Lincoln, NE - History Nebraska has announced the first four members of the Historic Marker Equity Committee, which will review, and select grant applications for historic markers that represent underserved communities and people. 

The first four members of the committee will include Eric Ewing, Dr. Heather Fryer, Vickie Schaepler, and Dr. Nathan Tye. Autumn Langemeier, Historic Marker Equity Program Coordinator, who will also serve on the committee says, “I am excited to work with these individuals on the Historic Marker Equity Program. Their input will allow us to fill in those gaps and represent the full nature of Nebraska history for all Nebraskans.” 

Langemeier also says that they will add two to four more people in near future. “We want to bring many perspectives to this committee in order to represent as many groups and topics as possible.”

Langemeier expects the first grant cycle to open before the end of the month.

The Historic Marker Equity Program was created thanks to the efforts of State Senator Justin Wayne of Omaha and the 2021 Nebraska legislature to assist History Nebraska in identifying diverse stories across the state to be told through the historical marker program. The funds will be used to offset the costs of new and replacement historical markers that meet diversity, equity, and inclusion criteria set by the Historical Marker Equity Program.

Eric Ewing is the Executive Director for the Great Plains Black History Museum in Omaha. He is retired from the United States Navy and holds an Associate Degree in General Studies from Vincennes University, an Undergraduate degree in Workforce Education from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a Graduate Degree in Management from Bellevue University, Graduate Certificate in Life Coaching from Bellevue University and Graduate Certificate in College Teaching from Capella University. He has worked in higher education as an Academic Dean, Manager of Academic Advising, an Adjunct Professor for Bellevue University, Metropolitan Community College, and Omaha School of Massage and Healthcare of Herzing University. Ewing serves on the Board of Directors for the Child Saving Institute as the Board Secretary, Stephen Center as the Board Treasure and Co-Chair of the 100 Black Men of Omaha’s Annual African American History Challenge. He is also on the Advisory Committee for Men Against Domestic Violence.

Dr. Heather Fryer is an Associate Professor of History at Creighton University. As a specialist in 20th century U.S. social and cultural history, Dr. Fryer offers courses on migration, labor, gender, social identity and community, collective memory, and conceptions of what it means to be "American" in the post-Reconstruction era. Her interest in "encounter" in the post-frontier West forms the unifying theme of her varied scholarly work. Her book, Perimeters of Democracy: Inverse Utopias and the Wartime Social Landscape in the American West reveals the prevalence of federal "reservations" in the West as part of a patterned response to racial and political anxieties in wartime. She has presented portions of her new project--an examination of the intersections of race, class, gender, and religion in the professional and private writings of anthropologist Rosalie Hankey Wax—at a variety of conferences and in journals including Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Dr. Fryer is also currently the editor of the journal Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research.

Vickie Sakurada Schaepler is Coordinator of the Japanese Hall and History Project at the Legacy of the Plains Museum in Gering, Nebraska. There, she leads an effort to preserve the history of the Japanese in Nebraska and the high plains. She was instrumental in raising funds, planning exhibits, and moving a Japanese Hall built in 1928 to the museum where this history will be showcased. Schaepler spent her career working with individuals with disabilities and medical conditions working for the Union Pacific Railroad, Burlington Northern Railroad and the State of Nebraska’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services. She has served on many boards, and most recently served as a past trustee on the History Nebraska Board of Trustees, the Buffalo County Historical Society Board and Kearney Area Community Foundation. She completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Kearney State College.

Dr. Nathan Tye is an assistant professor of history at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. Dr. Tye was born and raised in Kearney, Nebraska and holds a BA from Creighton University and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Tye’s specializes in Nebraska History, the history of the American West and Midwest, Labor History, Gender and Sexuality History, as well as Digital and Public History. His research documents the fascinating but misunderstood lives of hobos, tramps, and other transient workers that traveled across the West and Midwest by hopping trains from the 1870s through 1930s.

Autumn Langemeier is the Coordinator for the Historic Marker Equity Program at History Nebraska. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and Psychology and a Master of Arts in History from the University of Nebraska at Kearney where she later lectured as an adjunct professor. Her research has focused on textiles and domestic labor, modern American women’s history, and material culture. She has presented on the topic of women’s history at a variety of conferences and lectured on the importance of textile research in history. An exhibit she designed in partnership with museum director April White on the relationship between class and textiles is on display at the G.W. Frank Museum of History and Culture.

About History Nebraska

History Nebraska collects, preserves, and shares Nebraska’s history for all people. History Nebraska operates the Nebraska History Museum in Lincoln and historic sites around the state including Chimney Rock Museum, Fort Robinson History Center, Neligh Mill State Historic Site, Thomas Kennard State Historic Site, Senator George Norris State Historic Site, John Neihardt State Historic Site, and over 570 historical markers placed across Nebraska. History Nebraska administers the State Archives and Library; the State Historic Preservation Office; the Gerald R. Ford Conservation Center; the Office of the State Archeologist; publishes Nebraska History Magazine and books; and is responsible for the administration of the Nebraska Hall of Fame Commission. More at https://history.nebraska.gov and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

This press relase was released on April 14, 2022.