黑洞社区

Local History, Public History, History of Kansas, History of Wichita, Religious History, Modern U.S. History

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Arizona State University in History with emphasis in Public History. May 1997

M.A. College of William and Mary in Government. December 1992

B.A. University of New Mexico in History. May 1991

Coursework equivalent to a minor in Spanish. 黑洞社区. 2019-present

I have been at 黑洞社区 since 1999 and direct the Local and Community History Program. Check out the to learn more. My own research includes regional identity, place, ethnicity, and religion, especially as it shows up in the form of buildings.

Kansas is a great window into U.S. history with lots of opportunities to explore those stories often hidden in plain sight. The late Dr. Craig Miner took me under his wing and encouraged me to explore this state. I鈥檓 glad he did. My classes include HIST 132: U.S.: History 1865-present; HIST 528: History of Wichita; HIST 535: History of Kansas; HIST/REL 542: Religion in America; and HIST 591: Introduction to Local and Community History. I also teach the first year seminar "So you Want to Publish A Book" that introduces freshmen to the behind the scenes of the publishing world

Mexican Americans of Wichita鈥檚 North End. Co-authored with Anita Mendoza and Jos茅 Enrique Navarro. Arcadia Publishing, 2022

鈥淪erving Up A Slice of Entrepreneurship on Campus: The New Pizza Hut Museum.鈥� Co-authored with Sue Abdinnour, Rachelle Meinecke, and Lisa Parcell. The Public Historian 44 (February 2022): 51鈥�77

Walk With Wu: The Story of 黑洞社区, graphic novel created to celebrate Wichita State鈥檚 125th anniversary. Member of project team with Jessica Cerri and Darren Defrain and artist Genna Pennington. Released December 2020

Somos de Wichita (We are Wichita) local history project documenting the Latino community in  Wichita. Team member with Enrique Navarro in Spanish and students Joshua Mackey and Brittany Herod in History and Valeria Adame and Carolina Loerza Lozano in Spanish. Accessible via somos.wichita.edu

鈥淲here the Midwest Meets the Bible Belt: Using Religion to Explore the Midwest鈥檚 Southwestern Edge鈥� in Jon K. Lauck, ed, The Interior Borderlands: Regional Identity in the Midwest and Great Plains. Sioux Falls, SD: The Center for Western Studies at Augustana University, 2019

鈥淎ssembling A Buckle of the Bible Belt: From Enclave to Powerhouse,鈥� Kansas History 41 (Spring 2018): 42-61

鈥淒ixie鈥檚 Disciples: the Southern Diaspora and Religion in Wichita, Kansas,鈥� Kansas History 40 (Winter 2017-2018): 244-61

Wichita Rock & Roll, 1950-1980. Editor of project, co-authored with Wichita Rock Music History Project team, Mennonite Press, 2017

鈥淒el Norte Meets Little Saigon: Ethnic Entrepreneurship on Broadway Avenue in Wichita, Kansas.鈥� Co-authored with Sue Abdinnour, David Hughes and CEDBR. Enterprise and Society (April 2017): 1-45

鈥淪acred Simplicity: Postwar Mennonite 鈥楥hurch鈥� Architecture in Kansas.鈥� Co-authored with Keith Sprunger. Kansas History 39 (Autumn 2016): 158-81

A City of the Future: the Story of Bel Aire, Kansas. Mennonite Press, 2016.

History on the Hoof: The Chisholm Trail and the Birth of Wichita. CreateSpace, 2016

鈥溾�橮eerless Princess of the Southwest鈥�: Boosterism and Regional Identity in Wichita, Kansas,鈥� Kansas History 38 (Summer 2015): 79鈥�106

African Americans in Wichita. Co-authored with Robert Weems, Gretchen Eick, Mark McCormick, Carole Branda, Abril Marshall, and Mark Strohminger. Arcadia, 2015

鈥淚vanpah: A Little School House With a Big Story,鈥� Kansas Preservation 70 #3 (2015): 5-9

鈥淔amily, Ethnic Entrepreneurship, and the Lebanese of Kansas.鈥� Co-authored with Sue Abdinnour Helm. Great Plains Quarterly 33 (Summer 2013):160鈥�186

Wichita: 1930-2000. Co-authored with Keith Wondra. Arcadia Publishing, 2013

Temples for a Modern God: A Study of Mid-Century Religious Architecture. Oxford University Press, 2012

