Nancy Bierman

Nancy Bierman, a native of Jackson, Mississippi, grew up with a love of Southern literature and served on the National Advisory Board of the Eudora Welty Home. She llived in Dallas, TX for about 40 years and serves on several community boards, including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, The Family Place for Domestic Violence, and Methodist HealthCare Systems. Her husband is from Hastings, Nebraska, where frequent trips increased her appreciation for Willa Cather. She also wrote her doctoral thesis from Southern Methodist University on Cather and Welty. Currently she serves as president of a study group of 900 women in Dallas, the Mary K. Craig Class, and is a master gardener and flower show judge. She enjoys travel, gardening, walking, and being a lifelong learner.

"After admiring Willa Cather's works from afar for many years, I became much interested in her after marrying my husband, who grew up in Hastings, Nebraska. Learning more about not only Cather, but the land of Nebraska, gave me a fresh appreciation for his home as well as her writing. I continued this interest by focusing my doctoral thesis on Willa Cather and Eudora Welty, and how they both left their homelands yet wrote about them," Bierman said.

"I have been impressed by the quality of the preservation of Red Cloud and the legacy of Cather's work."