Menominee - Notable Menominee

Notable Menominee

• Chrystos, a Two-Spirit-identified poet
• Ada Deer— Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
• Billie Frechette, lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
• Mitchell Oshkenaniew - advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
• Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) - chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
• Wallace Pyawasit, Merceline Sanapaw, and Margaret Richmond—Menominee Language Resource Consultants for the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project(WNALP), a collaborative effort of the Native American Studies Program at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council (1973—1976). The goal of the WNALP was to bring Native Speakers, linguists and educators together to prevent the loss of Wisconsin native languages, and create instructional materials, lexicons, vocabularies and audio recordings. Native speakers can use these to assist in teaching their languages to children from Head Start through high school. Adults of all ages were offered the chance to learn their native language and to become language teachers.
• Sheila Tousey - actress, Thunderheart (1995)
• Ingrid Washinawatok—Co-Founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the FARC