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  • Contributors

John Aerni-Flessner is an associate professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH) at Michigan State University (MSU) and a Research Fellow, Department of History, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. His research primarily focuses on the history of the southern African country of Lesotho, including his first book Dreams for Lesotho: Independence, Foreign Assistance, and Development.

"This work owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to the RCAH for providing transport and support for the student research, and to Heidi Butler and Jim McClean at the Forest Parke Library and Archives in the downtown Lansing Branch of the Capital Area District Libraries for allowing us access to the collections. Thanks to the staff at the LEADR Lab at MSU, including Brandon Locke, Alice Lynn McMichael, and Jen Andrella, who hosted the website and assisted with all our technological questions. Dr. Helen Veit graciously gave feedback on an early version of this article."

Claire Marks-Wilt will graduate from Michigan State University in the Spring of 2021 with an undergraduate degree in the Arts and Humanities. Her future academic goals include pursing an MA in criminal justice to continue her work in bringing the arts to correctional facilities and incarcerated persons.

She would like to give a special thanks to Heidi Butler, the local historian at Capital Area District Libraries, John Aerni-Flessner, for including her on this project, and the many invaluable historians, editors, and technical specialists that have allowed her to collaborate on such a meaningful and important article depicting Lansing's history.

Le Roy G. Barnett has an MLS degree from Western Michigan University plus MA and PhD degrees from Michigan State University. For a quarter-century he was Head of Reference at the State Archives of Michigan. Over the past twenty years or so he has served as Contributing Editor to Chronicle and Michigan History magazines, published by the Historical Society of Michigan.

Richard Gross, a retired science teacher, participated as a teenager in La Salle: Expedition II, an authentic 1976 reenactment of La Salle's 1682 voyage of discovery from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico, sparking a lifelong interest in the explorer's life. His work with the provenance of archival maps and documents has established La Salle's veracity as an agent of Louis XIV and French colonial administrators and proved La Salle's claim of the Ohio River for France. He lives in the Chicago area.

Craig P. Howard met Rich as a young journalist as he and the other members of La Salle: Expedition II came through their hometown. The two authors met again 36 years later, as Craig gathered material to chronicle that harrowing adventure in Hard Rivers: The Untold Saga of La Salle: Expedition II (2016). Craig's financial insight and biographical sleuthing have opened the La Salle lens to examine the transatlantic mercantile vision of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Craig is a member of the Organization of American Historians and the Society for the History of Discoveries.

Janna Jones is a professor in the School of Communication at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. A twentieth-century historian, her scholarship focuses on the history of cinema going, architectural preservation, historic movie theaters, amateur filmmaking, public exhibition, urban and suburban history, and public art.

Monika Z. Moore is an Instructor of Geography at Yavapai College and a doctoral student in Higher Education at the University of Toronto.

Jim Phelps started as a music teacher and later earned a PhD from the University of Michigan in Education Administration. As luck would have it, he became the education advisor to Governor William Milliken and later Deputy Superintendent in the Michigan Department of Education. After retirement he returned to music by composing and playing string bass while publishing educational research.

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