Heidi
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
Oglala Lakota College

To Heidi, family and education are two intertwined elements of her life. Although her path to become a successful college student has not always been a direct one, she has nonetheless looked to both her mother and her daughter for support and inspiration along the way.

Heidi, a member of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, left school in her senior year of high school but eventually found her way to the Rapid City campus of Oglala Lakota College (OLC). She hopes to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become an early childhood educator. Moreover, she hopes to take full advantage of OLC’s unique cultural curriculum to learn the things she knows must be passed on to the next generation, to her daughter in particular.

She explains, “I hear my grandparents speak Lakota and I wish so much that I could speak it with them. When my daughter asks me how to say something in Lakota I want to have the knowledge to share with her. I want to be able to incorporate our Lakota language in the classroom, just as my mother does in her class.”

After obtaining her Early Childhood Education degree, she would like to direct her focus to Lakota Studies. Still, while her goals are crystal clear and her determination to reach them is fierce, Heidi still struggles just to get by, depending upon subsidized housing, food stamps and the help of her family. “My budget is most of the time non-existent,” she goes on. “The money that I do have is spent on what is needed for my daughter.”

So it came as a welcome surprise when the American Indian College Fund selected Heidi for one of its most prestigious scholarships. As a Citigroup Scholar, Heidi was awarded a $4,000 scholarship to help her continue with her studies. The award, she elaborates, serves as “a motivation for me to keep going until I am finished.” Undoubtedly, Heidi will use her education to teach her daughter—and her community—valuable lessons rooted in her Indian culture.