Author

Katherine L. Walter is professor and chair of Digital Initiatives and Special Collections in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Libraries and co-directs the UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. From 1992–2000, Walter headed the Nebraska Newspaper Project, and since 2007, she has headed the Nebraska Digital Newspaper Project. Both grants are from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Carol McShane is the owner of Nebraska Nursing Consultants, a registry of nurses in private practice, which offers care management and advocacy services for many late-life elders. For more information, call (402) 473-3832 or e-mail NeNursingConsultants[at]windstream[dot]net.

Burns Davis is an organist, a pianist and a practicing licensed massage therapist. To contact her about this article, please call (402) 464-4402.

Bruce Kennedy has resided in rural Malcolm, Neb., for 40 years and in Lincoln prior to that. He was a director of Lower Platte South NRD from 1976 through 2002; he is current president of Nebraska Wildlife Federation, chair of the Legislative Committee for Wachiska Audubon Society and vice president of Friends of the Niobrara, Inc. Bruce and his wife, Marge, have been active in conservation groups since the early 1970s.

Brad Mellema is director of the Nebraska Nature & Visitor Center.

Dennis Keeney is former director, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University; emeritus professor, Agronomy and Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University; Senior Fellow, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minneapolis.

Rob Gifford first went to China in 1987, as a 20-year-old undergraduate, to study the Chinese language. He has spent much of the last 20 years living in and reporting on the rise of China. In his recently published book, “China Road,” he records a two-month journey along Route 312, the Chinese equivalent of Route 66. Now NPR’s London correspondent, Gifford served as NPR’s China correspondent from 1999–2005. Gifford holds degrees in Chinese Studies from Durham University (UK) and Regional Studies (East Asia) from Harvard University.

Bruce Garver received a Ph.D. in history from Yale University in 1971. Since 1976, he has been professor of history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and has taught Czech immigrant history on eight occasions at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, thanks to the support of the Frank Belousek fund. He was a student in Prague for 10 months in 1967, returned to do research in 1971 and 1973, and for short periods in eight different years after 1990.

Bob Reeves is chair of the Peacemaking Workshop XXIII Planning Group.

Ruth Ann Norton is the architect of the national Green and Healthy Homes Initiative and the executive director of the National Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. Norton is a leading expert on helping cities and states leverage Healthy Homes, lead poisoning, weatherization and energy-efficiency resources to create sustainable Green and Healthy Homes. She is a noted national authority on building community capacity and effective work plans to incorporate sound environmental health standards in housing-related programs.

John E. Thorson, a retired judge, is chair of MRRIC and author of “River of Promise, River of Peril: The Politics of Managing the Missouri River” (University Press of Kansas, 1994). The opinions expressed in this article are his and do not represent the view of MRRIC or necessarily of any member.

Rex Holsapple has been the chief investment officer of the Maine State Retirement System, the Nebraska Investment Council and the benefit plans of Phillips Petroleum Company. He is currently the managing director of Sandy River Investment Consulting LLC.

Joan M. Daughton, M.D. is assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Freelance writer and photographer Alan J. Bartels lives in Farwell, Neb. He’s been a volunteer at Rowe Sanctuary for eight years. In his free time, he enjoys exploring the Nebraska Sand Hills.

Charles Yost is co-owner, with his daughter Antonia Yost, of Heart of Gold Jewelers in the University Place neighborhood of Lincoln, Neb. For more information, visit http://www.heartofgoldjewelers.blogspot.com.

David Daughton is a retired pulmonary medicine researcher from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

John H. Davidson is professor of law emeritus at the University of South Dakota.

Kevin Fulton is full-time farmer with a 2,800-acre organic grass-fed beef operation near Litchfield in Sherman County. He has been passionately promoting sustainable agriculture for the last seven to eight years after converting his land base from a conventional crop farm to an organic grass-based operation. He is in the process of expanding the farm enterprises to include a diversity of livestock and food products along with ag/ecotourism. He will be speaking at the annual conference in Lincoln, Neb., on Feb. 5–6, 2010.

Joan Thomson is the first GREEN certified realtor in Nebraska, selling Nebraska one property at a time.

John Kimble is a retired research soil scientist who worked at the National Soil Survey Center, Soil Survey Division, USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Lincoln, Neb., for 24 years. His interests have been in the measurement and verification of soil carbon (SOC and SIC) and the procedures used to scale point data to larger areas. He has also been active in research to look at the effects of different management practices on the fluxes of carbon into and out of the soil, with an emphasis on working with farmers on the benefits of no-till.