I’m back from vacation and return to some sad news: Helen Boosalis, former Lincoln mayor, and subject of a 2008 University of Nebraska Press biography, died this morning. She was 89 years old.

Boosalis started in politics in the 1950s as a volunteer. In 1959, she was elected to Lincoln’s city council, and later, she served two terms as Lincoln’s mayor. In 1986, she ran against Kay Orr for Nebraska governor in a race that attracted national media attention. She lost the race but remained active in both state and local politics. Don Walton, in the Lincoln Journal Star, has written a lovely article about Boosalis’s very rich life.