In 2023, the American Folklore Society received a gift from the Welsch family in honor of Nebraska folklorist and storyteller Roger Welsch. The Roger Welsch Opportunity Fund is an endowed fund that will support travel and attendance to the AFS Annual Meeting for those who are practicing in the field as folklorist professionals or students who are new to AFS, to have an opportunity to participate in the Annual Meeting and learn with others in the field.
The Welsch Opportunity Fund will offer annual funding to support attendance to the AFS Annual Meeting. Applications for next year’s grant will be posted to the AFS website in the spring of 2026 on the AFS Prizes and Grants page.
AFS announced the Welsch family gift at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon. During the announcement, Welsch’s daughter Antonia Welsch said that AFS was an important part of father’s professional network and this fund is meant to ensure that others have the same opportunity for professional networking and affinity. Antonia also said “I hope the Roger Welsh Opportunity Fund keeps my dad’s name alive in his beloved field of folklore.”
About Roger Welsch
A native Nebraskan, Welsch taught for many years at the University of Nebraska, worked and lived closely with Native American communities in his region, wrote prolifically about Native and rural culture, folkways, and life in the state and in the Great Plains, and represented the people and communities he loved, and the field of folklore, for a number of years through regular appearances on CBS Sunday Morning.
Read Welsch’s In Memoriam on the AFS website, and his obituaries in the Lincoln Journal Star and the New York Times.