2025 Award Winners | 2024 Award Winners | 2023 Award Winners | Nomination Forms
Click on each winner’s name to view their picture.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Mike Polston – for his service to Arkansas history as a teacher, scholar, curator, editor, and Association mainstay.
Nathania Sawyer introducing Mike Polston
George E. Lankford – for his many contributions to Arkansas studies in the fields of history, folklore, and archaeology.
David Stricklin introducing George E. Lankford
Diamond Award
University of Arkansas-Fort Smith for spearheading the restoration of the Willhaf House –an 19th-century immigrant, working-class home in Van Buren.
Arkansas State Archives – for expanding access to historical sources through its participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program
Tom Dillard Advocacy Award
Ozark Society – for its continuing advocacy for the preservation of Arkansas’s environment and environmental history.
Tom Dillard introducing the Dillard Award.
Joe Nix accepting for Ozark Society.
J. G. Ragsdale Book Award
Colin Woodward – Country Boy: The Roots of Johnny Cash
University of Arkansas Press – publisher of this year’s Ragsdale Book Award
James H. Atkinson Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Arkansas History
Linda D. Thrasher – for excellence in the teaching of Arkansas History in Jessieville Middle School, Jessieville
Lucille Westbrook Award
Blake Denton – for his outstanding contribution to local Arkansas history in his essay “‘The Order of the Day’: A Social History of Drew County Barbecues, 1895-1915”
Violet B. Gingles Award
Dr. John A. Kirk and co-authors – for his outstanding contribution to Arkansas history in his essay “From Lynching to Legal Lynching, Mob Justice to Courtroom Justice: The Arkansas ‘Scottsboro’ Cases of James X. Caruthers and Clear ‘Bubbles’ Clayton, 1935-1939” Co-Authors – Dora Bradley, Revis Edmonds, Emily Housdan, Kristen Miller, Harrison Mitchell, Britney Reding, and Kellie Solomon
Susannah DeBlack Award
Students of the Special Music School at Kaufman Music Center, NYC., Author and Illustrator – for best book in Arkansas history for young readers Who is Florence Price?: Young Musicians Tell the Story of a Girl and Her Music
Schirmer Trade Books – publisher
June Simmons, Author and Illustrator – for best book in Arkansas history for young readers Journey to Marlsgate
Total Publishing and Media – publisher
James L. Foster & Billy W. Beason Award
Lisa Childs – for her outstanding contribution to Arkansas history with her thesis “Forging Community in the Ouachita Foothills of Southwest Arkansas: Duckett Township, Homesteading, Distilling and Race”
Master Thesis, University of Arkansas System, Division of Agriculture
Award of Merit
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System – for the Mapping Downtown Little Rock project
George E. Wilson and Erin Jackson – for expanding access to historical sources through its participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program
Walter L. Brown County and Local Journal Awards
Best County or Local Journal
The Record
Garland County Historical Society, Liz Robbins, Editor
Honorable Mention
The Journal
Fort Smith Historical Society, Inc., Billy Higgins, Editor
Best Use of Graphics
Historical Bulletin
Grand Prairie Historical Society, Glenn Mosenthin, Editor
Best Article
Christopher Thrasher and Guy Lancaster, “Sympathy for Devils: Race, Insanity, and Contention in Garland County’s Two Legal Executions,”
The Record, Garland County Historical Society
Best Biography, Autobiography, or Memoir History
Robert D. Craig, “George C. Kell, Jackson County’s Baseball Hall of Famer,”
The Stream of History, Jackson County Historical Society
Best Family History
Katrina Windon, “Solid People in Unstable Times: Tabitha and William Taylor of Fayetteville, Arkansas,”
The Flashback, Washington County Historical Society
Best Church History
Mary Cooper Miller, “Methodist Churches in Izard County History,”
The Izard County Historian, Izard County Historical and Genealogical Society
Best Community History
Dan Durning, “The First Turnverein (Turner Society) and the Rise of Little Rock’s Community of German Speakers,”
Pulaski County Historical Review, Pulaski County Historical Society
Best School History
Rajendra Gupta, “The Inaugural Years of the University of Arkansas, Seen Through the Eyes of Its First Graduate,”
Flashback, Washington County Historical Society
Best Business History
H. Glenn Mosenthin, “Troubled Beginning to Worldwide Presence: Riceland Foods’ First Half-Century,”
Historical Bulletin, Grand Prairie Historical Society
Best Edited Document
Susan McMillan Lancaster and Jean McMillan Harper, “Belle Morrison’s Journal, Part 1,”
The Heritage, Hot Spring County Historical Society
Best Newsletter
Historical Society Newsletter,
Independence County Historical Society, Nelson Barnet, Editor