RELATED INFORMATION Department of Anthropology

Donald Blakeslee, professor of anthropology at Wichita State University, has been awarded the Ferguson Prize for the best volume on Kansas history for 2011 by the Kansas Authors Club.
Blakeslee won the award at the Kansas Authors Club's annual convention in Coffeyville, Kan.

Donald Blakeslee

The club, which is the oldest writers club in the United States, annually awards prizes for several categories of books.
Blakeslee's book, "Holy Ground, Healing Water," is based on his archaeological work at Waconda Lake in north central Kansas and on his research on native trails and Plains Indian sacred sites.

Published by Texas A&M University Press, the volume provides a deep history of the cultural meanings of the landscape there, including natural and manmade features.

"(Blakeslee) has produced a volume which is appealing and approachable to both an academic and a general audience," said Eric Anderson of Haskell Indian Nations University, who nominated the book for the prize. "Those intrigued by American Indians, the 'sod and stubble' days of homesteaders, utopian movements in Kansas, and broad patterns of economic, cultural and ethnographic tumult will find much to like here."