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BANCROFT – Nebraska Public Media has been named the recipient of the Wordsender Award by the John G. Neihardt Foundation, the group announced this week.
It credited the public broadcaster based in Lincoln as “an essential beacon of news concerning the state’s literary figures, the arts and the humanities.”
NPM, previously known as Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, interviewed Neihardt, known for writing “Black Elk Speaks,” including by one of its best-known broadcasters, Ron Hull.
Those discussions eventually led New York-based TV talk show host Dick Cavett to host Neihardt for a lengthier interview that Cavett — a Nebraska native — called one of his most memorable.
The group’s Wordsender Award honors people and organizations that share Neihardt’s writings, themes and how he wrote and felt about the frontier, Native Americans and more. “Wordsender” is how Black Elk described Neihardt, an author and poet who sent an accurate version his story to others.
NPM will receive the award Nov. 9, during the group’s “Laureate’s Feast” at Omaha’s German-American Society. Tickets are available at neihardt. org or the Neihardt State Historic Site at 402-648-3388.
