Paul Schullery, author and naturalist-ranger in Yellowstone National Park, will receive the Wallace Stegner Award from the University of Colorado's Center of the American West in a free public program on Wednesday, Feb. 17.
"At Home in Nature: Paul Schullery, Yellowstone's Citizen," will begin at 7 p.m. in the Old Main Chapel on the Â鶹¹ÙÍø campus. Making the award presentation and conversing with Schullery on stage will be CU-Â鶹¹ÙÍø history Professor Patricia Limerick and geography Professor Bill Riebsame.
Each year the Wallace Stegner Award recognizes an individual or individuals who have made a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the American West through literature, art, history or lore.
Schullery is the author, co-author or editor of 28 books, including 10 about Yellowstone. His books include "The Bears of Yellowstone," "Mountain Time," "Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness" and the forthcoming "Royal Coachman: The Lore and Legends of Fly Fishing." Books will be available for signing at the event.
At various times since 1972, Schullery has worked in Yellowstone as a ranger-naturalist, park archivist-historian, chief of cultural resources and senior editor. He currently works part-time for the park as a writer-editor and lives with his wife in Mammoth Hot Springs, the park's headquarters.
Schullery is an affiliate professor of history at Montana State University and an adjunct professor of American Studies at the University of Wyoming. He is the former executive director of the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vt., and is the author of "American Fly Fishing: A History."
Over many years, he has paid close attention to trout, bears, wolves, rivers, park employees and park visitors. As a result, he gained an intimate understanding of the national park, an understanding he shares in his 1997 book "Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness."
As independent-minded as he is tolerant and generous, Schullery both celebrates the pleasure and wisdom we can draw from national parks and looks squarely at the forces that put that pleasure and wisdom in jeopardy. When Schullery writes of his fellow human beings, his humor and good will are persistent and redemptive.
"I still don't think of myself as someone I should have heard of," he says.
For information call 303-492-4879.