Growing up in southwestern Iowa, the poet William Reed Dunroy arrived in Omaha, NE, at the age of twenty. Shuffling between jobs, Dunroy soon enrolled in the University of Nebraska and then became a contributor to The Lincoln Courier. Though he spent only ten years in the state, it was the central focus of his three books of poetry. In fact, his Corn Tassels (1897) was dedicated "To the state I love, NEBRASKA, and to her people." ... From "The Rose in Her Hair": "There's a scarlet rose in my lady's hair/ And her gown in silken white,/ On her cheek there's a delicate rosy glow/ Like the birth of a ruddy light."