Lois Myers Appointed Interim Director Of Institute For Oral History

by Lori Fogleman, director of media relations, (254) 710-6275
Baylor University President John M. Lilley has appointed Lois E. Myers, senior lecturer and associate director of the Institute for Oral History, as the institute's interim director, effective Aug. 1. Myers will succeed Dr. Rebecca Sharpless, the institute's director since 1993, who has accepted a position at Texas Christian University.

"We are grateful for the many years of dedicated service to Baylor and to the institute by Dr. Sharpless, and we're extremely fortunate to have Professor Myers in this interim position," said Dr. Randall O'Brien, executive vice president and provost at Baylor. "She has extensive experience in oral history, and has already established an excellent working relationship with the institute's staff. This combination of assets will ensure that the institute will flourish in the coming year."

The Institute for Oral History is a freestanding research department within Baylor's division of academic affairs. Since 1970, researchers have interviewed, recorded and transcribed thousands of individuals' accounts of historically significant events or issues. The oral history interviews, which span the diversity of American society and history, are then preserved in Baylor's libraries. Researchers use the institute's oral history memoirs to study the primary events of the last century in such specialized areas as religion and culture, music, theater, historic preservation, rural life, women's studies, politics and local history.

Myers earned her bachelor's degree in English and history magna cum laude from Baylor in 1968 and received a master's degree in American studies from Baylor in 1988. She has been associated with the Institute for Oral History since 1986 and has served as associate director since 1989. She has been a senior lecturer at Baylor for the past six years.

Myers has written, co-authored and edited several books, book chapters and scholarly articles, including Handbook of Oral History (with Thomas L. Charlton and Rebecca Sharpless, editors, Alta Mira Press, 2006); "'You Got Us All A-Pullin' Together': Southern Methodist Deaconesses in the Rural South, 1922-1940," a chapter in Work, Family, and Faith: Rural Southern Women in the Twentieth Century (University of Missouri Press, 2006); Rock beneath the Sand: Country Churches in Texas (with Rebecca Sharpless and Clark Baker, Texas A&M University Press, 2003); "'Of the Least and the Most': The African American Rural Church," a chapter with Rebecca Sharpless in African American Rural Life in the Twentieth Century, 1900-1950 (University of Missouri Press, 2003); and Letters by Lamplight: A Woman's View of Everyday Life in South Texas, 1873-1883 (Baylor University Press, 1991).

Myers has served as secretary/treasurer of the Texas Oral History Association since 1987 and is managing editor of Sound Historian. She also has served on various committees for the Oral History Association. She is a frequent invited presenter at national, state, regional and local history organizations, including the Oral History Association, Federation of Genealogical Societies, Association of Living History Farms and Museums, Texas State Historical Association, the Texas Historical Commission and many others.

At Baylor, Myers has served on the Baylor Round Table Centennial History Committee, George Walker Bush Presidential Library Committee and Heart of Texas Regional History Fair Executive Board. She is a volunteer for the Waco History Project and the Alzheimer's Association and is a member and adult Sunday School department co-director at First Baptist Church, Woodway.

Myers is married to Dr. Dennis R. Myers, professor of social work and associate dean of graduate social work education in the Baylor School of Social Work. They have two children, Lori Myers Berry, BA '93 and MBA '94, and Dr. David S. Myers, BA '98, and two grandchildren, Lauren Elizabeth Myers and Arden Kate Berry.