Lighting the Fire

Abandoned by his Cherokee father to be raised by his white mother, Stephen Teehee was abandoned again to the care of his 75 year old grandfather and 60 year old grandmother in the fading oil boomtown of Bristow, Oklahoma The Russells did the best they could with what they had.`The Russells met in Indian Territory, the western terminus of the Trail of Tears. They told their Cherokee grandson the truth about his origins and offered up the most famous writer and speaker of their lives, Will Rogers, as a Cherokee role model as they read their grandson the newspaper every day and assured him that he was a smart boy who should "go to college," something nobody in his family had done. What followed were ten years of failure and misery that included three high schools. The attempts by the Russell elders to light the fire of curiosity in the boy were countered by an indifferent mother, a hostile father, and public schools that offered Indians "shop" or art. Stephen Teehee chose a side when he changed his name to Russell and vowed to make his grandparents proud, a vow that would have to be kept posthumously. Steve Russell talked his way into The University of Texas on the second try and was admitted with no high school credits and no test scores. He graduated magna cum laude and went on to take a law degree from Texas and a graduate degree from Nevada. Russell's candid and compelling memoir will light the fire of curiosity, a love of learning, and the embrace of community in all who read it.