles Award for the best manuscript essay on an Arkansas history topic:
John A. Kirk – “The Politics of Southern Industrialization: Winthrop Rockefeller, Orval
Faubus, and the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission”
NEARA Award for an essay based on sources at the NE Arkansas Regional Archives in Powhatan:
Edward James Harthorn – “Pushing him back over the pulpit”: David Orr and Religious
Conflict in Early Arkansas
Susannah DeBlack Award for best book in Arkansas history for young readers:
Nancy Dane – Sarah Campbell: Tale of a Civil War Orphan
Charles O. Durnett Award for outstanding contribution to Arkansas’s Civil War history essay
Revis L. Edmonds, Jr. –“The Forgotten Soldiers: Remembering the African American
Regiments at the Battle of Helena”
James L. Foster & Billy W. Beason Award for best master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation in Arkansas
history
Rebecca Howard – “Civil War Unionists and Their Legacy in the Arkansas Ozarks”
Tom Dillard Advocacy Award demonstrated a sustained commitment to promoting the study,
appreciation, preservation, and dissemination of Arkansas history
Lloyd W. Clark, Jr.
John William Graves Book Award for best book-length historical study of the history of race relations
in Arkansas or of the history of African Americans in Arkansas
Guy Lancaster – Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883-1924: Politics, Land, Labor, and
Criminality
Award of Merit:
“Arkansas and the Great War” web site, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies,
www.butlercenter.org/arkansas-and- the-great- war/
Institute for Race and Ethnicity, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and the City of
Little Rock, for their development of the Arkansas Civil Rights History Tour App that provides a
self-guided walking tour of 35 Civil Rights related sites in Little Rock.
KUAR Public Radio
Nevada County Depot Museum for their successful fundraising campaign to purchase the
Elkins’ Ferry Civil War battlefield site
The Arkansas Women’s History Institute’s Susie Pryor Award for outstanding contribution to
Arkansas women’s history:
Chelsea Hodge – “‘The Operator’s Daughter:’ Folklore and Labor Activism in the Upland
South.”
Walter L. Brown County and Local Journal Awards:
Best County or Local Journal to The Independence County Chronicle, published by
Independence County Historical Society
Honorable Mention as Runner-Up for Best County or Local Journal to The Record, published
by Garland County Historical Society
Best Use of Graphics to The Journal, published by Fort Smith Historical Society
Best Article in a County or Local Journal to Jodi Barnes, “The Archaeology of Health & Healing
at the Hollywood Plantation,” in Drew County Historical Journal, Drew County Historical
Society
Best Biography, Autobiography, or Memoir to Charlotte Jeffers, Bob Thompson, and Laverne
Todd, “Louis T. Krestschmar: The Man & Myth,” in Clark County Historical Journal, Clark
County Historical Association
Best Family History to Colin Woodward, “The Days Before Dyess: Johnny Cash’s Family,” in
Pulaski County Historical Review, Pulaski County Historical Society
Best Church History to Bob Razer, “The Spirit of Those Times: Slavery and Arkansas’s
Methodist Church,” in Pulaski County Historical Review, Pulaski County Historical Society
Best Community History to Christopher Dorer, “Little Italy: A Look Back,” in Pulaski County
Historical Review, Pulaski County Historical Society
Best School History to Gena Seidenschwarz and Glenn Mosenthin, “Stuttgart Training School:
A History and Curriculum,” Grand Prairie Historical Bulletin, Grand Prairie Historical Society
Best Business History to Windle Porter, “N.B. Smith: Griffithville’s Undertaker and Funeral
Director,” White County Heritage, White County Historical Society
Best Edited Document to Jane A. Wilkerson, “Their Hearts Were In The Coffin’: Samuel
Hamblen’s First Hand Account of President Lincoln’s Funeral,” The Record, Garland County
Historical Society
Best Newsletter to The Salt Shaker, Saline County History & Heritage Society
This annual conference was funded in part by funds from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the
National Endowment for the Humanities.
For information about the Annual Conference or becoming a member of the Arkansas Historical
Association, please contact Donna Ludlow at 479-575- 5884, e-mail: dludlow@uark.edu or write the
Arkansas Historical Association, Old Main 416, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701.
Web site – http://www.arkansashistoricalassociation.org.