Clay S. Jenkinson

Clay Straus Jenkinson (born February 4, 1955, in Dickinson, North Dakota) is an American humanities scholar, author and educator. He is currently the director of The Dakota Institute, where he co-hosts public radio's The Thomas Jefferson Hour, and creates documentary films, symposia, and literary projects. He lectures at Dickinson State University and Bismarck State College. Life Jenkinson was born in Dickinson, in southwestern North Dakota; his father was a banker and his mother a schoolteacher. Although the family moved quite often when he and his sister were children, Jenkinson grew up mostly in Dickinson. He graduated from Dickinson High School in 1973 and then attended Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota. He graduated in 1977 with a degree in English, and was then a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. In 2005 at the age of 50 Jenkinson returned to North Dakota as a permanent resident; he resides in Bismarck. He is currently the Director of The Dakota Institute through The Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation, Chief Consultant to The Theodore Roosevelt Center through Dickinson State University, and a Distinguished Humanities Scholar at Bismarck State College. He is James Marsh Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont. Jenkinson has one child, Catherine Missouri Walker Jenkinson, from his marriage to Etta L. Walker (they married on 16 March 1986 and divorced in 1997). His daughter was named after the Little Missouri River.