JUNE 3, 2026, 6:00 PM • COLLEGE OF EASTERN IDAHO • BUILDING 3, ROOM 306

Teton Dam Flood—That Day in June
Join a panel of scholars and storytellers to explore the dam’s rise, collapse, and lasting impact on Idaho’s land, people, and policies.

Panelists:

Dylan McDonald

Moderator

Dylan McDonald is an associate professor at New Mexico State University where he works as the Political Collections Archivist in Branson Library. A native Idahoan, he has worked in libraries and archives for over 25 years. He is the author of The Teton Dam Disaster and is actively researching the history of the Lower Teton Division of the Teton Basin Project.

Nathaniel Gee PE, PhD

The origins of Fremont/Teton Dam, the Bureau of Reclamation, and changes to dam safety post-collapse.

Nathaniel Gee PE, PhD is a dam safety engineer that has crawled on,
repelled down and dove on some of the world's largest dams, including Hoover Dam. He recently completed the book Failure and Fortitude: How Faith, Politics and Power Shaped the Teton Dam Disaster. When not writing or repelling down a dam he loves hanging out in Tennessee with his wife and ten children.

Rachel Bodily Birch

The politics behind Congressional approval of Teton Dam and the role of Idaho's Senator Frank Church.

Rachel Bodily Birch is a third year History Ph.D. student at George Mason University. Her historical scholarship centers on nineteenth and twentieth century American religion focusing on Western women’s religious print culture. Birch’s practical experiences draw from digital public history work through archival work, data analysis, and historical podcast creation.

LauriAnn Deaver

The post-collapse clean-up and recovery efforts of the federal, state, and local governments and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

LauriAnn Deaver is an adjunct history instructor at Southern New
Hampshire University with graduate degrees in both History and English. Her master’s thesis, “Dam Mormons: Responding to the 1976 Teton Dam Disaster in the ‘Lord’s Way,’” examined Latter-day Saint responses to the Teton Dam collapse, situating faith-based disaster relief within broader themes of self-reliance and community organization. Her scholarship focuses specifically on Latter-day Saint approaches to disaster response and development in the twentieth century.

L.J. Krumenacker

The geology of the Teton River Canyon.

LJ Krumenacker is a Geology Instructor at the College of Eastern Idaho, an Affiliate Curator at the Idaho Museum of Natural History, and a paleontologist extraordinaire.