Clay Jenkinson
Clay Jenkinson is a humanities scholar, author and social commentator trained in English Renaissance Literature, but thanks to a series of accidents, a Jefferson scholar, a Lewis and Clark scholar, and a student of the future of rural America. . He is one of the most entertaining public speakers in the United States and his performances are both humorous and enlightening, while maintaining a steady focus on ideas. Clay is also one of the nation’s leading interpreters of Thomas Jefferson. He has lectured about and portrayed Jefferson in forty-nine states over a period of fifteen years. He has performed before Supreme Court justices, presidents, eighteen state legislatures, and countless public audiences, as well as appearing on The Today Show, Politically Incorrect, CNN,and The Colbert Report.He also portrays Meriwether Lewis, John Wesley Powell, J. Robert Oppenheimer, John Steinbeck and Theodore Roosevelt and is also the voice of Thomas Jefferson on the nationally syndicated NPR program The Thomas Jefferson Hour.Clay is the director of the Dakota Institute in Washburn, ND, the president of Dakota Sky Education and the Chief Consultant for the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University and writes a weekly column for the Bismarck Tribune, in addition to authoring numerous books.  He makes his home in Bismarck, ND.