The inspiration for the Henszey-Pyle Fund include the interest that Anne and Kenneth have in the history of the community in which they grew up and their belief in the value of the study of history. Anne is the great-great-grand daughter of Moses and Mary Irvin Thompson and great-grand daughter of John Hamilton all of whose contributions to regional history are honored at the Centre Furnace Mansion and within the Centre County Historical Society. Kenneth, who acquired a love of the study of history growing up in State College, is the Henry M. Jackson Professor of History and International Studies Emeritus at the University of Washington where he has taught history for over fifty years.
History is an interpretive art, based on available evidence. Accordingly, the interpretations are, at times, controversial and contested. The Centre County Historical Society strongly supports freedom of speech and the First Amendment rights of our speakers, authors, and writers. The Society does not necessarily endorse or support all views, conclusions, and opinions expressed, yet believes they merit entry into the marketplace of ideas and the scrutiny it affords.
The Henszey-Pyle Distinguished Author Series is underwritten by the Anne Hamilton Henszey Pyle and Kenneth B. Pyle Educational Fund for Regional Heritage Preservation (Henszey-Pyle Fund.) The Series is coordinated by CCHS Board of Governors member Dr. Ford Risley.
Past programs that have been held by Zoom may be found on the CCHS YouTube Channel.
2024
Cooper H. Wingert, Slavery and the Underground Railroad in South Central Pennsylvania
2023
Charles Fergus, Lay This Body Down
Ford Risley, Reporting the Civil War
2022
Thomas E. Range II and Lewis Lazarow, Penn State Blue Band
Mary E. Stuckey, Deplorable: The Worst Presidential Campaigns from Jefferson to Trump
2021
Stephen Browne, George Washington’s First Inaugural Address and Why It Still Matters
Charles Fergus, Nighthawk’s Wing: A Gideon Stoltz Mystery
2020
Dr. Kurt Carr, First Pennsylvanians: The Archaeology of Native Americans in Pennsylvania
Rebecca Inlow, The Rowland Story: Beauty from Ashes
R. Thomas Berner, A Two Newspaper Town
2019
Russell Frank, Among the Woo People: A Survival Guide for Living in a College Town
Peter Gilmore, Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania, 1770-1830
Dr. Roger L. Geiger, American Higher Education since World War II: A History
2018
Simon J. Bronner, Ph.D., The Past and Future of Pennsylvania German Studies—and Pennsylvania German Identity
Roger L. Williams, Evan Pugh’s Penn State: America’s Model Agricultural College
Ralph Seeley, Native People and Their Paths in Central Pennsylvania
Dr. Sally McMurry, Pennsylvania Farming: A History in Landscapes
2017
Dr. Carolyn Kitch, Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past
Dr. Amy S. Greenberg, Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk
Dr. Gary Cross, Consumed Nostalgia: Memory in the Age of Fast Capitalism
2016
Lee Stout and Harry West, The History of Beaver Stadium