Arrington Writing Award Winners Announced at Utah State University

Three students took top honors at the 2009 Leonard J. Arrington Writing Awards offered at Utah State University in conjunction with the annual Arrington Mormon History Lecture. For the first time in the award’s history, student winners represent two schools — the University of Utah and Utah State University.

 

Barbara Jones Brown, University of Utah, received the $1,000 first prize. The $500 second place award went to Blair Dee Hodges, University of Utah, and Audrey McConkie Merket, Utah State University, received the $250 third place prize.

 

The awards were presented at USU during the Friends of Merrill-Cazier Library spring lecture March 4. The essays were submitted to the competition following the fall Arrington lecture that featured author and scholar Kathleen Flake, who, through her research, provided a new look at the history and understanding of polygamy. The writing awards are provided by the Leonard J. Arrington Lecture and Archives Foundation.

 

“The writing award competition is open to students from any school in the region,” said Brad Cole of USU’s Special Collections and Archives and ex-officio member of the Leonard J. Arrington Foundation board. “We are pleased the interest in the competition and the Arrington Lecture continues to grow, generating interest beyond the lecture site. We congratulate this year’s winners.”

 

This year’s top essay was submitted by Brown, a graduate student of U.S. history who studies at the University of Utah. She was the content editor for “Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy” (Oxford University Press, 2008) and recently completed a biography of Lorna Call Alder, a centenarian born in 1906 to polygamous parents in the Mormon colonies of Mexico. Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Brigham Young University.

 

Second place winner Hodges also studies at the University of Utah. He will graduate in May 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in mass communications and a minor in religious studies. He has reported for Ogden’s “Standard Examiner” and the “Daily Utah Chronicle” and served as news editor of “The Signpost,” Weber State’s student newspaper. Blair is the author of “LifeOnGoldPlates.com”

 

Merket, the 2010 third-place winner, graduated from USU with a bachelor’s in English education and a minor in physical education. She said the research for her essay was greatly aided by the extensive library of polygamist literature owned by her grandfather, Leon F. Olsen. She is also a Boston Marathon qualifier.

 

The annual Arrington Mormon History Lecture is hosted by Special Collections and Archvies in USU’s Merrill-Cazier Library and is held each fall.

 

For information on the lecture or the writing competition, contact Cole at (435) 797-8268, or by email, brad.cole@usu.edu.

 

 

Writer: Patrick Williams, 435-797-1354