Sunny Walker-Guillory

Standing Rock Sioux
Sitting Bull College, 1998

Back in 1998, the American Indian College Fund awarded a young student from Sitting Bull College a scholarship. Sunny says she was merely testing the collegiate waters by “trying” a semester, a deal that she made with her parents. The deal stipulated that Sunny could do anything that she wanted with her life if she at least completed one semester of college.

The American Indian College Fund was so impressed with Sunny’s achievements and demeanor that they used her in a public service ad campaign in 1999. Sunny is a world-class shawl dancer and at the time she was also the student senate president at Sitting Bull College. Her ad execution was one of the most successful in the American Indian College Fund’s history, as it beautifully showed the connection between Native culture and education.

Today Sunny and her husband are both working in Native education at Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington, where they are investing their education back into the Native communities there.