Buffalo Bill Museum staff
Meet the staff of the Buffalo Bill Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
Paul Hutton, PhD
Interim Curator, Buffalo Bill Museum
e-mail: [email protected]
Paul Andrew Hutton is an American cultural and military historian, an award-winning author, documentary writer, and television personality. He is also Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, a former executive director of the Western History Association, and a past president of Western Writers of America. He earned his BA, MA, and PhD from Indiana University.
Hutton is a six-time winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award and a six-time winner of the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
Sam Hanna
Curatorial Assistant, Buffalo Bill Museum
e-mail: [email protected]
Sam Hanna is the Curatorial Assistant of the Buffalo Bill Museum. In addition to that role, to which he was appointed in October 2019, Sam continues to do research for The Papers of William F. Cody.
Former Curator Jeremy Johnston, PhD
Jeremy M. Johnston was the Hal and Naoma Tate Endowed Chair of Western History, the Ernest J. Goppert Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum, and the Managing Editor of The Papers of William F. Cody. He was a cherished member of the Center of the West staff for more than 15 years, until his untimely passing in June 2024.
Johnston attended the University of Wyoming, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1993 and his Master of Arts in 1995. Johnston earned his PhD in American Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2017. His doctoral dissertation examined the personal and professional relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, soon to be published by University of Oklahoma Press. Johnston published various articles in Annals of Wyoming, Colorado Heritage, Points West, Readings of Wyoming History, and Yellowstone Science.
Johnston was the recipient of the 2006 Coke Wood Award, sponsored by Westerners International, for his article “Progressivism Comes to Yellowstone: Theodore Roosevelt and Professional Land Management Agencies in the Yellowstone Ecosystem.” Collaborating with Dr. Charles Preston of the Center’s Draper Natural History Museum, he published an annotated version of Ernest Thompson-Seton’s Wahb: The Biography of a Grizzly, published by University of Oklahoma Press, which considers the Nature Faker Controversy between Seton and Roosevelt. Johnston also coedited George W.T. Beck’s Beckoning Frontiers: The Memoir of a Wyoming Entrepreneur with Lynn Houze, available from the University of Nebraska Press. Most recently, Johnston co-curated the special exhibition Advertising the Frontier Myth: Poster Art of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, with Dr. Michelle Delaney and Sam Hanna as he bravely fought a two-year battle with cancer.
