Tickets available now! Please order by October 31.

https://buytickets.at/johngneihardtstatehistoricsite/1384636

Join us for the John G. Neihardt Foundation's only fundraiser of the year: the 25th Annual Laureate's Feast Gala, honoring Walt and Linda Duda as Word Senders!

Spend the evening enjoying a meal prepared by Native American Chef Anthony Warrior, drinking a selection of fine wines, bidding on enviable auction items, enjoying a short program emceed by Mike Kelly (author and previous Omaha World Herald columnist) - and best of all, supporting the work of the Neihardt Foundation!

Your support helps continue and expand the Foundation's programming, which this year has included the 49th Annual Neihardt Day celebration; monthly “Sunday at Museum” literary programs; the Cultural Connections summer camp for Native American school kids; and a Spring Conference focused on a mysterious monument built by Neihardt in honor of mountain man Hugh Glass, the subject of Neihardt’s “Song of Hugh Glass.” Most of these programs are offered for free.

By purchasing tickets or making a donation, you also help support the John G. Neihardt State Historic Site, a vibrant cultural and literary site in Bancroft, Nebraska.

Dress: Business Attire

The John G. Neihardt Foundation is a 501(C)3 non-profit organization. Donations and the cost of tickets are partially or fully tax exempt. Please contact your tax professional.

Thank you to Physician’s Mutual Insurance Company for donating printed materials, including invitations and posters.

Clara Bewick Colby was the adoptive mother or Zintka Laluni, or “Lost Bird,” a baby that survived the Wounded Knee Massacre, and this presentation will focus primarily on that chapter of Colby’s fascinating life. She was also one of the founders of the Beatrice Public Library in the late 1800s, and one of the most active and versatile participants in the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.

Speaker Laureen Riedesel was the Beatrice Public Library director for over 40 years (now retired) and is a popular speaker on many topics related to Nebraska history. 

Free and open to the public. Light reception afterwards.

This event is sponsored by the Nebraska Indian Community College (NICC). Visit https://www.thenicc.edu/. The Neihardt Foundation thanks them for their support.

Spend an afternoon in Poet’s Town!

Food and vendors 12-1; Program begins at 1 p.m.

Bring your lawn chairs or blankets and join us on the beautiful grounds of the Neihardt Center to celebrate Nebraska’s Poet Laureate! Learn more about the Hugh Glass Monument to Courage that now resides at the Neihardt Center, with unique perspectives offered by Neihardt’s Granddaughter Alexis Petri, and History Nebraska Archeologist Jennifer Banks. Nebraska State Poet Matt Mason will be the Master of Ceremonies and share his poems.

Featured speakers include:

• Matt Mason, Master of Ceremonies and Nebraska State Poet

• Alexis Petri, John Neihardt’s great-granddaughter, “A Prequel to the Song of Hugh Glass”

• Jennifer Banks, History Nebraska archeologist, “Digging Deep: How the materials left behind tell us about the past”

This event is free and open to the public.

Funded in part by the Cuming County Visitor’s Bureau

Falls City native and former World-Herald columnist Robert Nelson will retell the story of how a team of volunteers compiled and presented the evidence needed to successfully honor the heroic efforts of two of Falls City’s founders, abolitionists David and Ann Dorrington. The Dorringtons sheltered countless freedom seekers who made the harrowing journey north to escape slavery and the bounty hunters paid to return them south dead or alive. 

At great personal risk, the Dorringtons provided shelter for dozens of escaped slaves during the tense, pre-Civil War clashes between pro-slavery forces and abolitionists along the border between the then-Nebraska Territory and Kansas. It was known as the “bleeding Kansas” period, because of the raids and killings that took place. The Dorrington house and barn in Falls City is only the second location in Nebraska officially designated as a site of Underground Railroad activity.

Free and open to the public. A light reception will follow the presentation.

Cancelled by speaker because of a scheduling conflict.

John Neihardt and Mona Martinsen met and fell in love through letter-writing, meeting face-to-face for the first time the day before they got married. During this presentation, Lisa Nelson will share other important letters throughout history.

Nelson is the Service-Learning Director at Wayne State College, and among other activities teaches the Neihardt Scholars class. She is also a member of the Neihardt Foundation Board of Directors.

The presentation is free and open to the public. A light reception will follow.

THIS EVENT IS POST-PONED because of the snow and bitterly cold temperatures forecasted for this weekend.

Joe Starita discusses the legal, social and political importance of the landmark 1879 decision at which a judge declared that Ponca Chief Standing Bear was “a person” within the law and entitled to the same Constitutional protections as white citizens.