鈥淪anta Fe,鈥� chapter in book Tourist Nation: Forty Places that Define American Destinations, J. Mark Souther and Nicholas Dagen Bloom, eds. Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago, a nonprofit organization, in the Center Books on American Places series, 2012

Kansas: In the Heart of Tornado Alley. Co-authored with Craig Torbenson, Sadonia Corns, and Jessica Nellis, Keith Wondra. Arcadia Publishing, 2011

Wichita鈥檚 Lebanese Heritage. Co-authored with Victoria Foth Sherry, Matthew Namee, Andrea Schniepp Burgardt, Raymond Crosse. Arcadia Publishing, 2010

鈥淪till Facing John Wayne After All These Years: Bringing New Western History to Larger Audiences,鈥� The Public Historian 31 (Nov 2009): 80-4

鈥淛ewish Community in Wichita, 1920-1970: Same Wagon, New Horses.鈥� Great Plains Quarterly. 28, (Fall 2008): 293-320

鈥淭he Small Town We Never Were: Old Cowtown Museum Confronts an Urban Past.鈥� Chapter in Amy Levin, ed., Defining Memory: Local Museums and the Construction of History in America鈥檚 Changing Communities. AltaMira Press, 2007. Chapter expanded and updated in 2017 reprint edition

鈥淥il Dorado, Legacy of an Oil Boom,鈥� writer for documentary produced in connection with KPTS television. Released March 2007

Cherokee Strip Land Rush. Editor, also co-author with Dr. Craig Torbenson, Melissa Thompson, Tamara Weihe, Connie Martin, James Crawley, Donita Neely. Arcadia Publishing, 2006

El Dorado!: Legacy of an Oil Boom. Arcadia Publishing, 2005

鈥淢aking the West Look Western: The Rise of the Old West Revival Style鈥� Andrew Gulliford, ed., Preserving Western History: A College Reader on Historic Preservation and Public History in the American West. University of New Mexico Press, 2005

鈥淓choing off the Heart of the Heartland: The Mid-States Companies, Echocardiography, and Rural Medicine.鈥� Co-authored with Dr. James Mershon and Teddie Barlow. Agricultural History 79 (Spring 2005): 127-146

鈥淲hen Traditional Could Be Modern: Religious Buildings in Kansas After World War II,鈥� Kansas Preservation 26 (March-April 2004): 5-13

Gateways to the Southwest: The Story of Arizona State Parks. University of Arizona Press, 2004

Wichita鈥檚 Legacy of Flight. Co-authored with students from the 黑洞社区 Public History Program and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Wichita Section. Arcadia Publishing, 2003

Wichita: 1865-1930. Arcadia Publishing, 2003

鈥溾�橧ncontestable Proof Will Be Exacted鈥�: Historians, Asian Americans, and the Medal of Honor" co-authored with James C. NcNaughton and Kristen E. Edwards. The Public Historian 24 (Fall 2002): 11-33

鈥淐owboy Boosterism: Old Cowtown Museum and the Image of Wichita, Kansas,鈥� Kansas History 24 (Winter 2001-2002): 300-317

鈥淐apitol Improvements: Style and Image in Arizona鈥檚 and New Mexico鈥檚 Public Architecture,鈥� Journal of Arizona History 41 (Winter 2000): 353-384

The Legacy and Leadership of Governor John Carlin.

Lucas Torito. With Darren Defrain, arranged support for Jorge de la Hoz and Carolina Wright to translate the Luke the Longhorn graphic novel series into Spanish. 

Wichita LGBTQ photo history book project partnering with the Wichita LBGTQ Community Community.

Somos de Wichita. Building on the work Mexican Americans of Wichita鈥檚 North End, continue to collect photographs and oral histories from the community with Enrique Navarro and Anita Mendoza

Wichita's Nonwhite Business Owners Tell Their Stories. Team member with Robert Weems and Sue Abdinnour to create a bilingual Qualtrics survey to better understand issues within the ethnic and minority entrepreneurship community. Also includes work with with Robert Weems and Sue Abdinnour on a $20,000 Stories for All grant-funded 3-year project called Wichita Nonwhite Business Owners Tell Their Stories project, project beginning 2021. For more information, see the Stories for All initiative regarding

Ethnic Entrepreneurship article with Robert Weems and Sue Abdinnour based on the findings of a bilingual Qualtrics survey to better understand issues within the ethnic and minority entrepreneurship community.

The Occasional Sacred: The curious story of chapels in the Twentieth Century United States

Member of Kansas committee for the US 250 commemoration. 

