Summary
Distinguished History Professor Emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno, was born in Hamilton, Ohio, on October 26, 1937. He obtained his B.A. at Marietta College in 1959; his M.A. at Ohio University in 1960, and his Ph.D. in American political history at the University of Missouri in 1963. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Marietta and Middletown, Ohio, from 1959-1960. He taught history at the University of Missouri, Columbia; Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff; Memphis State University; and the University of Southern California. He received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for younger scholars in 1967. In addition to being a member of the Department of History faculty, he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is described as a “writer of great versatility and talent” in a letter of nomination submitted to the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame selection committee. His books run the gamut from a biography of a conservative Republican presidential candidate, Defender of the Old Guard: John Bricker and American Politics (1993), to our country’s love of sports, America’s Obsessions: Sports and Society Since 1945 (1994), to the demise of our small towns, Main Street Blues: The Decline of Small-Town America (1998). Main Street Blues, a study of the small Ohio farming village of Camden, was named one of the top 25 books in American history by CHOICE. The Sharon and Richard O. Davies Research Endowment was established for a graduate student in History engaged in thesis or dissertation research. His The Main Event: Boxing in Nevada from the Mining Camps to the Las Vegas Strip won Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Bronze Medal in Sports (2014).