| The Laramie Foundation |
| About The Foundation How To Contribute The 13 Historic Women Wyoming Women's History House The EnCana Lectures Events |
| Thirteen Wyoming Women helped to change the world, their nation and their state. |
| Lynne Cheney Wyoming's first "2nd Lady". Noted author and wife of the Vice-President of the United States. |
| Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney, has loved history for as long as she can remember, and has spent much of her professional life writing and speaking about the importance of knowing history and teaching it well. As chairman for the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993, she published American Memory a report that warned about the failure of schools to transmit knowledge of the past to upcoming generations. "A system of education that fails to nurture memory of the past denies its students a great deal", Mrs. Cheney wrote, "the satisfactions of mature thought, an attachment to abiding concerns, a perspective on human existence". Currently, as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, she particularly emphasizes the importance of knowing our nation's history. "One of the most important lessons we can learn is that freedom isn't inevitable," she says, "This realization should make the liberty we enjoy all the more important to us, all the more worth defending." Mrs. Cheney has written articles about history for numerous publications on topics ranging from women's suffrage in the west to the way Americans celebrated this country's centennial. She was a member of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the Constitution and served on Texas Governor George W. Bush's education team. She was a part of the group that revised Texas standards for the study of history. Mrs. Cheney is a notable author of children's books that have become bestsellers with over a million copies in print. Mrs. Cheney donates a portion of the proceeds from these books to charity, and one of the recipients has been the James Madison Book Award. Mrs. Cheney announced a new initiative to encourage historical knowledge in April 2003. She announced the James Madison Book Award Fund, which presents a yearly award of $10,000 to the book that best represents excellence in bringing knowledge and understanding of American History to young people. Mrs. Cheney earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Colorado College, her Master of Arts from the University of Colorado, and her Ph.D. with a specialization in 19th-century British literature from the University of Wisconsin. She is the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities. |
 |
 |