The annual award had been given at the Friday evening banquet that opened each Annual Conference from 1986 until 1996. Beginning in 1997, the annual January business meeting developed into a banquet, at which the PNW History Award was presented before the assembled membership.

• 1986 Murray Morgan
• 1987 Lucille McDonald
• 1988 Robert E. Burke
• 1989 Keith Murray
• 1990 Charles P. LeWarne
• 1991 Richard C. Berner
• 1992 Doris Pieroth, and Jane Sanders
• 1994 Norman H. Clark
• 1995 Esther Hall Mumford
• 1996 Ruth E. Kirk
• 1997 Robert E. Ficken
• 1998 John Frazier Henry
• 1999 [no award presented]
• 2000 Joyce Justice, and William H. Woodward
• 2001 Paul Dorpat
• 2002 John M. McClelland, Jr.
• 2003 David L. Nicandri
• 2004 Karyl Winn
• 2005 Dan Peterson