Great Plains Anywhere

Rebecca Nagle talks about her book, "By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land" (Harper Collins Publishers, 2024), winner of the 2025 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize from the Center for Great Plains Studies. Nagle is an award-winning journalist and a citizen of Cherokee Nation living in Oklahoma. She is the writer and host of the podca...

On this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with the co-editors of the new edition of "Nebraska Government and Politics," a book that provides background and context to the origins of Nebraska's political culture and institutions. Robert Blair is a professor emeritus at the School of Public Administration at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Christian Janousek is an assistan...

Great Plains Anywhere talks with Tabitha Hughes, a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska's School of Natural Resources. Hughes is the lead author on a new study tracking the movement of elk in Nebraska, published in the journal of "Biological Conservation." We talk about the history of elk in Nebraska, where they're located now, and how they migrate through the area. Hug...

Meet Elijah Riley, Founder & Executive Director, and Kyndal Hudson, Operations Director, with Big Gumdrop Outdoors, a new Nebraska non-profit dedicated to educating underserved youth about nature. The Community Partner in Residence program at the Center for Great Plains Studies is a new program designed to promote greater collaboration between the Center and community organizations in the Linc...

A team from Wichita State University's Department of History is documenting queer history in Wichita, Kansas, in a new photo history book from Arcadia Publishing. Dr. Jay Price, chair of history of WSU has overseen a series of photo history books about different historical topics in the region, with the newest one focused on the deep history of the LGBTQ community in Wichita. Our student story...

Cory DeRoin speaks about his experience as mixoge, an Otoe word translated as "sacred person" — someone who possesses a masculine and feminine spirit. DeRoin, a proud member of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe and the Bear Clan, is the current mayor of Red Rock, Okla., and is deeply committed to supporting tribal communities culturally, spiritually, and economically. DeRoin’s volunteer work includes volun...

Student Storyteller Kaitlyn Richards' podcast takeover continues with an interview with Mar Lee (they/them). Mar is a Nebraskan who has spent years organizing and advocating with community members across the state on issues related to queer liberation, food production and access, sexual and domestic violence prevention, and much more. Hear about their journey from a growing up in a rural commu...

Student Storyteller Kaitlyn Richards' podcast takeover continues with an interview with Jennifer Lentfer, a poet and artist as well as a communications strategist. Jennifer responded to Kaitlyn's call for for people to tell their story of life as an LGBTQ+ person living on the Plains.

During the spring semester, Great Plains Student Storyteller Kaitlyn Richards is doing a podcast takeover! Instead of our regular Great Plains Anywhere episodes, she is hosting Pride in the Plains, a podcast dedicated to amplifying queer voices across the often-overlooked Great Plains region. We asked our audience to share their stories of being LGBTQ+ on the Great Plains, so this episode features...

For the spring semester of 2025, our Great Plains Student Storyteller is doing a podcast takeover! Kaitlyn Richards is a masters student in the School of Natural Resources at UNL. This semester, she is hosting Pride in the Plains, a podcast dedicated to amplifying queer voices across the often-overlooked Great Plains region.

In this episode, we talk with Dr. John DeLong about his work studying climate adaptation and predator-prey interactions, tracking how both adapt and evolve to better fit their surroundings, from the smallest microscopic creatures to large birds of prey. Dr. DeLong is an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is also the Director of the university's...

In this episode, Stephen Bridenstine, assistant director of the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kansas, talks about what the Flint Hills are, who cares for the land, and how people can experience this unique landscape. The Discovery Center's mission is to inspire people to celebrate, explore, and care for the Flint Hills with an array of exhibits and programs meant to educate about...

Rosalyn LaPier is an award winning Indigenous writer, environmental historian, ethnobotanist, and professor at the University of Illinois. She works within Indigenous communities to revitalize traditional ecological knowledge, to address the growing climate crisis, and to strengthen public policy around Indigenous languages. LaPier is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis.

Quincy Vagell is a meteorologist and storm chaser who travels the country documenting and researching severe weather. Previously he worked as a meteorologist for The Weather Channel and doing on-air broadcasting for TV. As a storm chaser for the last decade, Vagell has visited all but a handful of counties in the Great Plains. We spoke with him about severe weather and why the Great Plains is idea...

This episode of Great Plains Anywhere features Carson Vaughan, the author of "Zoo Nebraska" and a journalist who covers the Great Plains region. His recent works include covering the October 2022 Bovee Fire at the Nebraska National Forest Bessey Ranger district and writing about author Mari Sandoz.

In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with John Wunder, Emeritus Professor of History and former Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies. Though he spent his career studying the history and cultures of the Plains, his recent work has shifted into creative prose poetry about growing up in the region. We talked with Professor Wunder and asked him to share a poem about Great Plain...

In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with Taylor Brorby, the author of "Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land" ( 2022 ) and co-editor of "Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America." He regularly speaks around the country on issues related to extractive economies, queerness, disability, and climate change. He is the Annie Tanner Clark Fellow in Environmenta...

In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we visit the Indigenous Garden on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's East Campus with Ted Hibbeler, Tribal Extension Educator at UNL and a member of the Iron Shell family from the Rosebud Sioux Nation in South Dakota. The Indigenous Food Sovereignty Program welcomes Lincoln Public School Native students onto East Campus to engage with Native elders and U...

In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with John O'Keefe, a professor of Theology and Journalism at Creighton University and the documentary filmmaker behind the film "The Last Prairie." The film examines Nebraska's Sandhills through the perspectives of ecologists, the people who live and work there, and the Lakota people whose ancestors were driven off the land. The Center is hosting a...

In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we talk with Beth Dotan a Ph. D. candidate in Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education at UNL. Dotan helps lead a multidisciplinary digital humanities project to document and tell the stories of Nebraskans during World War II titled "Nebraska Stories of Humanity: Holocaust Survivors and World War II Veterans."

In this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we spoke with Brian M. Kelly, licensed architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, on his research into the design and construction of the decommissioned, underground vertical Atlas-F missile silos in the prairies of the Great Plains during the 1960s. This talk is part of the Paul A. Olson Great Plains lect...

In this episode, we talk with Dr. David Vail, Associate Professor of History at the University of Nebraska at Kearney who specializes in environmental and agricultural history, history of science, technology, and medicine, and public history. In this interview, Dr. Vail talks about his book on the history of agricultural chemicals and dives into his new work looking at the interplay between cultur...

For this episode of Great Plains Anywhere, we're sharing a portion of an interview from a multimedia project called "Reconciliation Rising," which showcases the lives and work of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who are engaged in creating pathways toward reconciliation by confronting painful histories and promoting meaningful dialogue. This interview features Deb Echo-Hawk, the Keeper of the...

In this panel discussion, team members from the Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project and community members will share the lasting impact of the Genoa Indian Boarding School in Nebraska. The Genoa School was one of over 300 Indian boarding schools that were established by the government and churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1900, nearly 21,000 Indian children were...

In this episode, we spoke with Dr. Craig Allen, Director of the new Center for Resilience in Agricultural Working Landscapes, and Dr. Walt Schacht, Interim Director of the Center for Grassland Studies. Together, the two centers are working with landowners to research and test out the viability of different rangeland management techniques, especially in the Sandhills. In this interview, they discus...