Sylvia first moved to Prescott in 1948 when her father, Dr. James Soderstrom, was transferred to Fort Whipple. Sylvia attended Washington Elementary School and went through the Prescott school system graduating from Prescott High School in 1955. Sylvia graduated from Arizona State University in Tempe in 1959 with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education. Sylvia married Bill Neely, who was also a teacher.

Lynn Haak, who has made Globe, Arizona the center of her world since 1981, is a most fitting candidate for the honor of the Sharlot Hall Award. Active in the Gila County Historical Society and the Arizona Historical Society (serving 13 years on their Board of Directors), she has also found time to be a member of the planning committee for the Arizona History Convention, co-host of the Arizona Historical Convention in Globe, and planner for the Between Fences Smithsonian traveling display. She played a significant part in the restoration efforts of the 1906 Gila County Courthouse.

Fayrene Martin moved to Ash Fork from Arkansas. In 1953, she married Lewis Hume, grandson of Thomas Cooper Lewis, one of the town’s first residents. With the railroad and highway bypassing the town an...

The Sharlot Hall Award 2005 goes to Patricia Preciado Martin for her outstanding contribution to the preservation of Mexican-American oral history committed to print. In this preservation effort, she is surely Sharlot Hall's cultural comadre.

Barbara Baldwin Salyer is honored with the 2004 Sharlot Hall Award for her family history research and publications that has contributed to the understanding and awareness of Arizona History.

Prescottonian Melissa Ruffner is honored with the 2003 Sharlot Hall Award for her teaching the "lore of her land," storytelling, and tour guiding that has contributed to the understanding and awareness of Arizona History.

Tucson resident Loretta "Lori" Davisson is honored with the 2002 Sharlot Hall Award for her research, writing, consulting, and archival work that has contributed to the understanding and awareness of Arizona history.

Pinetop resident Joan Baeza is honored with the Sharlot Hall Award for 2001 for her writing and teaching that has contributed to the understanding and awareness of Arizona history. This career came from a simple childhood desire—Baeza "always wanted to be a cowboy."

Mona Lange McCroskey's contribution to the understanding and awareness of Arizona history comes through her writing and her oral history projects.  A fourth generation Prescottonian, Mona was indoctrinated in the ways of her ranching family.  She spent most of her childhood at the Yolo Ranch in Yavapai County, and at the SV Ranch northwest of Wikieup. 

Virginia Culin Roberts has contributed greatly to the understanding and awareness of Arizona and its histoy through both her writing and her teaching.  The daughter of two Arizona pioneer families, Virginia was born on January 8, 1921, in Florida, a happenstance due to her father's military assignment.  She was one of the first third-generation students to attend the University of Arizona.