Willard Hughes Rollings
| Willard Hughes Rollings
(Historian of Native Americans) | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 8, 1948 Farmington, San Juan County New Mexico, USA |
| Died | July 30, 2008 (aged 59) Paradise, Clark County, Nevada Resting place: |
| Spouse | Barbara J. Williams Rollings
Alma mater:
|
Willard Hughes Rollings (September 8, 1948 – July 30, 2008) was a New Mexico-born historian of indigenous peoples, particularly Native Americans.[1]
Biography
Rollings was born in Farmington in northwestern New Mexico to Ira Lee Rollings (1903-1953), who died when Willard was only five years of age, and the former Georgia Luella Hughes (1918–1987). The parents are interred at Socorro Cemetery in Socorro, New Mexico, as are Rollings and his wife.[2] Rollings was reared and graduated from high school in Socorro in the Rio Grande Valley of west central New Mexico. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971 and his Master of Arts in 1975, both in history, from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, and his Ph.D. in 1983 from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He was appointed to the history faculty of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in 1989 and became a full professor in 2005. Previously, he taught at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, Texas Tech, and at high schools in Socorro and New Laguna, New Mexico, and Valencia, Venezuela.[1]
Of Cherokee descent, Rollings authored four books and numerous essays on Indian history, including studies of the Osage and Comanche tribes. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois, and was a Fulbright Scholarship to New Zealand, where he studied the culture and history of the Māori and also spent time in Christchurch and Wellington.[1]
At UNLV, he taught the history of the American West, Native American history, and Nevada history. He was involved in the establishment of UNLV's first Ph.D. program in the history of the American West.[3] Rollings died ten days before his sixtieth birthday at Desert Springs Hospital in Paradise, a Las Vegas suburb. He was predeceased by his wife, Barbara J. Williams Rollings (1953-2007), a former UNLV Special Projects Coordinator who died at the age of fifty-four, fifteen months before the passing of her husband.[4]
Books
- Unaffected by the Gospel: Osage Resistance to the Christian Invasion, 1673 – 1906: A Cultural Victory (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004).[5]
- The Comanche. The Indians of North America Series, (New York City: Chelsea House, 1989), revised ed.,2004.[6]
- The Osage: An Ethnohistorical Study of Hegemony on the Prairie-Plains (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992).
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Willard Hughes Rollings. Finadgrave.com, based on Las Vegas Review-Journal obituary (August 3, 2008). Retrieved on May 2, 2020.
- ↑ Georgie Luella Hughes Rollings. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on May 2, 2020.
- ↑ Obituary: Willard Hughes Rollings, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, August 3, 2008.
- ↑ Barbara J. Rollings. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on May 2, 2020.
- ↑ Book Review: Unaffected by the Gospel: Osage Resistance to the Christian Invasion, 1673-1906: A Cultural Victory. Great Plains Quarterly (January 1, 2005). Retrieved on May 2, 2020.
- ↑ Willard Hughes Rollings - Bio, Facts, Family, Famous Birthdays. Famousbirthdays.com. Retrieved on May 2, 2020.
