Patty Limerick is one of the West's preeminent and most prolific historians. Author of the seminal reinterpretation of western American history, The Legacy of Conquest, Limerick also co-founded the influential Center of the American West at the University of Colorado.

Limerick has earned numerous awards and honors, and she has served as president of the Western History Association and the Society of American Historians. Moreover, she is warm, funny, and insightful. When Patty talks, people listen. 

Accordingly, it was with no small measure of interest that I devoured the most recent installment of her blog, Not My First Rodeo. The post, Where Bipartisanship Finds a Refuge: A Rendezvous with The Western Governors Association, recounts her personal history with WGA and communicates her positive regard for the association.

Patty’s affection for WGA dates to 1990, when the association published Beyond the Mythic West. Contributors to the volume of essays, including Patty and former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, were invited to address the Governors at that year’s Annual Meeting in Fargo, North Dakota. 

Thirty years later, Patty continues to promote the bipartisan work of Western Governors. Just last week,  Patty and I engaged in a lively and wide-ranging conversation about WGA in an episode of her new interview series, Lunch with Limerick, in an hour-long episode entitled Bipartisanship Happens: How Western Governors Set an Example for the Nation’s Leaders. (Watch it here)

The WGA team is perpetually motivated by the extraordinary leadership of Western Governors.  But when a western thought leader like Patty Limerick registers that same kind of enthusiasm, we are reminded of what a privilege it is to work at WGA.

Jim Ogsbury is the Executive Director of WGA. Contact him at 303-623-9378 or send an email. Get the latest news about the West and its governors by following the Western Governors' Association on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.