Charles Jackson (Delaware)

Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again could describe the feeling Charles Jackson has about his hometown of Cody's Bluff, Oklahoma. In the 1930's, where he grew up there, the land was little more than blowing dust, and his grandmother's 80-acre farm ("the Indian allotment") was so poor they "just scratched out a living." In addition to these memories of hard times, there is another reason why he won't go home again: the Oologah Reservoir. His childhood is, in effect, underwater. The school he attended has been torn down also. "It's just as well," he says. "I remember the teacher would get an extra dollar per month for each Indian student, supposedly because we were so dumb."

"My biggest goal for the Center is to help Indian children further their own education so they can enter the professional fields." In his field, banking - he's president of a bank near Wichita - you can "count the Indians on one hand," says the great-great-great grandson of Chief Charles Journeycake, the last Chief of the Delaware.