In 1877, Chief Standing Bear's Ponca Indian tribe was forcibly removed from their Nebraska homeland and marched to what was then known as Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), in what became the tribe's own Trail of Tears. "I Am a Man" chronicles what happened when Standing Bear set off on a 600-mile walk to return the body of his only son to their traditional burial ground. Along the way, it examines the complex relationship between the United States government and the small, peaceful tribe and the legal consequences of land swaps and broken treaties, while never losing sight of the heartbreaking journey the Ponca endured. It is also a story of the hope of a people still among us today.

Free and open to the public. Light reception after presentation.

Already established as an Indian fighter on the Great Plains, George Armstrong Custer’s 1872 visit to Nebraska wasn’t for war, but for entertainment. It was here he met the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia and Buffalo Bill Cody to engage in what is possibly the best-known big game hunt in the history of the world.

This presentation – told through the newspaper accounts, photographs and illustrations of the day – also covers the rapid transition of the five-year-old state of Nebraska, beginning with the fastest growing city on the frontier and ending with the relocation of the Indian tribes and disappearance of the buffalo herds of the Great Plains.

Free and open to the public. Light reception after presentation.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

Join us for a night of celebration at A View on State! Featuring 2023 Word Sender Jonis Agee, and 2023 Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate Aliyah American Horse. This in-person event is an opportunity to celebrate literature with like-minded people, enjoy a delicious meal, bid on unique literary (and other) treasures - all while supporting the work of the Neihardt Foundation. Don't miss out on this extraordinary gathering of wordsmiths and book lovers. Reserve your spot now!

JONIS AGEE is a creative writing professor and author of novels, short stories, and screenplays. Her novel “Bones of Paradise” was the 2022 One Book One Nebraska selection. She lived north of Omaha in a rural farming area until age 7, then moved to Missouri for several years before returning to Omaha, where she attended Central High School. She finished college at the University of Iowa, and recieved her M.A. and Ph.D. in English form SUNY Binghamton in Binghamton, NY. She lived in Los Angeles, CA and taught at the college level in Minnesota and Michigan and Minnesota again before returning to Nebraska where she is Adele Hall Professor of English. "I own land in the sandhills of Nebraska, outside Valentine and continue to go there for peace and quiet and inspiration." Several of her novels have been set in the Sandhills, including Strange Angels, The Weight of Dreams, and The Bones of Paradise.

ALIYAH AMERICAN HORSE graduated from Gordon-Rushville High school and plans to continue her education at Black Hills State University. She plans to study Human Services and become a licensed substance abuse counselor. She is an artist, poet, musician, actress and advocate for all that she is passionate about, including helping Native American communities, equal rights, and destigmatizing mental health and addiction. Her passions shine through in all of her artistic work. She has received many awards in journalism, including a State championship for editorial cartooning. In 2022 she received first place prize in the Nebraskans For The Arts Poetry Advocacy contest where her poetry was published. She has spent her entire life dedicated to family, friends, and school, so it is no doubt that she will spend the rest of her life in dedication to helping the world.

Join authors Evelyn V. McKnight and Travis T. Bennington for a fascinating part of Nebraska history that isn’t widely known - but needs to be. “A Never Event: Exposing the Largest Outbreak of Hepatitis C in the American Healthcare Industry,” reads like a page-turner detective novel, but it’s all too true, and it happened in Nebraska. Written by a survivor of the tragedy and an attorney who represented many of the victims, this is a story of recklessness, deception, and betrayal by the person these patients should have been able to trust the most: their physician, a man who, when the outbreak was discovered, fled the US for his native country in the Middle East.

In the small, farming community of Fremont, Nebraska, townspeople eagerly welcomed an acclaimed doctor as the first full-time oncologist at the new, local cancer treatment center. But the fanfare soon turned into a nightmare. During chemotherapy treatments, 857 patients who were already waging the fights of their lives against cancer were inexplicably exposed to the deadly, blood-borne hepatitis C virus. At least 99 of them contracted the lethal illness. The horror was unprecedented as this was the largest healthcare-transmitted outbreak of hepatitis C in American history, and remains so to this date.

A Never Event - a term used to describe a preventable medical tragedy - is a searing account of the health challenges these patients encountered and their quest for justice.

There will be a book signing after the presentation.

Light reception to follow. Free and open to the public.

Wynema Morris provides a look at the holistic view Native American peoples have of water, drawing comparisons between the Native and Euro-American views. The presentation includes the values of spirituality and religion, time, nature, sharing and acquisition, cooperation.

