In April, HP Engineering, Inc. announced that its Vice President and Regional Engineering Director Dr. Andrew Mock, PhD, PE, SE, was selected as a 2023 Oklahoma Magazine 40 Under 40 honoree for his contributions as a leader in the architecture, engineering and construction industry.
CPN tribal member Katie Lynch’s advocacy led to the adoption of a land acknowledgement by Rutgers University and the Rutgers School of Engineering. Lynch intends to use her biomedical engineering degree to use science to give back to Indigenous communities around the world.
Kansas City Chiefs starting center Creed Humphrey, a Citizen Potawatomi tribal member, received a warm welcome to his hometown of Shawnee, Oklahoma. Tribal Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett began the event with a blessing, smoking Humphrey off with sweetgrass, cedar, sage and tobacco. Shawnee Mayor Ed Bolt read a proclamation, naming March 4, 2023, as Creed Humphrey Day. Bolt then presented Humphrey with a key to the city of Shawnee.
A quilting group based in Linwood, Kansas, recently presented Citizen Potawatomi Nation veterans with handmade quilts to honor the veterans’ military service. Peggy Pistora, Navarre family descendant, is a member of the Linwood Community Library’s Quilts for Veterans group. She helped organize the Oct. 8, 2022, quilt presentation at the Rossville, Kansas, CPN community meeting.
Mary Belle Zook visits Wisconsin Point, Wisconsin, and the Fond du Lac Reservation for a food sovereignty conference at their Tribal college.
Tribal member Karla Bylund started her own business six years ago, offering a wide variety of human resources services to Tribal governments and enterprises. Soaring Bird Solutions offers expertise in recruiting, crafting policy and procedure, handling employee investigations or grievances, employee training and development, compensation studies and strategic planning.
Teresa Hernandez may not have planned to have her own science education business, but she is now the proud owner of Adventures in Living Science and enthusiastic about sharing her knowledge with area students. A scholarship from the CPN Department of Education helped Hernandez in her path to business ownership.
Best-selling writer, ecologist and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ph.D., received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.
After 10 years working in foster care and adoption for tribal Indian Child Welfare departments, Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member Kendra Lowden accepted a position as a senior program associate at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work and Butler Institute for Families. She is also currently earning her Doctorate of Education from Southern Nazarene University.
Sly Alley, the author of Strong Medicine, is happy for the chance to share his Potawatomi heritage and culture with his fans during poetry readings, putting an Indigenous spin and unique perspective on the artform. Alley is currently working on his second book. As he completes new poems, he attends open mic events and poetry readings.