In Memoriam: Dan Sheridan

By: Jan Jelliff
Publication: The Voice, Vol. 6, No. 2
Date: March-April 2001

Summary: NWP honors the life and work of Dan Sheridan, the founder and first director of the Red River Valley Writing Project in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The NWP honors the life and work of Dan Sheridan, the founder and first director of the Red River Valley Writing Project in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Dan passed away on December 24, 2000. Below, his colleague Jan Jelliff, RRVWP outreach coordinator, recognizes his outstanding contributions to his community, to the National Writing Project, and to the field of education.

We here at the Red River Valley Writing Project at the University of North Dakota want to recognize and honor our leader and founder, Dr. Daniel Sheridan, who died on December 24, 2000, from colon and liver cancer. Dan dreamed about the NWP, talked about the NWP, sometimes obsessed about the NWP, worked his heart and soul out to bring a NWP site to UND. The Red River Valley Writing Project was born in 1999, and Dan was truly considered its creator. On Christmas Eve 2000, his life was cut short by a cruel and swift cancer that had been diagnosed only a few short weeks before. Dan's vision and hard work accomplished so much in so many areas at the University of North Dakota, but he was especially proud of having established a site for a National Writing Project. Those of us who worked with him feel a special obligation as we plan for the third summer of the Red River Valley Writing Project, a summer without Dan. It will be a bittersweet time. Dan had just published a second edition of his text for English methods classes in November; his book is titled Teaching Secondary English: Readings and Applications (Longman). This kind, gentle, scholarly, funny, wise, and decent man will be sorely missed by all who knew him. The Red River Valley Writing Project salutes its fallen leader, Dan Sheridan.

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