Morris is a member of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska and resides on the Omaha Reservation at Walthill, Nebraska. She has taught at the Nebraska Indian College for the past 15 years, at the former Dana College in Blair, and currently at the NICC. Her areas of expertise in Native American Studies focus on Omaha Tribal History, Omaha Culture and Tradition, NA Philosophy, US-American Indian Relations, Tribal Government, and Federal Indian Law.

Free and open to the public. Light reception will follow presentation.

A celebration of things John loved on the 50th anniversary year of his passing.

Bring your chairs and blankets and join us for this free, fun, family-friendly event! Featuring:

-Chef Anthony Warrior, who will do a session on Native food and cook for us

-Matt Mason, Nebraska State Poet

-Aliyah American Horse, Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate

-Dan Holtz, Nebraska Through Story and Song

Note that there will not be a lunch for purchase this year, and food will be provided by Chef Anthony. The Kai family, who usually has sandwiches for sale, is taking a well-deserved vacation this year.

Put in at the park in Scribner; take out at the bridge north of Hooper. Enjoy a scenic rock bluff along the way! The float is 3-4 hours.

BRING YOUR OWN kayak, canoe, or tube.

No registration or fee.

This float commemorates Neihardt’s 2,000 mile trip down the Missouri River in a 20-foot-long canoe in 1908, chronicled in his book “The River & I.”

(RE-SCHEDULED FROM MAY 7)

Buzz on over to the Neihardt Center on Sunday, June 4!

Did you know that 70% of our native bees nest in the ground? Or that honey bees are a European species brought to this country with immigrants in the 1600’s? Or that different species of bees have different structures for carrying pollen?

Join Belinda Greiner, Nebraska Master Naturalist and an Ambassador for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, for a presentation on pollinator conservation and ecology with a special emphasis on the diversity and life cycles of our native bees. Appropriate for all ages - bring your kids, your gardeners, your favorite science teacher!

We will have a sign-up for people who want to volunteer to be on a Neihardt Foundation Gardening Club to help us determine what to plant and help keep the grounds looking nice!

The program is free and open to the public, with a light reception to follow.

Register here!

Strong literary tradition. Inspiring landscape. Compelling history. Is it any wonder that so many great writers are found in Nebraska?

We know that you will leave this conference inspired to read. We anticipate that you will also leave inspired to pick up a pen and continue the great tradition of Writing Nebraska.

Don Hickey, Hidden Nebraska

Jonis Agee, Bones of Paradise, One Book One Nebraska selection, 2022

Rick Cypert on Mignon Eberhardt, "The Mystery of Hunting's End," One Book One Nebraska selection, 2023

Donna Durrette, At Home with Mrs. [Bess Streeter] Aldrich

James Schaap, Small Wonders: a few Nebraska Stories

Tim Anderson, New Life for Old Heroes

LUNCH will be held at the church next door: homemade lasagna with meat sauce or vegetarian, salad, dessert, and drink. Lunch requires a ticket, but attendees may bring their own lunch if they would like to.

SPONSORED BY Humanities Nebraska, Nebraska Cultural Endowment, Wayne State College, John G. Neihardt Foundation.

CANCELED because of heavy snowfall in the area where the speaker lives. We will reschedule as soon as possible.

Join authors Evelyn V. McKnight and Travis T. Bennington for a fascinating part of Nebraska history that isn’t widely known - but needs to be. “A Never Event: Exposing the Largest Outbreak of Hepatitis C in the American Healthcare Industry,” reads like a page-turner detective novel, but it’s all too true, and it happened in Nebraska. Written by a survivor of the tragedy and an attorney who represented many of the victims, this is a story of recklessness, deception, and betrayal by the person these patients should have been able to trust the most: their physician, a man who, when the outbreak was discovered, fled the US for his native country in the Middle East.

In the small, farming community of Fremont, Nebraska, townspeople eagerly welcomed an acclaimed doctor as the first full-time oncologist at the new, local cancer treatment center. But the fanfare soon turned into a nightmare. During chemotherapy treatments, 857 patients who were already waging the fights of their lives against cancer were inexplicably exposed to the deadly, blood-borne hepatitis C virus. At least 99 of them contracted the lethal illness. The horror was unprecedented as this was the largest healthcare-transmitted outbreak of hepatitis C in American history, and remains so to this date.

A Never Event - a term used to describe a preventable medical tragedy - is a searing account of the health challenges these patients encountered and their quest for justice.

There will be a book signing after the presentation.

Light reception to follow. Free and open to the public.

He was a poet and author, and she was a sculptor, and together they built a life based on something they called the “higher values” of art and beauty.

