Jean Lukesh:
Passion for home state, history led author to write first text

Jean Lukesh’s passion for her home state and history led her through her gratifying journey writing the award-winning textbook, The Nebraska Adventure.

“I am a native Nebraskan, and I dearly love my state,” Lukesh said. “For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in history of all kinds, but especially the history of the Old West, of Native Americans and of my own state. I remember doing my own independent research as a child, using an old set of encyclopedias in our dark basement. I just never could learn enough about anything.”

When Lukesh started college, she found herself in the same situation - she was interested in learning everything and couldn’t decide on one major. As a result, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Middle School Education with three majors and a minor – with endorsements in English/Language Arts, Social Studies, General Science and K-12 Educational Media.

Later, Lukesh earned master’s degrees in Education in English and Education in History and a certificate in publishing. Lukesh is currently a doctoral candidate in education in the area of Teaching and Learning/Curriculum and Instruction.

Lukesh is a long-time educator in the public schools, at both the elementary and middle school levels. She also has taught at the college level.

“I decided to write a textbook, because I realized that our fourth-grade students desperately needed a new state history textbook,” Lukesh said. At that time, teachers and students were still using black and white, out-of-print state history textbooks with copyrights dating from the 1950s through the 1980s.

“Nothing newer was available as a textbook at that level, so, my litany became, ‘Someone needs to write a new state history textbook for fourth graders - our kids need it,’” she said. “Beyond that, I felt that our students needed an interesting, state standards-based textbook that would help them engage in our state’s history and make them proud to live here.”

Although numerous educators and her writing friends agreed with Lukesh, none of them would take on the writing project themselves. “Instead, many educators sought me out and asked me to write the text,” she said.

The job seemed to be a perfect fit for her. Lukesh had studied and researched the state’s history for most of her life, as well as taught numerous classes on Nebraska. She wrote many lessons and various articles on the state. She was even in the process of writing some biographies and other related history books.

“Having worked with many reluctant readers over the years and having taken several reading instruction classes, I already had a vision of what I wanted to have in such a textbook,” Lukesh said. “Nonetheless, I was not sure I knew enough about how to write a textbook of any kind, least of all, a text for social studies, which is a multi-dimensional subject requiring a wide range of knowledge and curriculum applications.”

She faced other daunting questions, such as who would publish the textbook. It helped Lukesh that she has experience in the publishing business, working occasion- ally as a part-time editor and publisher for various small presses. She’s also a graduate of Denver University’s Publishing Institute, so she has gained expertise in the book field.

“I knew I needed a professional textbook publisher as a partner, but it took me a while to find the right one,” Lukesh said.

Nebraska has a small population, and the state studies curriculum is an area limited to one or two grade levels. “Therefore, publishers did not see such a textbook as a big money maker, or even as a break even venture,” she said. “It took me quite a while to convince the right publisher – Gibbs Smith – that this project was not only desperately needed, but that it could be cost-effective as well.”

Lukesh spent one year researching how to write the textbook and negotiating the contract. When she began working on the textbook, she also was teaching full time and pursuing her doctoral degree. The textbook project was limited to whatever free time she could find at home after work – before school, after school, nights, holidays and summers.

“I like to write anywhere, anytime,” said Lukesh, who often takes her laptop computer to a corner of the couch, or to her huge dining room table when she needs resources. It took her two years to actually write the textbook.

“Fortunately, I had done a lot of the preliminary outlining and content identifi- cation over the years while working with teachers and students and while working on other articles and projects of my own,” Lukesh said. “When I started putting my textbook ideas down on paper, those ideas just came together and almost flowed onto the pages.”

While writing the textbook, she was dealing with recent grief issues – the unrelated deaths of her elderly parents and of the horse she had raised as a colt.

“I think I rather lost myself – and my grief – in my writing, and then channeled that energy into the textbook project,” Lukesh said. “I love my state and love history. Two of my grandnieces share a love of horses with me. I wanted them – and others of their generation – to know and love our state the way I do. So this book also became a labor of love to help them learn the wonders of our state and our world.”

After the book was completed and published, Lukesh spent part of another summer revising and editing sections of the second edition. She spent much time writing scripts for the many presentations and interviews that she has been asked to give after authoring the textbook and winning TAA’s 2005 Texty Award in the El-Hi Humanities and Social Sciences category.

Lukesh will occasionally work on such projects in long hand, sometimes outside where she can hear the birds and feel the breeze, and watch her new horses enjoying life.

— reported by Kim Seidel, 1995. Updated 2005.