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Sergio Maldonado calls himself a pragmatic, positive optimist.
The director of Northern Arapaho Tribal Education on the Wind River Reservation is set to speak Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Cody …
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Sergio Maldonado calls himself a pragmatic, positive optimist.
The director of Northern Arapaho Tribal Education on the Wind River Reservation is set to speak Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Cody Library’s Grizzly Hall for the second of a three part series put on by Christ Church in Cody about “Our Wyoming Neighbors.”
Maldonado, who is working on his second Ph.D at the University of Wyoming, has spent a lifetime in education, mainly in Arizona and Wyoming.
He was born in Riverton to a Northern Arapaho mother and Mexican father and spent his early years on the Wind River Reservation as part of the Spoonhunter family until moving to Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 6.
However, soon after he began spending every summer back on the Wyoming reservation with his grandparents, who he said were a major influence on his life.
After graduating high school he sold his car and bought a bus ticket and went back to Riverton, where his grandmother convinced him to go to Central Wyoming Community College. After two years there he went to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, enjoying the Tuesday morning devotionals and lecturers from the world before graduating in 1978.
He’s spent his career in education, the first two decades in the Phoenix area, including at an Indian boarding school. He also worked for 10 years in the Arizona prison system with native men.
He said they were good men who made bad choices.
“That’s what life is,” he said. “We are good people, but during life we sometimes make bad choices.”
He worked for a presidential taskforce and eventually he made his way back to the Wind River Reservation, where he works to this day. He said he’s met many important people along the way.
“Thats what life is all about is community,” he said. “When we maneuver our boat through life, we meet people, significant people in our lives.”
Maldonado said the reservation has been beset by a number of issues and noted a cousin who had been involved in drugs who was murdered.
“It’s a violent place,” he said, “but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
He said life is good and life is work so, as a pragmatic positive optimist, he continues to work to make the reservation a better place.
His message? “While you’re here, please give us your best.”
