This October, I was fortunate enough to win one of the Western History Association’s Graduate Student Prizes, allowing me to attend WHA Kansas City with minimal personal expenses and continue to participate in a community that I look forward to convening with every year. This year’s conference was exceptionally full of panels, receptions, and catching up with colleagues. I left with a strong feeling of accomplishment, plans for next year’s conference in Albuquerque, and momentum to continue through the rest of the fall semester.

I arrived at the conference hotel an hour after the opening reception began. Once ditching my bags, I ran into a good friend that I met at WHA 2021 and we hurried over to the World War I museum. There, I reconnected with my former Master’s advisors and met a few participants in the first of two panels I was on. I also reconnected with other Applied History Initiative fellows before heading to a dinner with that group.

I started day two of WHA, my first full day, with the Environmental History Breakfast. The spread was good and the coffee was hot, which is all you can ask. But being around all of my peers is what really makes this breakfast special every year. I sat next to Dale Mize, a fellow Colorado State alum currently at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and caught up with him. As is tradition at this breakfast, we went around the room and everyone shared their current research. It was nice putting faces to names, topics to scholars, and absorbing some of the intellectual brilliance while my coffee kicked in.

After breakfast, I went to “New Visions of Northern Plains Politics: Shifting Ideologies and National Impacts,” where panelists discussed Catherine McNicol Stock’s Nuclear Country: The Origins of the Rural New Right. As a public lands historian, I took away great insights on the relationship between military lands, federal presence in the West, and deeply-reactionary politics. For the second concurrent session, I went to “Doing Community Engaged History in the American South and West” and attended the Graduate Student Caucus Lunch and Meeting afterward. At lunch, I sat with Hailey Doucette, another good friend from my time at Colorado State, and met many of the other smart and welcoming University of Kansas graduate students.

During the field trip sessions, I grabbed a beer with my former MA advisor and talked through some ideas within our shared topic of public lands recreation. We walked over to the Public History Reception, where I continued catching up with familiar faces and chatting about my current research. I then went to the Graduate Student Reception and introduced fellow Montana State students to peers from other universities. While enjoying the camaraderie at the reception, many of us watched a thunderstorm roll through town from our perch on top of the Westin.

Day one was busy, but day two was slated to be even busier. After grabbing a quick lobby breakfast, my MSU classmate, Jacob Northcutt, and I attended “Parks, Public Lands, and Indigenous Efforts to Resist Settler Colonialism.” We had to take off early to prepare for our panel on mountain recreation, but I was able to start planning a Colorado Plateau themed panel for WHA 2025 with one of the panelists of “Parks, Public Lands…” later in the day. The panel Jacob and I were on went well, and, like all good panels, discussion overflowed into the lobby afterward. I had a great conversation with a fellow grad student from University of Oregon about the role power plays in recreational access which we continued while poaching a SHA reception the last evening of the conference.

My second panel, “Rivers, Peaks, and Ranches: Unveiling the Interconnected Threads of Climate, Economic Flux, and Cultural Evolution in the American West,” happened after lunch (back-to-back panels, geez!), so my fellow panelists and I prepared after grabbing a quick lunch at Crown Center. I organized this one by pulling largely from my network of graduate students and early career scholars, who happen to be the people I spend the most time with at WHA. Presenting with them was such a blast; being so familiar with each other’s work, we had a very compelling discussion covering a variety of topics related to the rural West. While still milling around the room after our panel, I met the editor of Utah Historical Quarterly who expressed interest in my work on industry in Vernal, Utah. This publication was at the front of my mind when doing this research, so it was very exciting to make that connection.

After briefly gathering myself following two panels, I attended the CRAW reception, where the Montana State contingent caught up on how the conference was going for all of us. We then filtered into the Award Ceremony and sat next to Jared Orsi, the new editor of the Western Historical Quarterly and my former supervisor at CSU’s Public & Environmental History Center. After celebrating everyone’s accomplishments, I congregated with my fellow mountain recreation panelists (the first one) to grab dinner and continue our discussion on recreation’s role in the history of the West.

After two and a half whirlwind days that caused a latent cold to reemerge, I decided to rest the last day and get breakfast with Matt Klingle, Michael Childers, and two graduate students. We discussed where we are with our research, connections between the West and my home state of Maine, and shared resources for future work. I then raided the book exhibit, attended two panels on recreation and land, said my goodbyes, and took a much needed nap. As a prize recipient, I felt a great amount of anxious anticipation for this year’s conference. Three days of catching up with friends made at past WHAs, expanding my professional network, and sharing my research, however, greatly reaffirmed that WHA is my academic home—and I can’t think of a better one.