Jump to Navigation

James E. Sherow

James SherowKansas Historical Foundation
Board of Directors
Elected to board: 2003

James E. Sherow is a fourth-generation Kansan. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 1987. He taught as an assistant professor at Southwest Texas State University. He joined Kansas State University in 1992; he became an associate professor in 1993; and full professor in 2007 where he teaches Kansas history, the history of the American West, North American Indian history, and environmental history.

He was elected to the Manhattan City Commission for a two-year term in 2007. He is actively involved in historic preservation, and served as the governor-appointed Kansas historian on the Kansas Historic Sites Board of Review. He has also served on the board Downtown Manhattan, Inc., the Main Street program of Manhattan. He is a member of a partnership, Manhattan Historic Properties, which restored the Damon Runyon Birthplace House in Manhattan.

He is the author of five books, the last, Railroad Empire Across the Grasslands (2014), written with photographer John Charlton, has received two book awards:  A 2015 Kansas Notable Book award, and the 2016 Midwestern History Association's Hamlin Garland prize, which recognizes the best popular book that increases public awareness of and reflection upon the Midwest.

He is also the managing editor of Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains.  This is the fifth year of a collaborative publishing arrangement between the Department of History at Kansas State University and the Kansas Historical Foundation.

He is married to Bonnie Lynn-Sherow, an associate professor of history at Kansas State University; they have four daughters.

Sherow is a life member of the Kansas Historical Foundation. He was first elected to the board of directors in 2003.