Two 2025 Pulitzer winners trace roots to Fayetteville
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Ziva Branstetter, left, and Kathleen DuVal. Photos: Courtesy Ziva Branstetter and Laura Wessell
Two winners of a prestigious prize for writers this year grew up in Fayetteville. One received Pulitzer recognition for her work on the first draft of history following the Dobbs decision, the other for a 1,000-year retrospective on Native Americans.
Why it matters: Ziva Branstetter and Kathleen DuVal's works highlight significant cultural and political issues in the U.S., bringing attention to people and events that might otherwise be lost to time.
What they're saying: "Few, if any, school districts in the middle of America can lay claim to having two current Pulitzer Prize winners among their alumni," Fayetteville School District Superintendent John Mulford said in an email.
- "We are very proud of Dr. Duval and Ms. Branstetter, and we congratulate them on these prestigious honors."
State of play: Though neither woman attended the University of Arkansas, it serves as a common denominator; both their fathers taught there and settled in Fayetteville.
Branstetter, a senior investigative editor for ProPublica, worked with a team on "Life of the Mother," a series about how abortion bans have led to preventable deaths of women in Georgia and Texas. The series won for public service reporting.
- She graduated from Fayetteville High School (FHS) in 1982, then went to Oklahoma State University.
- Much of her career as an investigative reporter and editor was spent in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but she also did stints at Reveal and the Washington Post.
- "The reason we're doing this work is to point out to policy makers — and really the people who vote for them, the people who can apply pressure — that there are opportunities to save lives," she told Axios.
Case in point: "Ziva had the vision that we should gather death records ourselves, reach out to families and ask experts to help us understand if and how abortion laws were impacting health care. ... Her passion, encouragement and support made it possible," ProPublica reporter Kavitha Surana told Axios.
DuVal, a professor of history with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, won the prize in history for her book "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America." It chronicles U.S. history through the lens of Indigenous nations.
- She graduated from FHS in 1988, then earned her bachelor's degree in history at Stanford and her Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis.
- Her research focuses on the influence of different cultures on early America.
- "I think for a long time it was important to most Americans to kind of believe that the United States had a right to the whole continent and that maybe Native Americans hadn't," she said. But in recent years, DuVal said, the public has become more interested in Native American history and that the communities "have always been here and are still really an important part of the United States."
Case in point: DuVal was editor of the FHS literary magazine, named "Best High School Literary Magazine" in 1988 by the Columbia University School of Journalism, her father, John DuVal, told Axios.
- In 1989, she was an intern for Alan Wilbourn, now the director of communications for the Fayetteville School District.
- "You could tell then, how sharp she is," he said.