Comings and Goings at Raintree House

Lee W. Formwalt

This summer is a season for good-byes and welcomes here at Raintree House. Two of our Indiana University graduate student assistants will be leaving to complete their dissertations. OAH Newsletter Associate Editor Roark Atkinson finishes his five-year tour of duty here with this issue of the Newsletter and will complete his study of popular healing in the eighteenth-century South under the direction of Steven Stowe. OAH Marketing Director Damon Freeman, also an OAH-IU Minority Fellow, leaves us after five years to complete his dissertation on African American psychologist Kenneth Clarke, directed by Lawrence Friedman.

Replacing Atkinson is Phillip Guerty who is currently in his second year at Indiana University pursing a Ph.D. in modern British history. Before returning to graduate school, Guerty worked as a managing editor at Jury Verdict Research® in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and also taught American history at Palm Beach Community College.

Our new marketing director is Annette Windhorn, who comes to Bloomington from Washington where she has served as marketing director for the Smithsonian Institution Press. Windhorn, a graduate of Duke University, has worked at Duke University Press and University of Nebraska Press.

Amidst these departures and new arrivals, we celebrate Committee Coordinator Kara Hamm's fifteen years of service at OAH headquarters. Kara who was Awards Committee Coordinator for several years recently added the service committees to her portfolio. The organization is fortunate to have such devoted, skilled, and longtime employees like Kara at Raintree House.

I want to draw your attention to OAH's new venture into the world of radio (see p. 1). Beginning last month, OAH is a cosponsor of a half-hour radio program, Talking History, available on public radio stations around the country. If your station does not carry this program, please ask them to do so.

The OAH Distinguished Lectureship Series has been expanded significantly with the appointment of twenty-five new lecturers by President Darlene Clark Hine. Please take a look at our new lecturers in the enclosed insert and recommend that your department or institution arrange for one of them to visit. Not only will you hear a first-class presentation by a leading scholar, but OAH will receive the lectureship fee as a contribution.

Finally, beginning with this issue of the Newsletter, OAH Deputy Director John R. Dichtl will provide a semi-annual column on the organization and the profession. Dichtl, who has worked nine years at OAH in a variety of capacities, including assistant editor of the Newsletter, and acting executive director, received his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2000. In him we find an excellent blend of scholar, teacher, and public historian.