MHA awards

Joseph Smith bio claims top award

      CASPER, Wyo. — A highly touted biography of LDS Church founder
Joseph Smith earned top honors Friday at the 41st annual Mormon
History Association conference.
       "Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling," by Columbia scholar
Richard Bushman, was named Best Book on Mormon History. Penned after
decades of research into Smith's life, family and teachings, the book
was published by Knopf last year and received wide critical acclaim.
       Bushman is now working with other scholars and historians of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints toward publication of
the Joseph Smith Papers project. Spearheaded by the Family and Church
History Department and Brigham Young University, the first volumes of
the anticipated 26-volume work are slated for publication in 2007.
       Other winners announced at an awards banquet Friday night are:

      • Robert S. Wicks and Fred R. Foister, Best First Book Award for
"Junius and Joseph: Presidential Politics and the Assassination of the
First Mormon Prophet."

      • Greg Prince and William Wright, Best Biography Award for
"David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism."

      • Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, Best Documentary
Award for "Joseph Smith's Quorum of the Anointed, 1842-1845: A
Documentary History," and "The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845-1846:
A Documentary History."

      • Stephen C. LeSueur, Best Article Award for "Missouri's Failed
Compromise: The Creation of Caldwell County for the Mormons."

      •Craig Livingston, Awards of Excellence for, "Eyes on the Whole
European World Mormon Observers of the 1848 Revolutions," and Gregory
Prince and Gary Topping for "A Turbulent Coexistence: Duane Hunt,
David O. McKay and a Quarter-Century of Mormon-Catholic Relations."

      Students Matthew Grow, Stanley Thayne and Benjamin Allred were
also honored for their papers. Publisher Robert A. Clark and former
University of Illinois Press associate director Elizabeth Dulaney were
lauded for their contributions to the popularization of Western and
Mormon history.