FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                    October 2, 2007

SHELDON RUSSELL TO LEAD NORTHWESTERN HOMECOMING PARADE

            Sheldon Russell, 1968 graduate and prize-winning author, is the honorary marshal of Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s annual homecoming parade. The sirens are set to sound and the lead unit head out around Alva’s square at 10 a.m., Saturday.

            Russell will be the guest of honor at a come-and-go reception at the Alumni Tent, located on the north side of the square, from 9 to 10 a.m. on Saturday. He also will be presented a plaque during the mini-band concerts on the band shell after the parade.

Russell, who lives in Guthrie with his wife Nancy, wrote Dreams to Dust: A Tale of the Oklahoma Land Rush, winner of the 2006 Langum Prize for Excellence in American Historical Fiction and the 2006 Oklahoma Book Award given by the Oklahoma Center for the Book.

            The novel was recognized as an official Oklahoma Centennial project and gives a vivid portrayal of the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, with special focus on the brief and intense boom-to-bust town of Guthrie.

            Earlier this year, Russell was named by the Northwestern Alumni Association as one of Northwestern’s Outstanding Graduates.

            A native of the Waynoka area, Russell came to Northwestern as a 20-year-old freshman straight from a stint in the military and credits the university with giving him his foundation in education. He said it helped transform him from “just a country kid” into a professor and accomplished and recognized novelist.

            He majored in English education and taught in the Ponca City public schools for four years while working on his master’s degree and doctorate at Oklahoma State University. After completion of his program as a reading specialist, he taught two years at the University of Louisville, then joined the faculty at the University of Central Oklahoma. At UCO, he taught psycholinguistics (the diagnosis and correction of reading disabilities) until retiring in 2000.

            Throughout his years of teaching, Russell maintained an interest in creative writing and has published four novels. In addition to Dust to Dreams, he has written Empire, a suspense novel, and two historic frontier novels, The Savage Trail and Requiem at Dawn, which was a finalist for Western Writers of America’s best original paperback award.

            He has completed another historical novel titled The Dig, which he has sent to his agent. It is the story of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, who searched through present-day New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas in the 1540s, seeking the mythical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola.

            The story unfolds through the eyes of an archeologist who comes to a small prairie town to get field experience at an archeological dig.

            He and Nancy, an artist and sculptor, operate the Double Starr Gallery in Guthrie. She was commissioned and has completed a life-size bronze sculpture of the late Dale Brown that will be installed in front of the Runnymede Hotel on Alva’s square. Installation of the sculpture is scheduled for next month.

            The couple splits time between the gallery, which they renovated to include an upstairs apartment, and their Waynoka Ranch, close to where Russell grew up in the Gloss Mountains. He spends more time at the ranch than his wife, using it as a place to concentrate on writing. He also writes in his Guthrie office, which is decorated with Nancy’s artwork and family photos of their daughter, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

-NW-

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