Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1991
Abstract
In 1936, when a young instructor named James Michener was offered a position at the Colorado State College of Education in Greeley, his faculty mentors at the Ohio State University summer school warned him not to accept the job: "The sands of the desert are white with the bones of promising young men who went West and perished trying to get back East" (ix). Undeterred, Michener did go to Greeley, where he taught at the school's College High until 1941. He also acquired a master's degree as well as the historical background that he incorporated into his 1974 novel, Centennial.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 11:2 (Spring 1991). Copyright © 1991 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.