McGovern to be opening speaker at Sandoz Society conference

McGovern’s address will be entitled “A Time for War, A Time for Peace.” The theme of this year’s meeting is “The Tom Walker,” a novel written by Mari Sandoz in 1947 that centers around a family that has veterans from three wars—the Civil, World War I and World War II.

Now 83, McGovern attended Dakota Wesleyan University in his hometown of Mitchell, S.D., for two years before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in June 1942. He was a B-24 pilot in Europe during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was discharged from the military in July 1945, returned to Dakota Wesleyan and graduated in 1946.

He then earned a doctorate from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan for three years.

He was invited to speak at the Sandoz Conference by Dr. Ron Hull of Lincoln, long-time president of the Sandoz Society and once McGovern’s student at DWU.

McGovern served in the U.S. House of Representatives from South Dakota 1957-61 and in the U.S. Senate 1963-80. He was the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 1972. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 and was appointed the United Nations global ambassador on world hunger in 2001.

He has written 10 books and spoken at more than 1,200 colleges and universities around the world.

The conference will continue on Friday, March 31 with a full day of sessions on various military topics scheduled in the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center on the Chadron State campus. The topics will include “The War at Home in the West,” “Collateral Damage: Domestic Violence in The Tom Walker,” “Prisoners of War in the West,” “Hitler’s Boys in the Heart of Nebraska” and “Army Posts on the Northern Plains, 1965-1948.”

Several CSC faculty members, including Dr. Kathy Bahr, Dr. Matt Evertson, Dr. Joel Hyer, Dr. Randall Austin and Luke Perry, and graduate student Ann Greenia will be leading sessions or making presentations during the conference.

In addition, a short service in memory of Dr. Andrew Elkins, who taught in the Language and Literature Department at Chadron State for 19 years before going to Peru State as dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in July 2000, is planned for Friday at 11:30 a.m. Friday. Elkins died of cancer at age 52 just two years after he left CSC.

Dr. Michael Cartwright, a CSC professor of English and a long-time leader in the Sandoz Society, will give a history of the organization during a dinner Friday evening. Presentation of the “In the Spirit of Mari Sandoz Award” also will be made following the dinner.

A tour of the Dawes County Historical Museum south of Chadron is planned for Friday afternoon while a tour of Fort Robinson west of Crawford is scheduled for Saturday morning.

More information is available by calling the Sandoz Center at Chadron State College at 432-6401. Reservations may be made online at www.marisandoz.org.