Students From Fort Sill Indian School Participate in Reunion

The Fort Sill Indian School reunion took place on Friday, April 5, and Saturday, April 6. The two-day event featured several activities, including the history of the school, a bubble walk, stories from alumns and a sock hop.

According to Executive Director of KCA Yolanda Ramos, the event was co-sponsored with the Comanche Academy Charter School PTA Board, which she’s the treasurer of.

“I’m around here all the time,” she said. “I oversee the lands that are originally owned by the Kiowa’s, Comanche’s and Apache’s, so I see buildings, I see things in the office that a has little history about Fort Sill Indian School. And so, it’s just always been in the back of my mind, and so I had wondered when the last time was they had an actual reunion, and it had been several years since they last had a reunion. And a lot of the people that had gone to Fort Sill Indian School they’re getting older now. The youngest people would be around 60 or above.”

Ramos said she used the opportunity to serve her elders.

“I just felt this was something to do for them because a lot of people who passed on went to the school,” she said. “Even people that were on the committee to do the reunion everywhere had passed on. And so, you know, people are sick and things like that and so I think it was time to do that.”

Ramos said planning started with a social media post.

“Martina Minthorn, she had seen my post, and she was like, ‘I want to help,’ and so, we joined together,” she said. “I put it before the KCA Board to get approval to be able to do this, and they agreed, all of our tribal leaders, all agreed it was a good thing, and so that’s how it came to be.”

Ramos said it was important for the elders to share their stories and for the youth to participate.

“Well, I think that it's important for our elder’s to share their stories so that the future can at least know what they had to go through and you know, they set a path for our younger generation. So, like yesterday during lunch, we had IMNDN kids come in here and sing, and we have the Comanche Academy Charter School kids come in and sing, and we have all of these generations of people coming together, and it's so beautiful. It's such a beautiful thing.”

Some of those stories included football games and what it was like to teach at the school.

To close out the weekend, alums got to dance, eat dinner and take photos together.