Someone has to watch the sheep

While serving their mission at Haskell Indian Junior College, Mom and Dad spent a lot of time with the students and learned a lot about their home life on the reservation.  The students faced obstacles to their education that most of us would never even imagine.

Haskell Junior College Centennial Convocation
September 1984

to the family

from Dad

3 October 1984

Last evening about 6 p.m. one of the students came in and asked me if I could take him to the bus depot right away.  He got a call from his father saying that he needed him to come home and help get in the wood and coal for winter, because someone had to watch the sheep and the father couldn't do it all by himself.  So Martin had dropped out of school and was going to make two trips walking to the bus depot - about 3 miles each way.  Fortunately the LDS Student Association President saw him and told him to come see me about a ride.  When I talked to Manuel about going home, he didn't seem to resent it nearly as much as I did!  He just said that someone had to do it, and he would come back in January and start again.  Martin was looking forward to our volleyball tournament, and he loves basketball.  He hopes to be back and if so, he will play basketball in January.

Martin turned 20 last May, and he really is a good young man, and we will miss him around the Institute.  The parents of these kids really don't understand what it means for the students to have to drop out and go home like this.  I really felt bad to see him leave.

Can you imagine interrupting your semester

to go home and tend sheep?