Forty years ago the Center for Ozarks Studies at SMS (now the Ozarks Studies Institute, an initiative of the Missouri State University Libraries), and Veriation Films produced two documentary films about life in Shannon County Missouri. “Shannon County: Home” was the first film, released in 1981.

The films won several awards. Recently Lynn Morrow, who worked on the films, contacted the MSU Libraries with the information that one of the awards never was formally announced at SMS. The award was given by the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago: Annual Festival of Ethnographic Film, 1983.  The fall schedule for the nearly 50 films that year is in the Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (January 1983), Volume 54, No. 1, p. 14 . “Shannon County: Home” was shown late Saturday morning, November 19, 1983, in Lecture Hall I, and it won an award. 

About six years ago, digital versions of these two documentaries were added to the dedicated YouTube Channel of the MSU Libraries, and they have proven to be quite popular, receiving to date over 558,000 viewings each.  

Preliminary efforts are underway to create an updated documentary, 40 years later, to these two award-winning documentary films.