After COVID delays, Stewart Indian School Museum and Cultural Center honored by ribbon cutting, alumni speakers
Submitted by Kelsey Penrose on Sat, 06/18/2022 - 10:48am
Prior to Grand Entry of the annual Stewart Father’s Day Powwow, a ribbon cutting was held for the official grand opening of the Stewart Indian School Museum and Cultural Center.
Speakers included honored alumni, former Governor Brian Sandoval, and representatives from congress, the Nevada Legislature, and the governors office.
“For the state of Nevada, (the Stewart Indian School) is not a proud history, but it needs to be an honest history,” said Sandoval.
Alumni speakers included Aletha Thom of the Southern Paiute, Class of 1965 and Ron Lewis of Pima, Class of 1978, who each gave their unique perspectives on time spent in the school, both negative and positive.
The school leaves a complicated history. In the beginnings of the school, it was a place for kidnapped native children to undergo forced assimilation in order to learn service trades to better serve white residents. But in its later years, many alumni elected to come and learned valuable trades that, they say, helped better there lives when some reservations around the west offered bleak alternatives.
The museum offers histories both regarding the students who were captured and forced to attend the school, as well as students who elected to come in later years and are proud of the time they spent at the school.
For more information on the school, please visit https://stewartindianschool.com/
The Father’s Day Powwow will continue through Sunday.
