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Capturing Notable Americans' Lives Elizabeth "Nikki" Lloyd-Kimbrel, assistant to the dean of enrollment , is among the authors of the new, twenty-four-volume American National Biography (ANB) reference series. Her nine essays are among the 17,000 describing the lives of men and women who have made a significant contribution to some aspect of American life. Lloyd-Kimbrel is a charter member of a local biography group founded by UMass professor Stephen Oates.

The subjects of her essays for the ANB are: Hezekiah Augur (a self-taught, nineteenth-century sculptor from New Haven); California Joe (an Army scout, crack shot, buddy of Wild Bill Hickok, and personification of the "Wild West"); M. F. K. Fisher (writer and culinary expert); Howard Garis (creator of Uncle Wiggly and Amherst resident); Sarah Whipple Goodhue (seventeenth-century clergyman's wife, mother, and letter-writer); Emily Bradley Neal Haven (nineteenth-century writer, editor, and publisher); Nicholas Marcellus Hentz (nineteenth-century entomologist and girls' school headmaster); Rafael Sabatini (British historian and novelist, creator of Captain Blood and Scaramouche, among other swashbucklers); Betty Zane (Ohio's revolutionary war heroine, and ancestor of novelist Zane Grey); and Marya Zaturenska (Pulitzer Prize&endash;winning poet and Shelburne Falls resident).

Award given for study in Russia Jesse Young '00 has received a National Security Education Program scholarship to study in Russia with the Boston University program for the fall 1998 semester. These awards are given on the basis of a national competition to promote the understanding of foreign cultures, strengthen U.S. economic competitiveness, and enhance international cooperation and security. Grant recipients agree to work in a federal agency or office with national security responsibilities for a period of time equal to the period for which they received funding for study abroad.

Asking (mostly) the right questions LITS Web Technology Specialist Dan Wilga is a regular Jeopardy watcher, so when Channel 22 held a contest in Springfield to recruit potential contestants, he was there. Thirteen hundred people showed up, and Wilga did well enough--getting correct at least the required seven out of ten test items--to have his name entered in a potential contestant lottery. His name was chosen, so he and seventy-five other area folks were taken to Boston for more tryouts. Though he did well again--getting thirty-five of fifty correct--others among the 1,000 contest hopefuls must have done better; Wilga was not selected as one of the finalists. Now he'll have to go back to shouting the answers--in the form of questions, of course--to his TV screen.

Up close and personnel Departures: Patricia West, buildings and grounds; Barbara Rodriguez, dean of faculty office; Mary E. Hogan, dining services.

What's new with you? Send news for "New & Notable" to Emily Weir, Office of Communications, or email eweir@mtholyoke.edu.