Alva Review-Courier -

A few years ago, when I was in graduate school hoping to become an important historian of the American West (and land a job in a university), my advisor and mentor was an expert on Native American history.

He and my other teachers believed that anyone wanting to specialize in the American West must study what we called then “American Indian” history. I took two or three classes from my mentor as well as serving as his graduate assistant.

My graduate assistant job paid my tuition and gave me enough left over to rent a small apartment and lead a typical poor graduate student existence. I graded...