For more than 20 years, West Virginia University has had a direct link to the Native American community, hosting tribal elders and top thinkers to the campus and region.
The woman who helped establish that link will be honored this month during WVU s Weekend of Honors observances.
Carolyn Reyer will receive the Neil S. Bucklew Award for Social Justice for her work that helped establish the Universitys Native American Studies Program, including its speakers program and yearly elder-in-residence program.
The award will be given in a 7 p.m. ceremony on Friday, April 16, in the Mountainlair Ballrooms.
Reyer was already renowned for her advocacy of the Native American community when she came to WVU in 1981 as a visiting lecturer in sociology and anthropology. In that role she offered lectures on five major Native American tribes. Then-University president Neil Bucklew took notice, and asked her if she would build on those lectures to develop a Native American program on campus. Reyer didnt think twice.
Well, of course, I said yes,she remembers with a chuckle.It was like everything came full circle for me then.
Reyer was introduced to tribal ways as a little girl growing up in New York state. She was offered a very special present on her 8th birthday from the kindly chief of Abenaki Tribe, Julius Dennis, who carved a wooden bow and arrow for herthen showed her how to use it.
She, in turn, carved out more awareness and insights to the cause as she grew into adulthood. Her college roommate was Evelyn Yellow Robe, whose father was a direct descendant of Sitting Bull, the legendary Lakota chief who never gave up the fight for his land as American military forces moved West after the Civil War.
My life was completely changed,she remembers.It was like it was meant to be.
The culture that so captivated Reyer had been largely forgotten in 1980s America, when she began lining up speakers for WVU . That quickly changed once she went to work, and over the years shes helped introduce the campus a full range of people who have given the full width and breadth to WVU of just what it means, emotionally and sociologically, to be Native American.
And she was already friends with some of those earlier speakers for the program that included Peterson Zah, the first elected Chief of the Navajo Nation, who came her at her request to talk about how his Nevada reservation rejected gamblingin a state known for its glittering casinos and rolls of the dice.
Reyers friend, Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, also came to campus and is responsible for the planting of WVU s White PinePeace Treein Woodburn Circle, a gentle icon for compassion that took on even greater symbolism after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
And her friend Wilma Mankiller is the Chief of the Western Cherokeeher visit to campus coincided with her cover picture on MS magazine as one of the nations 10 most influential women.
Reyer, in turn, has used her own influence to keep the culture alive and out there. She retired as a professor a few years back, but she continues to serve on several statewide and national Native American outreach committees. Shes trekked to a South Dakota reservation to chronicle the lives of six Lakota Sioux women for her book,Cante ohitika Win (Bravehearted Women): Images of Lakota Women from Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. And she also co-edited the well-receivedAn Indian in White America,with her friend, Mark Monroe, to whom she refers asmy adopted Lakota brother.
The wordsnativeandAmericanare two very important words in her vocabulary, she says.
We need to remember and remind ourselves of this culture,she says.Indians are the first Americans. To not know about them is to deny our own heritage.