Deb Goodrich
Kansas Historical Foundation
Board of Directors
Elected to board: 2025
Deb Goodrich is a native Virginian but has spent the last three decades in Kansas. As a non-traditional student at Washburn University in Topeka, she earned a bachelor's degree in history and fell in love with Kansas history. She has championed it ever since. A newspaper reporter at age 15, she has worked in various media throughout her career.
As a public speaker, she has spoken to hundreds of groups across the country (and a few beyond) on subjects from Abraham Lincoln to John Brown, Fort Wallace to the Santa Fe Trail. Deb has appeared in numerous documentaries such as The American Experience: Jesse James; Aftershock (on the aftermath of the Civil War); Gunslingers on Wild Bill Hickok; Bloody Dawn; The Road to Valhalla; Touched by Fire; The American Artist-George Caleb Bingham; The States-Kansas. She has been featured on C-SPAN and is one of the historians who participates in the network's ranking of the presidents.
She was a producer on the recent feature film Sod and Stubble, based on the book by the same name. She is co-writer on the film Under the Painted Sky, released in 2026. She is also the writer and director of the documentary, The Moccasin Speaks, which airs on PBS in 2026. Her most recent book, From the Reservation to Washington: The Rise of Charles Curtis, was chosen as a Kansas Notable Book and was a finalist for the Western Writers of America's Spur Award. Deb has served as the Garvey Texas Foundation Historian in Residence at the Fort Wallace Museum since 2016.
She serves on numerous boards, primarily those with history interests. Deb is a big believer in heritage tourism and is constantly looking for ways to encourage travel to the historic sites around Kansas, and her northwest corner of the state.
