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Scholars, Lecturers, and Cultural Experts

Nancy Carlson has worked with many archaeological projects in Nebraska and will be our tour guide as we explore Pawnee sites in Nance County, Nebraska. She has an MA degree in Anthropology/Archaeology from UNL with a focus on the Great Plains. She was also instrumental in organizing the annual reunion of Genoa U.S. Indian School alumni for the past 20 years.

Judi gaiashkibos is Executive Director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs and has been in this position since 1995. The purpose of the Commission is to enhance the cause of Indian rights and to develop solutions to problems common to all Nebraska Indians. She is actively involved as a board member in many non-profit service organizations. She is an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and has a master's degree from Doane College.

Richard J. Gould has been the site Administrator at the Kansas State Historical Society's Pawnee Indian Museum State Historic Site for twenty years.  A graduate of Kansas State University, Manhattan with a master's degree in history, and Cloud County Community College, Concordia, Gould is a native of Concordia. 

Matt "Sitting Bear" Jones is an Otoe/Missouria who grew up on reservations in Oklahoma. He graduated from Haskell Indian Junior College, Lawrence, KS (A.A.), Wichita State University (B.A.) and has an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. He is a well known storyteller of Native American oral history and often serves as a Native American cultural consultant for various types of media.

Pat Leading Fox is a Pawnee Skidi band chief, and was recently re-selected as head chief of the Nasharo Council of the Pawnee Nation, representing the four Pawnee bands. Leading Fox has been active in many recent Pawnee celebrations in Nebraska and elsewhere. He represents the Pawnee each year at the Archway celebration in Kearney, and was present in 2009 when rare Pawnee corn from Oklahoma was planted in Nebraska. Leading Fox was also present in 2008 when sacred Pawnee ground known as Pahaku or Pahuk Hill, situated on a high bluff along the river south of Fremont was returned to his people. He also served as a consultant when the Adler Planetarium in Chicago developed a show centered around the Skidi Pawnee traditions. He resides in Pawnee, Oklahoma.

Christine Lesiak is a Peabody award-winning producer, director, and writer specializing in historical documentaries. She has produced many documentaries, including In The White Man's Image, which was named the best historical documentary of 1992 by the Organization of American Historians. Lesiak has spent 25 years researching, scripting and producing PBS historical documentaries that bring to life the experiences of Native Americans - especially those located on the Plains. She is currently Executive Producer for the Documentary Unit at Nebraska Educational Television (NET) in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Dr. Jean Lukesh was a public school librarian, media specialist, integration specialist, and classroom teacher for thirty years. She currently writes, edits, and publishes books for children and adults, gives history and writing presentations, and mentors other authors. Her 4th grade Nebraska Studies textbook Nebraska Adventure won the 2005 national Texty Award for Excellence in El-Hi Humanities/Social Sciences, the 2006 Nebraska Center for the Book Award, and the 2006 Moonshell Arts and Humanities Council's Children's Nonfiction Award. She has written several other books, including the 2011 Wolves in Blue: Stories of the North Brothers and their Pawnee Scouts.

Wynema Morris

Robert F. Palmquist is a Tucson attorney with the law firm of Strickland & Strickland. His practice for the past 19 years has focused almost exclusively on the representation of Indian tribal governments and tribal groups. Such work has included tribal water and land rights, Indian gaming, and trust issues. He was also recently hired as Special Water Counsel to the City of Tombstone, Arizona. Holding an BA (Pennsylvania State University, 1973) and MA (University of Arizona, 1990) in History, and JD from University of Pittsburgh School of Law (1976), Bob also teaches as an adjunct faculty member in history at Pima Community College, Northwest Campus, Tucson, Arizona; his classes, aside from basic survey courses, include History of Arizona, Western America and Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War. He has frequently published on western topics in both popular and scholarly history journals, and has presented papers since1991 at the Arizona Historical Convention. In June, 2010, he participated in this workshop as a community college instructor.

Dr. Beth Ritter is an associate professor of Anthropology and Director of Academic Programs, Native American Studies, at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. She has worked extensively with the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska since 1989 and has published several journal articles on Ponca culture and history as well as several scholarly research reports for the Tribe. Dr. Ritter is currently involved in researching nineteenth century Ponca history. Dr. Ritter's primary area of specialization is in federal Indian policy and contemporary Native American issues - e.g., gaming, health, dispossession, and repatriation.

Dr. Donna C. Roper received her Ph.D. in Anthropology, with emphasis in North American Archaeology, from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1975. She currently is a Research Associate Professor at Kansas State University. She has been involved with Pawnee archaeology since 1983. She has authored numerous reports and journal articles on topics related to Pawnee archaeology, including a review of Pawnee ethnohistory and archaeology in a recent volume devoted to Kansas archaeology. She is a co-editor and the author or co-author of several chapters in a recent book devoted to studies of Plains earth lodges - the first volume published in many decades that is devoted to this major form of native housing in North America.

Joe Starita is the Pike Professor of Journalism, News-Editorial Department, College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Previously, he spent 14 years at The Miami Herald - four years as the newspaper's New York Bureau Chief and four years on its Investigations Team, where he specialized in investigating the questionable practices of doctors, lawyers and judges. One of his stories was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. Interested since his youth in Native American history and culture, he returned to his native Nebraska in 1992. Starita did research for four years for his new book I Am a Man - Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice. It was published in January 2009 and has already gone into a third printing.

Becci White

Dr. David Wishart is professor and chair, Department of Anthropology and Geography, at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Dr. Wishart is a Historical Geographer who has written a number of books, including An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians (University of Nebraska Press, 1994), which won the J. B. Jackson Prize for the best scholarly book in North American Geography with appeal to a popular audience in 1995. This book was also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He also edited the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains (University of Nebraska Press, 2004.) At UNL he received the Distinguished Teaching Award.