John G. Neihardt, Nebraska’s poet laureate, proposed to Mona Martinsen—and she accepted—before they had set eyes on one another. He was a poet and author, and she was a sculptor, and together they built a life based on something they called the “higher values” of art and beauty. Though to a large extent she set aside her own art for the sake of her husband’s, Mona was integral to his work, advising him and contributing to a life that made his work possible.

Free and open to the public!

A buffet-style high tea will follow the presentation as a special thank you to our supporters. This will be provided by Jean Beckman of Our Specialtea of Fremont, NE. Registration is requested to help estimate our food needs, but there is no charge. Please call 402-648-3388 or emailing neihardt@gpcom.net to register.

Tim Anderson, who grew up in Oakland, Neb., has taught visual literacy, news design, advanced editing, magazine editing and design, beginning reporting, depth reporting, NewsNetNebraska and a graduate seminar in media management.

Before returning to teach at University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2005, Anderson worked for more than 30 years in newspapers in Nebraska, Missouri, Florida and New York. He got his start on his hometown weekly newspaper, the Oakland Independent, and also worked for the Albion News and the Seward County Independent, two other Nebraska weeklies. In addition, he worked for the Lincoln Journal and the Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska, the Kansas City (Mo.) Times, the Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press and the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle. He later spent nine years at New York Newsday, eventually becoming executive news editor, and another nine years at The New York Times, where he served as the news design editor.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1974 and a master’s degree in history from University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2007.

Just in time for holiday family get-togethers and story-sharing, this presentation focuses on the ways writers can use family stories and history to write literature. Sometimes the voices in our heads are enough. Sometimes we need to look beyond the boundaries of self to find the best that is within us. This presentation discusses the ways to excavate history, both our own and the world’s, as a way to finding the true stories only we can write.

Karen Gettert Shoemaker is the author of the novel The Meaning of Names (Red Hen Press, 2014) and Night Sounds and Other Stories (Dufour Editions, 2002; UK edition – Parthian Press, 2006). She has published stories in the Prairie Schooner, the London Independent, The South Dakota Review, Fugue, Kalliope, and others. Her stories and poems have been anthologized in A Different Plain: Contemporary Nebraska Fiction Writers; Times of Sorrow/Times of Grace; An Untidy Season; and Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Poetry.

She has received fellowships to Brush Creek Ranch Artist Colony and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. She is the recipient of a Nebraska Center for the Book Award for Fiction; two Independent Artist Fellowships from the Nebraska Arts Council, and a Nebraska Press Award for Feature Writing. She is a faculty mentor with the University of Nebraska MFA in Writing Program.

FREE and open to the public.

Tickets on sale now!

$100 General Admission

$50 Board Members

$1,000 Sponsors (8 seat table)

Join us for the Neihardt Foundation’s Annual Fundraising Event, featuring 2022 Word Sender recipient Paul Hedren, author and historian; and Tanya Bashu, Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate .

From his Amazon.com profile:

Paul Hedren retired from the National Park Service in 2007 after some thirty-seven years as a park historian and superintendent at such storied places as Fort Laramie, Wyoming, the Golden Spike Site in Utah, Fort Union in North Dakota, and the Niobrara Scenic River in Nebraska. He devotes his time now to writing.

Paul is the author of scores of scholarly and popular articles appearing in magazines and journals far and wide, plus twelve books, nearly all pertaining to the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. He particularly enjoys studying and interpreting that conflict’s subtleties and consequences, though he has also written about its great battles.

Paul has won numerous writing awards including a Spur from the Western Writers of America, the Vivian Paladin Award from the Montana Historical Society, and the Herbert Schell Award from the South Dakota State Historical Society. His 2011 book After Custer: Loss and Transformation in Sioux Country won a prestigious Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and also the Sills Book Prize from the Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association (CBHMA). His 2016 book, Powder River: Disastrous Opening of the Great Sioux War, received the John M. Carroll Award from the Little Big Horn Associates and that year's Sills Book Prize from CBHMA.

Paul's twelfth book, Rosebud, June 17, 1876: Prelude to the Little Big Horn, a fresh history of that phenomenal fight occurring just eight days before the Custer battle, was released in April 2019. A thirteenth book, John Finerty Reports the Sioux War, will be released by the University of Oklahoma Press in July 2020.

Speaker: Nancy Gillis

From earliest contact, the push for civilizing and Christianizing indigenous peoples through various educational models has seen many success stories and yet too many with tragic results. To grasp the bright future educators see today, we must look at the circuitous route Indian Education has taken in our past, by examining its failures and striving together to keep its promises.

