Tendore Receives UWs Stanford Commitment to Diversity Award

Reinette Tendore, of Ethete, was named the recipient of the University of Wyoming’s 2017 Willena Stanford Commitment to Diversity Award.

A second-year social work program master’s degree student who will graduate in May, she is the wife of Lee Tendore, also a UW student. The couple has two boys. She is the daughter of Velina Sage and Ralph Curry, from Ethete.

She received the diversity award at the annual Willena Stanford Community Supper in the Wyoming Union following the recent Martin Luther King Jr. Days of Dialogue (MLK DOD) week of events. Nearly 200 UW and community guests commemorated the memory of King at the dinner and honored Stanford, an inspirational former UW instructor in African American and Diaspora Studies. She also was a past member of the MLK DOD steering committee.

An enrolled Northern Arapaho tribal member on the Wind River Indian Reservation, Tendore is interning with UW’s American Indian Studies Program to provide support for the Native American students and Native American community on the UW campus. She graduated from Wyoming Indian High School in 2000 and received her B.A. degree (2009) in elementary education from UW.

According to one of her nominators, “Reinette is an amazing role model to our young women at the university and, by far, a stellar example of the legacy of Willena Stanford Commitment to Diversity Award.”

Tendore is noted for:

-- Her commitment to gathering Native American students to actively take part in Keepers of the Fire activities on campus. She has been on the student-led organization for nearly eight years, helping with fundraisers and social events.

-- Being a founding member of the Sigma Lambda Gamma multicultural sorority on campus, the first multicultural sorority at UW.

-- Her work organizing donations and helping to deliver items at the Standing Rock camp in South Dakota to those protesting construction of a pipeline through Native American land.

-- Her volunteer work on the Wind River Indian Reservation to help promote a healthy life and a strong soul to the reservation’s youth. She also worked for the tobacco prevention and women restored programs on the reservation.

“Her commitment to diversity does not end on campus,” a nominator writes. “She is adamant that her children know and are raised close to their culture.”

Tendore said she was honored to receive the award.

“Receiving this award has made me feel very special and appreciated for all the work that I truly enjoy doing on campus with diversity and cultural awareness,” she says. “I also would like to congratulate the other nominees and let them know I appreciate all the work they do promoting diversity on campus.”

Other nominees for this year’s Stanford Award were Taylor Albert, from Cheyenne; Jasper Hunt, Laramie; Wendy Martinez, Jackson; Denise Muro, Denver, Colo.; Mikalah Skates, Casper; and Kristine Sloan, Baltimore, Md.

For more information about the Stanford Award, email mlkdod@uwyo.edu or visit www.uwyo.edu/mlkdod.