Established by Gov. Marc Racicot in 1995 and presented by Humanities Montana, the awards honor achievement in humanities scholarship and service and enhancement of public understanding and appreciation of the humanities.

The 2009 recipients were honored during a ceremony at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, June 4, in the Capitol Rotunda in Helena. The 2009 award recipients are:

George M. Dennison of Missoula. President of The University of Montana since 1990 (UM’s longest serving President) and a graduate who grew up in Montana, Dennison also has served as the chair of the Montana Commission on Community Service since 1991, and, in 1993 he created the Montana Campus Compact, which has become the largest higher education consortium in the state. He continues to serve as chair of MTCC, which is a presence on 19 campuses across the state. An historian by training, Dennison serves on many state and national boards including the International Student Exchange Program, the National Security Education Board, the International Heart Institute of Montana, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, the Neuro Science Institute Foundation, and World Innovation Foundation. He sat on the board of directors of Humanities Montana in the mid-1990s. Throughout his long career, Dennison has been a tireless proponent of the public purposes of higher education—community service, service-learning, volunteerism and civic engagement programming.

Brian Kahn of Helena. Known to most Montanans as the creator and host of "Home Ground," a weekly award-winning interview show on Montana and Yellowstone Public Radio, Brian Kahn has served the humanities in many other capacities as well—as a speaker on the Humanities Montana Speakers Bureau, as a moderator of Humanities Montana community conversations like "Can We Talk?" and as an author and documentary film maker, among other accomplishments. His diverse background includes work as a Montana ranch hand, collegiate boxing coach, attorney, President of the California Fish and Game Commission, and Director of the Montana Nature Conservancy. "Home Ground" was named the state’s Outstanding Non-Commercial Radio Program by the Montana Broadcasters Association in 2002.

Fred McGlynn of Missoula A native of Butte, with a graduate degree from Northwestern University, Fred McGlynn has been introducing students to the study of the humanities on the University of Montana campus for over 40 years. One of the University’s most admired professors, McGlynn not only taught philosophy to three generations of students, he also has performed on stage in a number of UM theater productions, and played for many years as a member of the UM Jazz Band. He was one of the first professors to win the UM Outstanding Teaching Award, and his nomination for the Governor’s Humanities Award came with letters of support from dozens of associates and students.

Rick Newby of Helena. Rick Newby has made it his life’s work to publicly celebrate and advance Montana’s historical literary and visual arts traditions. As an editor, scholar, poet, and executive director of the Drumlummon Institute (a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering research, writing, and publishing on the culture of Montana), Newby’s service to the humanities in Montana has been wide-ranging, enduring and diverse. Newby has served as the editor of a number of important collections including Writing Montana: Literature Under the Big Sky (with Suzanne Hunger), The New Montana Story: An Anthology, and most recently Notes for a Novel: The Selected Poems of Frieda Fligelman (with Alexandra Swaney). He has also written major essays on the origins of Helena’s Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (with Chere Jiusto) and on the history of the Poindexter collections of American modernist paintings held by the Montana Historical Society and the Yellowstone Art Museum. Newby currently sits on the board of the Montana Arts Council and on the Advisory Committee of the Montana Center for the Book.

Corby Skinner of Billings. Skinner has served as the director of the Writer’s Voice of the Billings Family YMCA since 1991, which offers public readings, workshops and literary programs throughout the state, with special emphasis on rural and Native American schools in seven counties in south-central Montana. He serves as the state coordinator for “Tumblewords,” a literary project of the Western States Arts Federation. He was one of the founding coordinators of the High Plains Book Festival, served as the Humanities Montana board chair in 2002, and served as the program and marketing director for the Alberta Bair Theater for the Performing Arts in Billings from 1987 through 2005, when he moved on to create his own communications firm.