Guest Speaker 2025
Mary Sanchez
2025
Mary Sanchez is a national syndicated columnist with Tribune Content Agency and a familiar face and voice in Kansas City media.
Sanchez’s contributions include time as the senior reporter for Kansas City PBS and a metro columnist for The Kansas City Star, member of the Star’s editorial board, in addition to her years spent reporting on race, class, criminal justice and educational issues.
She’s a frequent moderator for important civic conversations hosted by American Public Square (APS), also serving on the organization’s board. APS seeks to build community through civil, fact-based discourse.
Sanchez is a mentor with Report for America, pairing with early career journalists as they enter the profession and has written columns for the Poynter Institute, helping others to report deeper and with nuance on issues of race, ethnicity, immigration, and culture wars, especially within politics.
Sanchez is a native of Kansas City and has also lived in Mexico, the country of her father’s birth.
2024
ann scott
2024
Ann Scott, Vice Regent for Missouri of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association Board.
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association was the first national historic preservation organization and is the oldest women's patriotic society in the United States. Its pioneering efforts in the field of preservation set an important precedent and have served as a model for many.
2023
kevin vance, ph.d.
2023
Dr. Kevin Vance is the Director of the Center for Constitutional Liberty at Benedictine College.
Dr. Vance earned his BA in Government from Claremont McKenna College and his Ph.D. in Constitutional Studies and Political Theory from the University of Notre Dame.
Most recently he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Professor at Clemson University in the Department of Political Science and the Lyceum Program, and prior to that a Forbes Postdoctoral Research Associate in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.
2022
2022
Craig Bruce Smith is an associate professor of military history at the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) at the US Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era and co-authored George Washington’s Lessons in Ethical Leadership.
Smith earned his PhD in American history from Brandeis University. Previously, he was an assistant professor of history and the director of the history program at William Woods University, and he has taught at additional colleges, including Tufts University.
He specializes in American Revolutionary and early American history, with a specific focus on honor, ethics, war, the founders, transnational ideas, and national identity. In addition, he has broader interests in colonial America, the early republic, leadership, the Atlantic world, and early American cultural, intellectual, and political history.
2020
2020
James B. Martin, Ph.D.
Dean of Academics
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Dr. Martin spends time researching and writing in two different areas of academic endeavor. As an historian, he is focused largely on the 19th Century and the study of irregular warfare in the Civil War and the American Indian Wars. As an adult educator, he is focused on the administration of adult and accelerated education programs to include faculty development, curriculum development, and academic assessment. In recent years he has spent considerable time working with foreign militaries to foster improvement in the professional military education. His engagements include militaries from Italy, Saudi Arabia, Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa, Rwanda, Myanmar, Singapore, Vietnam, New Zealand, and Brunei. He works with the African Military Education Program (AMEP) and Partnership for Peace (PfP) in creating and presenting professional military education opportunities for a variety of countries.
Dr. Martin’s latest books are The Third War: Irregular Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865 and African American War Heroes. He has also written numerous book chapters on adult education and articles in both the fields of History and Adult Education
2019
2019
Keil Hileman
2008 Alumni Classroom Fellow De Soto, Kansas
Bio/Overview: Hileman currently teaches High School Archeology and Artifacts and Museum Connections to 6th, 7th and 8th graders at Monticello Trails Middle School in Shawnee, Kansas. He has taught at the middle and secondary level for 18 years in the De Soto Unified School District. His classroom museum contains over 20,000 teaching artifacts. You are invited to tour the Classroom Museum. Contact Mr. Hileman at keilh@usd232.org. Hileman also teaches a “Hands On” Archeology class at Johnson County Community College, a “Classroom Museum” Course for teachers at Mid America Nazarene College and a Graduate/Undergraduate “Artifact Supported” History course at U.M.K.C. Educational Values/Philosophy: Hileman’s classroom credo is “ExploreYour World, Empower Yourself and Those Around You, Excel In Everything You Do.” Achievements: Hileman was named Kansas Teacher of the Year in 2004 and one of four finalists for the 2004 National Teacher of the Year. In addition, he was selected as a NEA Horace Mann Award winner. He was most recently inducted into the Midwest Education Hall of Fame and honored by Dolly Parton as the 2011 National Chasing Rainbows Award Winner. In recent years he was honored by the Daughters of The American Revolution, the 2007 National Outstanding Teacher of American History. His work was also featured for a “Window on Great Teaching” at NBC’s 2011 Education Nation Summit. Leadership Experience: Hileman has a passion for presenting to, evaluating and working with Teaching American History grants all over our nation. Affiliations: National Teacher of the Year program, Kansas Exemplary Educators Network, U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History Grants Program Education: Hileman holds a bachelors and masters in Middle and Secondary Social Studies from the University of Kansas. Areas of Interest/Expertise: History teaching Resources and instruction
2018
2018
Dr. Kurt Graham
In July, 2015, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced Dr. Kurt Graham’s appointment as the Director of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Dr. Graham has extensive experience in the library/museum world. He directed the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. As director, he orchestrated the digitization of some of the Library’s most important archival multi-media collections, oversaw the physical renovation of the Library’s public spaces, managed the Center’s fellowship program, and launched a documentary editing project, The Papers of William F. Cody. He left Cody to direct the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City in 2010, where he spearheaded the development and redesign of the museum’s principal history exhibit, which included several significant multi-media components.
Prior to his work in the public history field, Dr. Graham was a member of the history faculty at California State University, San Francisco, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in American political and legal/constitutional history. He has a Ph.D. in American history from Brown University and a B.A. and an M.A. from Bringham Young University in English and American studies, respectively. He is the author of To Bring Law Home: The Federal Judiciary in Early National Rhode Island (Northern Illinois University Press, 2010). He lives with his wife and family in Blue Springs, Missouri.
2016
2016
Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbetts IV
Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbetts is the Commander, 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. He is responsible for the combat readiness of the Air Force's only B-2 Spirit wing, including development and employment of the B-2's combat capability as part of the Air Force's Global Strike Force. His command provides logistics support for the Air Force Reserve 442nd Fighter Wing, Missouri Air National Guard 131st Bomb Wing, Air Combat Command 20th Reconnaissance Squadron and the Missouri Army National Guard 1st Battalion, 135th Aviations Unit. He manages flying assets in excess of $46 billion and an annual operations and maintenance budget of $147 million.
General Tibbetts received his comission through the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1989. Following graduation, he served in a variety of operational assignments as a B-1 pilot and subsequently as a B-2 pilot. The general has commanded at the squadron and wing levels, and flown in combat missions in support of operations in Southwest Asia, the Balkans, and Afghanistan. His staff assignments include executive assistand to the Commander, Eighth Air Force, Chief of the Nuclear Policy Branch at NATO Headquarters. Prior to his current position he was Deputy Director for Nuclear Operations, U.S. Strategic Command. General Tibbetts is a command pilot with more than 3,800 flying hours.