When Pamela Simpson, the Ernest Williams II Professor of Art History at Washington and Lee University, would tell people she was writing a history of corn palaces and butter sculptures, a common response was a blank stare and a "What?"

Simpson included that anecdote in the preface to her new book, “Corn Palaces and Butter Queens: A History of Crop Art and Dairy Sculpture” (University of Minnesota Press, April 2012). A popular and influential professor at W&L for 38 years, she had completed all but the index of the publication before she died on Oct. 4, 2011.

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