Dr. Cyndy Kay Hendershot

Dr. Cyndy Hendershot, 51, passed away at St Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro, Arkansas on Friday, June 19, 2020 after a sustained illness. Cyndy was a beloved wife to Paul Nunis, daughter to Cheryll Powell Hendershot of Portales, New Mexico and the late Dr. Richard Hendershot, and sister to Scott Hendershot, also of Portales. She was a witty, loyal, and delightful friend and a much-loved professor. Dr. Hendershot has an international reputation as a film scholar and had a manuscript acceptance in her email inbox just this past week. She arrived in Jonesboro to teach at Arkansas State University in the Department of English and Philosophy beginning August, 1997, and taught Literature & Film, English Composition, and a host of honors seminars that she developed new on a semester-by-semester basis, including courses on Science Fiction, The Victorian Gothic, Horror Fiction, The American 1950s, Mystery and Detective Fiction, Serial Killers & Film, and one that she recently co-taught with her husband, Paul, Blues and Popular Culture. She also co-developed and co-taught courses with Dr. Cathy Reese of the Department of Political Science, including Women & Politics, Politics & Popular Culture in the 1920s, and Politics & Popular Culture in the 1970s, after which they became lifelong friends. Cyndy was an avid reader, particularly of psychological fiction, and loved a variety of music, particularly that of jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald, as well as Bob Dylan. She also wrote and published flash fiction, poetry, literary translation, and experimented with other literary genres as well, including producing two short films. In the past few years, Dr. Hendershot became one of the first professors to publish with the nascent Arkansas State University Digital Press, and to date has two World Literature textbooks published in a digital format as well as a forthcoming work with the press of flash fiction entitled, We Are All Worms and Always Have Been . Her prior books often focused on popular culture, particularly film, in the Cold War Era, and she was a consultant on the PBS documentary American Reds: The Failed Revolution. Her B.A. in English and History was from Eastern New Mexico University, summa cum laude, her M.A in English was from Texas Technical University, and her Ph.D. in English and Critical Theory were also from Texas Tech. She will be forever missed by her family, her friends, her cat KeKe, and a wealth of colleagues and admirers worldwide.