• About Prairie Heritage
  • About Prairie Heritage, Inc.
  • Telling Dunlap's Story
  • Remembering Harrison Fulghem
  • Prairie Heritage Programs: Toward an Inclusive Prairie Community
  • Jan Garton Prairie Heritage Book Award

PRAIRIE HERITAGE, INC. AWARDS TWO 2015 FIRST-PLACE PRIZES: SPURGEON, BARNARD TAKE TOP HONORS, FINALISTS ALSO HONORED

December 17, 2015

The top Jan Garton Prairie Heritage Book Award went  to two authors this year:  Ian Michael Spurgeon, for Soldiers in the Army of Freedom:  The 1st Kansas Colored, the Civil War’s First African American Combat Unit (Univ. of Okla. Press, 2014):

 

and Iralee Barnard, for Field Guide to the Common Grasses of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska (Univ. of Ks. Press, 2014).   

 

   

 

 

Commissioner Jim Sands presented  Iralee Barnard with her award at the beginning of the Junction City Commission meeting  on Tuesday, December 15, 2015, 7 p.m. 

Commissioner Sands (left) is president of Prairie Heritage, Inc. 

 

Ian Michael Spurgeon will receive his award early next year when he comes to Junction City for a  book talk & book signing at the Dorothy Bramlage Public Library at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 11, 2016.  

Both authors received the full $1000.00 award.   

“Both books were tops in their fields, one in social history, the other in natural history,” said Prairie Heritage board member Deliliah Hamilton.  “How could we compare the two?   We had to give two awards!”

“Jan Garton would be pleased,” said board member Margy Stewart.  

Jan Garton was the beloved Kansas conservationist who led the successful fight to preserve Cheyenne Bottoms and who endowed the Prairie Heritage book awards with a bequest from her estate.   

“Jan would be so happy to see how these two skillful and dedicated authors have illuminated different aspects of our prairie heritage,” Stewart added.  

FINALISTS ALSO HONORED

In addition, a number of meritorious finalists received cash awards of $100  each.   These finalists include Dru Clarke, Clearing by Noon: A Collection of Flint Hills Essays (Possum Hollow P);  Diane Eickhoff & Aaron Barnhart, The Big Divide: A Travel Guide to Historic and Civil War Sites in the Missouri-Kansas Border Region (Quindaro P); Paul A. Johnsgard & Thomas D. Mangelsen, Yellowstone Wildlife: Ecology and Natural History of the Greater Yellow Yellowstone Ecosystem (UPof CO); Marybeth Lorbiecki, The Prairie that Nature Built (Dawn P); James E. Sherow & John R. Charlton, Railroad Empire Across the Heartland:  Rephotographing Alexander Gardner’s Westward Journey (UNMP); and Louise Farmer Smith, One Hundred Years of Marriage (Upper Hand P).

Books published in 2015 are eligible to apply for next year’s awards.   

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