Rate My Professor Brooks Blevins

Brooks Blevins serves as the Noel Boyd Professor of Ozarks Studies and Professor in the History Department at Missouri State University, a position he has held since 2008. He earned his Ph.D. in History from Auburn University in 1999, M.A. in History from the same institution in 1994, and B.A. in History, magna cum laude, from Lyon College in 1992. Before joining Missouri State, Blevins taught briefly at the Meridian campus of Mississippi State University and Ozarka College, and served as Director of the Regional Studies Center and Assistant Professor of History at his alma mater, Lyon College. At Missouri State, he was promoted to full Professor in 2012 and directed the Ozarks Studies Graduate Certificate Program from 2014 to 2017.

A leading scholar on the history of the U.S. South, with a focus on the Ozarks and Appalachia, Blevins has published extensively on regional history, agriculture, religion, and American higher education. His major books include A History of the Ozarks, Volume 1: The Old Ozarks (University of Illinois Press, 2018), Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Memory in the Upland South (University of Illinois Press, 2012), Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol' Boys Defined a State (University of Arkansas Press, 2009), Hill Folks: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and Their Image (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), Lyon College, 1872-2002: The Perseverance and Promise of an Arkansas College (University of Arkansas Press, 2003), and Cattle in the Cotton Fields: A History of Cattle Raising in Alabama (University of Alabama Press, 1998). These works have garnered significant recognition, including the John G. Ragsdale Book Award from the Arkansas Historical Association for Ghost of the Ozarks in 2013 and Arkansas/Arkansaw in 2011, the Arkansiana Award for nonfiction in 2011, and the Book of the Year Award from the Missouri Conference on History in 2010. Blevins has also received the Violet B. Gingles Award for the best essay on Arkansas history in 2018 and the Susie G. Pryor Award in 2015. As editor of the University of Arkansas Press’s Chronicles of the Ozarks Series and Ozarks Studies Series, he has overseen publications such as Back Yonder: An Ozark Chronicle (2016). He chairs the committee for the Minor in Ozarks Studies, which he helped create in 2010, serves on editorial boards for the Arkansas Historical Quarterly and Missouri Historical Review, chairs the Ozark Folk Cultural Center Commission, and co-hosts regional history segments on Ozark Highlands Radio. His scholarship has influenced Ozarks studies through numerous public lectures, media appearances, and conference presentations.