Two Independent Women, Changing Times, And A Bully Pulpit:  Join Author Susan Croce Kelly on February 8th For the Low-Down on Pioneer Newswomen Lucile Morris Upton and Betty Love,

Lucile Morris Upton was one of the people who made reading newspapers worthwhile, and she is the subject of a new biography published by the University of Arkansas Press: Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks: the Live & Times of Lucile Morris Upton, by Susan Croce Kelly.

Come and listen to author Kelly discuss the achievements – and the adventures – of the two independent career women as they told the story of our changing Ozarks almost a century ago.

Kelly, a former reporter at Upton’s own Springfield News-Leader and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, is also the author of two award-winning books on the history of the Mother Road:  Route 66: The Highway and Its People, and Father of Route 66, the Story of Cy Avery, both published by the University of Oklahoma Press. She is also managing editor of OzarksWatch Magazine for Missouri State University’s Ozarks Studies Institute.

This talk will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 8th in the Crystal Ballroom in Kentwood Hall, on east St. Louis Street across from the Shrine Mosque. Ample free parking is available at the Kentwood.

It is part of the new Kentwood Series, just one initiative of the MSU Libraries and its Ozarks Studies Institute. Others include OzarksWatch Magazine, a publication that focuses on local history and culture; and the Ozarks Book Series, a list of locally focused titles it has published. It also led the digitization of over 100 episodes of the Ozark Jubilee, a national TV show created in Springfield, and is home to regionally significant collections of books, ephemera and other research materials. Click here to learn more.