Magnaghi Receives Follo Award

Russ Magnaghi (History) recently received the Charles Follo Award from the Historical Society of Michigan for his "outstanding contributions to the preservation and promotion of Upper Peninsula history."

Magnaghi was the director of the NMU Center for Upper Peninsula Studies from 1996 to 2003. As university historian, he wrote A Sense of Time: The Encyclopedia of Northern Michigan University, and has collected and preserved many artifacts that represent the university’s history. He has organized conferences, presentations and workshops on regional topics, written books and articles of local interest, and developed a curriculum dealing with the region.

"I was quite surprised by the award and quite pleased," Magnaghi said. "As I told the audience, you’ve given it to me for past work I’ve done and for more things I plan on doing in the future. I consider myself midway through my career. One of my current projects is writing a book about the history of the Upper Peninsula. It's at least 50 percent done in rough form, but I'm working on filling in details and synthesizing the content."   

Marcus Robyns (Archives) nominated Magnaghi for the award

"Russ is not only the consummate scholar but also an irrepressible and indomitable researcher," Robyns said. "I doubt there is a single theme in Upper Peninsula history that he has not explored, presented or published on to some degree."

The Charles Follo award is named after a school teacher from Escanaba who worked to establish historical societies and promote the history of the Upper Peninsula.