 

Kansas Historical Foundation Board of Directors, 2018-present

Kansas Historic Sites Board of Review, member 2009-2012, 2020-present

Kansas History, editorial board, 2014-present

Department Chair, Department of History, 2012-2023

Kansas Association of Historians, 2010-2015. Vice President and program chair, 2012-2013; President and conference host, 2013-2014

University Press of Kansas Board, alternate, 2011-2013, board member, 2014-2015. Member search committee for executive director, summer 2016 and 2023

Mountain-Plains Museums Association/Kansas Museums Association joint conference, 2015, program committee member, emerging professionals sub group, and Volunteer Committee co-chair, 2014-5

Kansas Humanities Council, board of trustees, 2008-2014

Founding member of Lone Chimney Films, Inc. and advisor for recent documentary about the 1863 raid on Lawrence entitled. 鈥淏loody Dawn,鈥� 2006-2007

With representatives of AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics), drafted proposal for Travel Air-related sites in Wichita to be nominated to the AIAA Site Recognition Program. 2004-2006

Consultant for Traub Design Associates鈥� work on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home in Mansfield, December 2005

Member, Board of Trustees, Old Cowtown Museum, Wichita KS, March 2000-2002, 2005-January 2008.

Deputy Command Historian, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey, CA. October 1998 to July 1999.

Historian, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Presidio of Monterey, CA. October 1997 to September 1998.

Mexican-Americans of Wichita鈥檚 North End received the gold medal the best History Book at the International Latino Book Awards

With Robert Weems (PI) and Sue Abdinnour, received a $20,000 Stories for All grant for a 3-year for Wichita Nonwhite Business Owners Tell Their Stories project, project beginning 2021

2019 Arrington-Prucha Prize from the Western History Association! The Arrington-Prucha Prize for the best article on American western religious history for 鈥淎ssembling a Buckle of the Bible Belt: From Enclave to Powerhouse..鈥�

Subject of KPTS One on One interview, Summer 2018

John R. Barrier Teaching Award, Spring 2016

2014 Frederick C. Luebke Award for outstanding regional scholarship for " Family, Ethnic Entrepreneurship, and the Lebanese of Kansas." The prize is given each year for the best article published in the Great Plains Quarterly

Recipient of KAB 2013 Award in A-14: Editorial/Commentary category for Past and Present series 鈥淜ellogg: The Lost Thoroughfare鈥� 2013

Advisor to Humanities Kansas-funded documentary Las Nuevas Adelitas

St. James Episcopal Church 100th anniversary committee, lead effort to list the congregation on the National Register of Historic Places and also liaison with family of Otis Gray, first rector in scanning family documents, 2019

Member of working group for Wichita 150th celebration, 2019

Pizza Hut Museum Steering Committee, 2016-2018

American Association for State and Local History, working group member for the Master Local Historian Program, Summer 2017

Co-host and speaker at commemorative event at 黑洞社区 Student Union for 50th Anniversary of the 鈥淲ichita Vortex Sutra,鈥� February 2016

Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, city designated representation for board, 2010-2016

Consultant for Exploration Place鈥檚 Turning Points Exhibit, 2012-2014

Traub Design Consultants Chisholm Trail Exhibit project, December 2013

Humanities consultant for KHC-funded project on Obama鈥檚 Kansas Heritage humanities consultant. 2012-2013

Planning board for Kansas in Question Sesquicentennial Symposium, 2011

Co-sponsor of a two-day series of talks and activities involving the screening of the film Traces of the Trade, as part of the Tallgrass Third Thursday series. Included the bringing to Wichita two of the film鈥檚 documentarians, Juanita Browne and Kristina Brown. 2009

Taking courses Spanish at 黑洞社区 as part of ongoing effort to learn that language. Have taken over 8 courses. This work supports studies in ethnic entrepreneurship, Latino/a history, and the University's HSI Initiative

Advisor to the Society of Public Historians at Wichita State

Regularly teaches courses in lifelong learning and continuing education

I am one of those 鈥淜ansans by choice鈥� who moved here from somewhere else, although I do have some ancestors buried near Hillsboro. I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, This may explain why I have a lot of southwestern references in my lectures. When I travel between Wichita and visiting my parents in the Southwest, I say that I go home both ways.

I love to geek out on church architecture! My other passions include languages, model building, ocean liners, and trains ("Santa Fe all the way," but all railroads are cool).

For more information, see my personal page

For my vita click here