PBS's Wes Cowan likes connecting big events to the families who were there

Wes Cowan of Public Broadcasting’s “History Detectives” and “Antiques Roadshow” will emcee East Tennessee Public Television’s Be More Awards on Feb. 25.

Wes Cowan, one of the hosts for the popular Public Broadcasting television series "History Detectives," is scheduled to emcee East Tennessee Public Television's inaugural Be More Awards. The awards ceremony is set for Thursday, Feb. 25, at 11:30 a.m. at the Knoxville Convention Center.

As emcee, Cowan will announce winners of the 2009 Be More Awards, which have been selected by a panel of judges.

Cowan, a native of Louisville, Ky., grew up in a home surrounded with antiques collected by his mother.

He earned a doctorate degree in anthropology and taught at Ohio State University. In 1984, he moved to Cincinnati to become curator of archaeology at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History.

He has published widely in the fields of American archaeology and paleoethnobotany. Cowan co-edited "The Origins of Agriculture in International Perspective and Societies in Eclipse: Eastern North America at the Dawn of European Colonization."

He left academia and museums to return to his childhood love of antiques. Since then, his auction company, Cowan's Auctions Inc., has grown from a one-man shop to a nationally recognized business generating nearly $20 million in annual sales.

"Every family in the U.S. has some sort of story that relates to their family, or to some event or era of American history that they find fascinating," Cowan said in a telephone interview. "They might own a sword that belonged to a Confederate cavalryman or a box full of letters from East Tennessee that belonged to a Union sympathizer.

"And there are literally thousands and thousands of Americans who have letters or souvenirs that were part of World War II.

"Every family has a story to tell of a member of their family that retells the story of the bigger picture of American history," said Cowan, who is listed as an auctioneer and appraiser as one of the four hosts of "History Detectives."

"One of the most common questions is my favorite show," he said. "I think my favorite is to see a diary reunited with a family. We did one a couple of years ago when we reunited a World War II diary from a bomber pilot with his daughter. He was killed over the Atlantic Ocean before she was born."

Cowan is also a featured appraiser on PBS's "Antiques Roadshow." In addition, he writes an antiques column for the Cincinnati Enquirer and is a frequently requested speaker at national antiques events.

ETPtv launched the Be More Awards program with the assistance of a grant from PBS to honor excellence in the area's local nonprofit community. Nominations for the awards program are open to all nonprofit organizations and individuals in ETPtv's viewing area. Applications for the 2011 ETPtv Be More Awards will be available online at www.ETPtv.org in July.

East Tennessee Public Television is a nonprofit TV station that reaches about 925,000 homes in the region, which includes southern Kentucky and western North Carolina.

Retired News Sentinel senior writer Fred Brown is a freelance contributor and may be reached at brownf08@gmail.colm

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