The Countdown to LauraPalooza 2015 has begun. Before we pack our bags and head to South Dakota for a weekend of education, celebration and fun, some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy & Research Association board members are taking a look back—or forward—at some of the good times you can expect.

Our plan here at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association (LIWLRA) has always been to host a conference dedicated Laura Ingalls Wilder every two years. We feel that this conference is an important goal because it supports research on Wilder by both academics and independent researchers by giving them a place to present their work, makes it easier for everyone to keep abreast of the latest research, and encourages publication. Having such a conference on a regular basis has been a personal goal that I’ve been working towards since the 1990s with a small group of like-minded people, some of whom are now serve on the LIWLRA board. Back in 2009, the support of the Minnesota State University – Mankato allowed us suddenly and unexpectedly to go forward with a conference the following year in 2010.

While planning for the 2012 conference, we decided that the conference would be better served by moving to the odd years, to better line up with anniversaries, most notably the 150th anniversary of Wilder’s birth coming up in 2017. That lead us to add a one-year gap in this time, but we’re finally a year out. In one year, we’ll all be arriving in Brookings, South Dakota for the 2015 LauraPalooza Conference.

Harvey Dunn Street Sign on SDSU Campus

Each year that we don’t have a conference we honor the date with a series of posts to whet your appetite and to make sure that you are as excited about the upcoming conference as we are. During the next week, board members will be posting once a day to share with you our conference experiences. Revisit Conference 2010 and Conference 2012 with previous off-year conference week posts. We hope that you enjoy these looks back (and ahead) and that you will join us for the conference in Brookings next year.

Sarah Uthoff making an announcement at LauraPalooza

In the meantime we’re looking for volunteers to help with the work of the 2015 conference, and we hope that we can count on all of you to help us get the word out that it’s going on. Keep this list of important dates handy, keep in touch with us online, and keep supporting us and our efforts with your membership.

To learn more about LauraPalooza 2015 click here. We’ll see you in Brookings!

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Facebook, Twitter , YouTube,  Blog Talk Radio, Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, President.