Press Room
Press Contacts
- If you are looking for even more in-depth information, simply contact the Center or the Chadron State College Media Relations department.
- For information, contact Sarah Polak, Center Director, at 308-432-6401 or Justin Haag, Media and Public Relations Coordinator for Chadron State College at 308-432-6213.
- So we can best serve you, please identify your specific interest or need, the media outlet you are representing, and a phone number and address where you can be reached
General Center Facts and History
- The Center is supported by funding from Chadron State College as well as private endowments established to support the mission and work of the Center.
- After achieving success as an author, Mari Sandoz often expressed a hope that an educational and cultural facility depicting the heritage of the region she considered home would be developed. Years later, that hope has become reality when the Center was opened in the Fall of 2002.
- The idea for the Center was formalized on May 11, 1971 - The Mari Sandoz Heritage Fund is created as a sub –agency of the Chadron State Foundation. The Fund Committee is comprised of faculty, students, and representatives from the communications media, historical agencies, and interested lay persons.
- In 1972, Chadron State College provides a room on the ground floor of the college library to house the donations of letters, papers, publications, and other memorabilia connected with Mari Sandoz and her interests. In the Spring of 1991,the Mari Sandoz Heritage Room opened on the second floor of the Administration Building at Chadron State to exhibit scores of items pertaining to Mari Sandoz that primarily had been collected by Lloy Chamberlin and displayed in the Chamberlin’s furniture store in Gordon. This room also contains the items formerly held in the College’s library.
- An announcement is made in the Winter of 1992 for the beginning of fundraising for the Mari Sandoz Center for High Plains Research. Planned to be for the former Chadron State College Library, The Center will be “an ongoing project that will preserve the archival history of the region. It will include information on pre-history, Native Americans, cowboys, homesteaders, railroaders, the various ethnic groups, the whole mix. It would have broad appeal and bring in people from all over.” However, fundraising does not begin in earnest until March 1999.
- September 2000 - The First National Bank of North Platte agrees to purchase a life-sized bronze sculpture of Mari Sandoz cast by award-winning artist George Lundeen of Loveland, Colo. The sculpture will be placed in front of the Heritage Center.
- February 2002 - The Nebraska Department of Roads awards a grant to construct a mile-long, 8-foot wide concrete Heritage Trail leading from the Heritage Center to the Thompson Natural History Preserve on the southern edge of the Chadron State campus. The Pine Ridge Trails Association provided funds to help meet the match that was required.
- September 9, 2002 – The Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center opens on the Campus of Chadron State College.
- March 2004 – Sarah Polak is hired as the Center’s Director. Polak is a graduate of Rockhurst University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to her arrival at Chadron State, Polak was director of the Plainsman Museum in Aurora, Nebraska.
- September 2006 - Heritage Gardens Open
- The Center is the only unit or department in the Nebraska State College System to offer Endowed Internships.
- The Center is home to one of nine Undergraduate Museum Studies programs in the nation.
- The Center averages visitation of over 5,000 people per year.
Press Tours of the Center
- To arrange a Press Tour of the Center, please contact Center Director Sarah Polak or Justin Haag, Chadron State College Media Relations Department