Around the Campfire: The adventures of Toni and Dean

My BW (Beautiful Wife) Toni went with me to recruit students last week. She had never been with me to do that before. We drove 700 miles in three days, visiting 11 schools in the process. She was astonished at what we saw. It was great to have fresh eyes looking at something I have been seeing for 40 years. She has been a registered nurse since 1964, the last 30 years working in nursing homes and hospice care. She knows her business well; she has run four nursing homes very successfully.

Right after we took over Alcatraz, the late Tom Mudd gave us $10,000 worth of Cyprus Mines stock. He named five people to decide what to do with it. When we met as a group, no one had a clue about what we should do. So we decided to meet again the following week and decide. I looked into the whole arena of scholarships, and came in with a proposal to use the money for scholarships. Little did I know at the time that it was the direction for the rest of my life.

Tom was the grandson of the president of Cyprus Mines, which is a huge international company. It is so big that he built a whole college, Harvey Mudd College, in southern California. Tom was writing a movie script when he first came to Alcatraz. Later he went back to Stanford and earned his doctorate. Over the next eight years he and I became great friends. He came to our house for Thanksgiving. I visited him at his house on a regular basis.

Between 1970 and 1978 we operated the Native American Scholarship Fund off my kitchen table. Toni and I stuffed thousands of letters on that kitchen table, after our babies went to sleep at night. Then I went away to be President of Bacone College, and the scholarship fund died. James Lujan, Pat Locke, Jodie Palmer and I started it again in 1986. We have produced 775 graduates, almost all of whom are working.

Toni told me when we got home that I was passionate and enthusiastic about getting Indian kids educated. It’s either that or I’m a nut case. The mountain in front of us is huge and hard to climb. You see, almost none of the school people believe Indian kids can or should go to college. The worst case was in Gallup, where the high school counselor said there was nothing she could do to help the Indian kids get ready for college, or get into college.

I told her about my hero Frank Kattnig, who transformed Tohatchi High School. He went there in 1984 and stayed until he retired in 1999, a total of 15 years. The year before he got there, only 15% of the high school graduates went on to college. Within five years, Frank had 90% of them going to college. Unfortunately, when Frank retired, his beautiful program died.

Her response was, “Well, I guess I’m just a dog.” I said, “That’s not what I meant. I never insult anybody. I was simply telling you what Frank did.” But she was totally put off. I realize that Gallup is a racist frontier town, and it would take the movement of heaven and earth to change it.

Toni asked me how many applications we got from the first school we visited. I told her I have been to that school for five straight years, and have not received even one application. It’s frustrating. I met with all four classes at Santa Fe Indian School last fall, over 220 students. To my surprise, we got e-mails from 12 students; I was sure we would not hear from more than four of them. But out of the 12, none finished the process and applied to us for scholarship money. I sent individual e-mails to all of them three times. Still we got no applications.

I have 1,045 counselors on my mailing list. We send letters to them every fall. Two years ago I started keeping track of all we heard from. That list is only 19 people. Counselors at Indian schools are not there to help Indian kids get into college. Their emphasis is on technical and vocational education, the kinds of things that the racist inventor of Indian boarding schools pushed. Richard Pratt, the founder of Carlisle Indian School, said thousands of times, “Kill the Indian and save the man.” He meant that any trace of Indianness had to go. Indian schools are totally into the assimilation mode.

No one knows or cares about scholarships. Despite the fact that there are 1.5 million scholarships in the U. S. now, no one is pushing Indian kids to take advantage of this great resource. As soon as you mention college or scholarships in an Indian school, someone pipes up and says, “Well, not all our students are cut out for college. We have to prepare them for something they can do.”

I have heard that at least a thousand times, from principals, superintendents, teachers, and school board members. No one says, “Let’s design a program so our kids will have the option to go to college.” The handful of schools that have done that have worked wonders. Wellpinit High School sent 100% of its graduates on to college in 2003. Navajo Prep sent 100% to college in 2004. Chugach sent only one kid to college between 1974 and 1994, but after completely revamping its whole program, they are now sending large numbers on to college.

Toni also wanted to know how many Indian businesses are located in Gallup. “Probably two to five,” I told her. She said, “But isn’t Gallup where there are so many millionaires?”

“Yes,” I said. “There are over 350 millionaires in this town, out of a population of 19,000. There are more millionaires in Gallup than in any other place on earth. But they’re not Indians. The largest Ford truck dealership in the world is located in Gallup, but it is owned and run by the Gurley family and has been for almost a century.”

“There are 80 Indian jewelry manufacturers in Gallup,” I told her. “But the owners are non-Indians. Indians do the grunt work, and get paid less than minimum wage, because they do piecework. The jewelry people mark up the things they buy one hundred percent. With little overhead, they buy something for $50 and sell it for $100. They buy something for $500 and sell it for $1,000. It’s a big business.”

Then I remembered my friend Penny Emerson, who used to be one of my board members. Penny is Navajo, and was graduated from St. Michaels Indian School. She has a remarkable story. She was a millionaire before she was 30, sold that business and went to college. Then she went back into business and has diversified. She now has over 400 employees, in Gallup, Houston at NASA headquarters, Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, and elsewhere. She operates a home health care business and a transportation business out of Gallup. I just wish there were a hundred more like Penny.

I told Toni about my four yearly visits to one school on the northern part of the Navajo reservation. We got no applications from that school for the whole four years. I recruited at another reservation school in southern Arizona for four straight years, which also produced no applicants at all.

She says there is a difference between our generation and the younger one. We had stable homes, got guidance from parents and family, and worked toward goals. Kids today, she says, don’t have stable homes, don’t have career paths laid out for them, and are floundering. Too many of them think they are entitled to things and don’t have to work hard. Job, car, house, salary—they are entitled to have it.

No one knows scholarships, she says, and kids are not getting guidance to help them get money for college. FastWeb, the comprehensive scholarship site, has 1.5 million entries in its database. It is a gold mine, just waiting for someone to come along to mine the gold.

She appreciated the quality time we had together, something we don’t get a lot of. We have two daughters and two granddaughters living with us or close by, so much of our time is taken up by baby sitting, taking kids to school and doctors, shopping, cooking, washing dishes, and other everyday things. It’s wonderful to for us to have quality time together. We’re still in love with each other.

“It’s a huge mountain,” I told her. But I don’t regret climbing it. I just wish it weren’t so hard. I wish we could get some help from the schools. We have produced 40 doctors, but we need 400. The schools need to do more to help. These kids cannot read. They are leaving high school with sixth grade reading ability. Is it any wonder that 80% of them flunk out of college?

Schools need to do so many things they are not doing now. They need to raise attendance to above 95% and hold it there. They need to put kids into language arts for the first ninety minutes every day. They need to have college people coming to schools on a regular basis. They need to put kids into Upward Bound, GEAR UP, and similar programs from seventh grade on. They need to make sure kids are reading heavily on their own outside of school. They need to develop strong bonds between teachers and parents. They need to reduce their high teacher turnover rate. They need to assign homework every day. They need to put kids into challenging classes. Come on, people.



Dr. Dean Chavers is Director of Catching the Dream, a national scholarship program located in Albuquerque. He was one of the “Alcatraz kids” in 1969, people who occupied Alcatraz for 19 months. His next book is “The American Indian Dropout.” Contact him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..