Free event, everyone welcome!

Join Marilyn Hoegemeyer as she shares stories from her book, “Listening to Corn Grow: My Childhood on a Nebraska Farm.”

On her web site, there is a photo of Marilyn standing in 20 acres of never-plowed prairie land, part of her great-grandfather's 1870 homestead in northeastern Nebraska. This book is a collection of her memories growing up in the 1940s and 1950s on the family's nearby corn-breeding farm, and attending a one-room country school.

The book will be available for purchase. A signing and reception will follow.

This event is FREE and open to the public.

Join us for a celebration of Native American culture!

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch is $10 and available beginning at 11:30 a.m.

Bring your lawn chairs or blankets and join us on the lawn. Event will move indoors if it rains.

• Master of Ceremonies: Ron Hull

• Blessing Ceremony: Will Maxwell

• Performance by Many Moccasins dance troupe

• Fashion show of ribbon skirts and beaded jewelry by students of Cultural Connections Summer Camp

• Performance by Janiyah Earth, singer

• Vogt Volunteer Award presentation

• Opening exhibit of Native American rugs, baskets, and pottery donated by Katherine Reynolds

Join the John Neihardt Foundation for its 2nd annual "River and I" Float down the scenic Logan Creek near Bancroft. The water level this year is perfect!

Rain or shine!

Kayakers, canoers, and float tubers will gather at Ru-De's Mart in Bancroft at 9 a.m., and then shuttle to the put-in point at Pender. It's a four-hour float down the creek to the take-out point in Bancroft, which is just north of Ru-De's.

BRING YOUR OWN kayak, canoe, or tube.

For $30, participants will get a T-shirt, bottled water, and a snack for the river. Shuttle service is available from Ru-De's to the Pender put-in spot. Register the morning of the float at Ru-De's.

Participants will be required to sign a waiver. Those under the age of 18 will need a guardian to sign.

This is a fun, non-competitive float that will serve as a prelude to the annual Neihardt Day program at the John G. Neihardt State Historic Site in Bancroft, which will be on Sunday, August 7, at 1 p.m. That event is free of charge (a lunch will be available for purchase).

"The River and I" is a book written by Neihardt that chronicles the author's 1908 trip down the Missouri River in a 20-foot-long canoe. It's a favorite of many Neihardtians that describes an adventurous trip down the mighty river  -- a major influence on Neihardt -- a century after the Lewis & Clark Expedition and before dams were constructed.

John G. Neihardt famously wrote: “Poetry is indeed the supreme form of human expression” and for Neihardt, poetry was also a mystical path that led him round the Sacred Hoop in Black Elk’s vision. For poets on this sacred path, writing is a way of seeing, of walking, of living; it is a life’s work that enlivens the poet and the listener. The words of Black Elk as recorded by Neihardt and Neihardt’s own poetry both create and reveal the Sacred Hoop vision. Our own works of creativity can lead us on this sacred path into the heart of the earth community.

Jack Phillips and colleagues from The Naturalist School will lead a Sacred Hoop-themed poetry workshop with prompts taken from Black Elk Speaks. Participants will write in small groups in the Sacred Hoop Garden and other sites on the grounds. Each group will contribute lines to create a collaborative poem to be shared at a future poetry reading at the Center. No prior writing experience required. This workshop is intended for adults, but children may attend with an adult family member. 

Please bring a notebook, journal, or something to write on!

Jack Phillips is a poet, nature-writer, naturalist, and Principal of The Naturalist School. Read some of Jack’s Black Elk-inspired poetry at https://www.thepoetmagazine.org/jack-phillips---usa

Learn about The Naturalist School at www.thenaturalistschool.org 

Join us for this incredible, spiritual experience to commemorate the day that Black Elk took Neihardt to the top of Black Elk Peak in the Black Hills of South Dakota to share his vision. Meet in the parking lot of Sylvan Lake at the trailhead by the visitor’s center, gather for a prayer led by Myron Pourier (great-great-grandson of Black Elk and Neihardt Foundation Board member), and set off on a self-paced hike.

No registration required. No fee. All are welcome to participate. Self-paced.

Meet at 8:30. Hike begins at 9:00.

Hike Time: 3-4 hours. Elevation Gain: 1100ft – 2200ft, depending on the route.

Hiking boots, walking sticks, lunch in a backpack, and bottled water are recommended.

For more information contact the Neihardt Foundation at 402-648-3388 or email neihardt@gpcom.net.

This event is organized by the John G. Neihardt Foundation. The Foundation assumes no liability.

Free admission. Masks are required for this event.