The 2024 SOF annual conference, held in Denver at the Hyatt Centric Hotel, was a resounding success with 82 attendees and 58 Livestreamers. For those of you who weren’t able to attend, the program and some event photos can be found on the 2024 conference page. Replays of the full event will be available for Conference attendees and Livestreamers through November 8, details to follow soon, after which videos will be posted on the SOF Youtube Channel.
One very moving video was shown which you can watch now – a tribute to Alexander Waugh, made by Phoebe Nir and Linds Gray.
Phoebe was also the conductor of the Ox-Tones who performed Who Will Believe My Verse in Time to Come? Sonnet 17, music composed by Phoebe and arranged by Bonner Miller Cutting, William Niederkorn on keyboard.
In addition to the presentations, Alex McNeil was the writer of the questions and MC for Oxfordian Jeopardy (see categories on the 2024 conference page) and on Friday evening over 60 registrants attended a performance of Hamlet at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts with a group ticket rate arranged by Don Rubin. The play’s director is Chris Coleman, a signer of the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt.
The Annual General Meeting, featuring committee reports and Board of Trustees nominations, was held on Saturday morning and run by outgoing President Earl Showerman to whom SOF owes so much for his tireless, knowledgeable and energetic dedication to the Oxfordian cause over many years. Thank you, Earl!
Two new Board members were voted in at the AGM:
Tom Townsend will be serving the one remaining year for Earl Showerman who announced that he is leaving the Board one year early. Tom has been studying and researching both Elizabethan history and the Shakespeare authorship question for over 35 years. A long-time member of the SOF, he has presented numerous papers at conferences and has twice presented introductions to the authorship issue for those new to this issue.
Brent Evans will be serving a three year term. Brent’s passionate interest in the authorship question has prompted years of reading and study. He is currently researching primary documents for a reassessment of the life of Delia Bacon.
Re-elected were Dorothea Dickerman and Tom Woosnam. They will be serving the second of their consecutive three year terms.
Bob Meyers has agreed to be interim President for four months at which time the Board will elect a new President.
All bios can be viewed at on our Trustees page.
The Tom Regnier Veritas Award was created to honor the unique contributions to the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship of the late SOF President, Tom Regnier. For authorship doubters who best demonstrate the potential to make a lasting impact on the history of the Authorship Question through their creative endeavors, dogged scholarship, and overall tenacity, the award exemplifies “the mark and glass, copy and book” fashioned by Tom. This year’s well-deserved recipient is Roger Stritmatter
For over two decades Roger Stritmatter has been the most productive, adventuresome, and successful scholar in the Oxfordian pantheon. From his Ph.D. analysis of Edward de Vere’s Geneva Bible to his most recent findings confirming the relevance of Oxford’s annotations in classical Greek texts at the library of Audley End, no one has published more insightful and radically important articles in both Oxfordian and mainstream journals than Roger. His most recent article on the interpretation of Francis Meres’ Palladis Tamia in Critical Survey is just one example. He has served as editor of the Brief Chronicles series of journals and books, presented at every conference and seminar sponsored by the SOF for a quarter of a century, and co-authored with Lynne Kositsky a volume on the dating and sources for The Tempest. Clearly, a most deserving recipient of this award.
The award medallion was designed to evoke the Most Noble Order of the Garter, a symbol of dedicated engagement against one’s adversaries.
In a previous post we announced that Bonner Miller Cutting was named Oxfordian of the Year.
Bonner was not able to join us in Denver, unfortunately, but she sent in a thank you video in her stead. You can watch the Oxfordian of the Year presentation and Bonner’s speech here:
