#washingpost

There is no better feeling than giving back.

As a child growing up on the Navajo Reservation I was taught to help where i was needed and to find ways to give back-to my people and anyone who helped me.

I never really knew what it meant to “give back” until I completed college and became a professional journalist.

When I started in journalism at the the age of 19, i knew absolutely nothing about the field.

I never worked at a high school newspaper because the school I attended didn’t have one. I never worked at the college paper because the college I started off at didn’t have one either.

I picked up journalism at the American Indian Journalism Institute held at the University of South Dakota, a boot-camp for Native American college students interested in the field.

At AIJI, I learned journalism, did it and decided to be it.

My start at AIJI led me to six internships in college and numerous awards. I worked with some of the best editors and mentors over the years, who also had a hand in molding me into the multi-award-winning journalist i am today.

Because of journalism programs like AIJI, Chips Quinn Scholars Program, the Sports Journalism Institute and mentors an former Washington Post Editors Denny McCauliffe and Bill Elsen, i’m living out my dream of becoming a sports writer.

Every internship received, whether it be at Sports Illustrated or the Albuquerque Journal, they all had one thing in common- that i didn’t get them alone.

This years marks my 10th year in journalism and i can’t think of a better way to commemorate it than by mentoring at the Oklahoma Institute of Diversity in Journalism.

I have served as a mentor in the program, a high-school journalism camp held at the University of Oklahoma, for the last four years along along side one of my long time mentors Bill Elsen.

I have also served as a mentor for the Native American Journalists Association student projects (both high school and college) and the UNITY Journalists of Color student projects.

I’ve made it a point to help with diversity journalism programs because they had a vital role in my development as I grew into a professional journalists.

With the guidance of my many mentors obtained through such programs and the knowledge gained, I have traveled and learned things I probably never would have had I stayed within the boundaries of my home on the Navajo Nation.

Most of the knowledge and experience i gained as a young journalist came from others investing in me, now i wish to be on the other end, investing in other budding student journalists.

It is my way of giving back.