Indian Country Today Living

Cinnamon Spear knows the value of a good education. The recent Dartmouth College graduate grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in the small community of Lame Deer. The list of her accomplishments in high school and college is as long and diverse as her interests – science, dancing, filmmaking, community activities and ultimately, service to her people in Montana.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Military officials have dedicated a statue of an Oklahoma soldier who won the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War II.

Imagine the time and toil it would take teachers and students to transform a schoolyard into a haven for wildlife. Southern Ute Indian Academy in Colorado did just that, qualifying as the first tribal school to earn certification as a National Wildlife Federation Wildlife Schoolyard Habitat site in 2005.

DAYTON, Ohio – “The meaning of this project goes way beyond the goods that are given out. It’s about making connections between people,” said Guy W. Jones, Hunkpapa Lakota, who recently completed an annual 2,200-mile, nine-day pilgrimage to deliver more than 50,000 pounds of donated clothes and school supplies to the Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock reservations.

Dr. Mona Gohara, a skin cancer expert at Yale New Haven Hospital, says people of color need to know three important facts:

PRINCETON, N.J. – The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selected Frances Stout, a retired registered nurse and chairperson of the Tohono O’odham Nursing Care Authority in Sells, Ariz., to receive a Community Health Leaders Award.

The power to change our lives and our communities begins with changing our destinies. For most, this means changing our lives through education. Our elders recognized this need more than 100 years ago.

Allyson Two Bears, an environmental science student at Sitting Bull College based in the Dakotas, hails from a long line of medicine women. Her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother were cultural leaders, and their traditional wisdom eventually passed down to Two Bears, who promised to share the knowledge with her children.

WARM SPRINGS, Ore. (AP) – At first Merle Kirk and Adeline Miller were inseparable. For eight hours a day, the two went over language drills. Miller, a tribal elder, would say a word in her native Ishichkin, and Kirk would repeat it. They traveled and taught together. Kirk listened without interrupting.

The Native Research Network was started with one goal in mind – to foster a support system for Native researchers who are often isolated at universities across the nation.

There are many myths about diabetes, but it is not a myth that you have the power to prevent Type 2 diabetes; prevention is proven and possible.

TOHATCHI, N.M. – Fifth grader Darius Yazzie’s after-school chores include hauling water for horses and feeding chickens, while his classmate, Shanika Begay, rides a bus 15 miles each way through the rolling hills of this impoverished corner of the Navajo Nation.

When’s a good time to start talking to children about going to college? The Wabanaki Bates-Bowdoin-Colby Collaborative thinks it’s never too early; the innovative educational partnership begins its effort with fourth graders.

Katy Brinegar, 22, has traveled a long, often pain-filled road.

When Jennifer Nesahkluah held a fundraiser to heat Native homes, she had no idea that it would blossom into a fledgling nonprofit organization.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are so closely related to the obesity and diabetes that already runs rampant among Native Americans that the whole process of indigenous cognitive decline is starting to be referred to as Diabetes III, a new category.

IGNACIO, Colo. – A lengthy battle by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe ended with a win Oct. 1 as the tribe prepared to take over operation of the Southern Ute Health Center, a former IHS facility that provides health care to Southern Ute tribal members and other local American Indians.

MARGARETSVILLE, N.Y. – The Blue Deer Center, a nonprofit retreat, was founded in 2005 by Eliot Cowan, a Huichol Indian shaman, teacher and master of acupuncture.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Penn. – Penn State University’s American Indian Leadership Program has kicked off events to celebrate 40 continuous years of honing leadership qualities in Native graduate and doctoral students pursuing careers in education.

The National Breast Cancer Awareness Month program is dedicated to increasing awareness about the importance of the early detection of breast cancer through a nationwide campaign each October. NBCAM started as a weeklong campaign in 1985 with two founding members.