CHADRON—The 2023 Pilster Great Plains Lecture & Sandoz Symposium, titled “Mari Sandoz’s Homeland: Past, Present and Future,” are headed back to Sandoz Country at Chadron State College September 28-30.
This year’s event will feature sessions in the Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center and the CSC Student Center Ballroom. Off-campus activities will take place at the Bean Broker in downtown Chadron and college Herbarium or Chadron State Park. The return ends a hiatus started by the Covid-19 Pandemic and followed by two years of livestream on the internet and in-person gatherings in Lincoln.
The focus will be on the High Plains and its natural and human history to create increased interest in studying that history and local or regional stories.
The annual Pilster Great Plains Lecture will be presented Thursday September 28 at 7:30 pm (Mountain) at the CSC Student Center by Dr. Andrew Graybill, Professor and Director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. His title, “What’s So Great About the Great Plains?”
Graybill is the author or editor of four books. He taught at the University of Nebraska from 2003-2011.
The Pilster Lecture is made possible by the gift of ranchland in northwest Nebraska near Whitney in Dawes County, by the late Esther Pilster. The gift, which established an endowment with the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, was a tribute to her late husband Raleigh, who grew up on the ranch, and his parents John and Grace Pilster.
The Mari Sandoz Symposium begins Friday morning at 8:30 am (Mountain) and will include presentations and panel discussions as well as a luncheon, Friday afternoon activities and a coffee and conversation send-off on Saturday morning at the Bean Broker.
Beloved author Mari Sandoz, 1896-1966, is celebrated for her histories of the Native Americans and homesteaders living on the High Plains. She lived and wrote in Lincoln, Denver and New York City, but the dominant subject of her work was the place and the people of the High Plains where she was born and reared, where she centered her research and gained insights into the events and personalities that populate her histories.
The event is funded in part by Humanities Nebraska and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
The Pilster lecture is free. Register for the symposium at www.marisandoz.org