Kenny Smith:
CLASS OF 1984
Wind River High SchoolClass of 1984
Pavillion, WY
Central Wyoming CollegeClass of 2006
Riverton, WY
Wind River Tribal CollegeClass of 2006
Ethete, WY
University of WyomingClass of 1990
Laramie, WY
Wind River Elementary SchoolClass of 1980
Pavillion, WY
Kenny's Story
I am now on Facebook.
After high school graduation, I attended the University of Wyoming with Ross Goff and Mike Beck. I was a junior in college when I discovered electrical engineering wasn't for me. I changed my major to biological sciences education which was the shortest route for me to get my Bachelor's degree. I did my student teaching back at Wind River High School during the Spring 1990 semester under Bev Scott. That was an interesting experience.
I attended a summer medical school preparation program at the University of Washington in Seattle during the summer of 1990. I visited Ross and Suzy in Seattle, and we would go visit Cheryl Hanson in Oregon. I had to do some soul searching after I took the Medical College Admissions Test in September 1990. I knew I could handle medicine academically, but emotionally, I saw medical school desensitizing people. I thought one of my strengths was being sensitive to people. I decided to direct my sensitivity to other areas.
Because I was a few credits short in fine arts, I had to return to Laramie the Fall 1990 to finish my degree (I wish we had distance education classes back then like there are now).
I started working at the University of Wyoming in Laramie beginning February 1991 as an administrator of a teacher development program designed to increase the number of Native American teachers on the Wind River reservation. I worked that job until August 1993.
I returned home and worked for the Arapaho tribe as an accountant and have worked in different departments since 1994.
I am currently the Finance Officer for the tribe's higher education department. I equate accounting with putting a jig saw puzzle together. I love it. In this job, program's I have initiated are economic development and a multi-million dollar capital campaign to start a scholarship endowment for Northern Arapaho tribal students.
I also serve as the Interim Financial Aid Director of the fledgling Wind River Tribal College.
As a board mem...Expand for more
ber of the Native American Development Corporation based in Billings, MT, I set out the development of economic development training and programs on Montana and Wyoming reservations.
I am a partner of an Internet marketing business which allows me to express my creativity and has made me see economics in a different light.
Needless to say, at the end of the workday, I'm exhausted. For fun I surf the Internet--the world's largest library and marketplace. I still like photography as I did in Nancy Stearns' publications class. But with digital cameras, I don't have the same passion as I did with film cameras. I have problems taking clear digital pictures. I took a Photoshop night class at Wind River taught by Brenda Nolting-Leonhardt in the Spring 2008 to help clean up some of my photos.
I like playing volleyball although I don't get to play very much. I like walking, fishing, camping, and traveling. An activity that I've recently tried and love is mini golf.
I took a golf class at UW and loved it. It was full of laughs.
One of these days I am going to build a mini golf course here in Fremont County.
My baby is my cat. I have had him since he was six weeks old in June 2000. When he was a kitten, he used to curl up and sleep on my shoulder when I would be computing. He would watch the dogs playing outside and would chase them in the house as they ran along the house outside.
A couple days after Easter in 2007, I came home and he didn't greet me at the door like he always does. I found him behind the couch unable to walk on his back legs. He was paralyzed from a blood clot. I was devastated. He regained use of one of his back legs after medication. I had to decide to have his back left leg amputated.
He still gets around, runs and plays with his toys, but he has bad days every so often. I think he's in pain on those days, but he won't hold down an aspirin. He likes to lay on a heating pad on some days.
I have to scratch behind his left ear and his neck everyday. He loves it.
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Reunions
Register for Free to start a reunion event!