For the first time since the inception of the Sharlot Hall Award the award committee found itself unable to choose between two exceptional nominees.  Both nominees have exhibited long-time commitments to the history of Arizona and have maintained a high quality of excellence in their fields for many years.  For these reasons, the award committee and the board of trustees decided to present two awards this year, 1994, to Doris Seibold and Ynida Smalley Moore. 

Doris K. Seibold recorded and preserved the folklore and traditions of southern Arizona's multi-cultural border society.  Dr. James S. Griffith, director of the Southwest Folklore Center, noted that "anyone interested in the major legends, traditional narratives, songs, and couplet verses of Southern Arizona needs to start with Doris' work."

Born to an Arizona pioneering family, Doris grew up in the ranching world.  She was deeply interested in quarter horses, and made contributions to the breed's history and development through research, writing and animal husbandry.  Financing her college education through the sale of her own calves, Doris graduated from Arizona State Teacher's College at Flagstaff in 1934 with a degree in education, and with minors in history, business and Spanish.  She taught first in Patagoinia and then in Nogales, while studying at the University of Arizona, earning her master's degree in 1946.  Parts of her thesis, "Localisms in the Spoken English of the Cattle Industry of Santa Cruz County" were published in the Arizona Quarterly, a literary journal produced by the University of Arizona before the 1950s.   Other journals later carried articles written by Doris, or based on material she collected.

Doris retired from teaching in the late 1970s, but remained active in her community and in the education field for many years.  In 1985, she was elected to the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame as a Western Heritage Honoree, and in 1994, the Arizona Historical Society commended her for her work in preserving Arizona history and culture.