Last year this blog featured a post that discussed a Nebrsaka History article, “The Long Journey of White Fox.” The article tells the story of three Pawnee men who visited Sweden in the 1870s and what happened after one of the men died there. Its author, Dan Jibreus, hails from Stockholm.
Today at the annual Nebraska State Historical Society Awards Luncheon, the article will be named the winner of this years’ James L. Sellers Memorial Award, given each year for the best article published in a volume of Nebraska History. Jibreus will receive a plaque and $1,000 from the NSHS Foundation, through the support of Catherine Sellers Angle, daughter of Professor Sellers. The jury is provided by the history department of a Nebraska college or university – this year Wayne State College provided the judges.
We at the NSHS are thrilled that Dan Jibreus will join us in person to receive his award – and this visit marks his first time setting foot in Nebraska. He and a friend ventured across the Atlantic not only to attend the awards banquet, but also to travel the state and see, firsthand, those sites most important to the Pawnee. (They also drove down to Pawnee, Oklahoma, for a meeting with tribal elders there, and plan to visit Lakota contacts in South Dakota.)
Jibreus (center) with friend Hans-Erik Therus (left) and NSHS Associate Director of Publications David Bristow at Nine-Mile Prairie. Photo courtesy of David Bristow.
Some NSHS trustees showed them various Nebraska sites and NSHS Associate Director of Publications, David Bristow, and his wife met them early in their visit and took them to Nine-Mile Prairie and then down to the Haymarket in Lincoln.
Jibreus will be speaking at the Pawnee Arts Center in Dannebrog on Sunday, October 18th. Stop by to hear a program on his award-winning article!
