Join us for a Mitchell-Reed Community of Learners Lecture at 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, March 27 in the Library Orientation Room. Reference and Instruction Librarian Dennis Miles will present The Armstrong Academy’s Unique History as part of the Choctaw Educational System. Brown bag lunches are welcome; light refreshments provided by the Office of the Provost.

The Choctaw Tribe was removed by force from Mississippi to southeast Oklahoma in the 1830's. Soon after they arrived there, they set up their own government and began to establish schools to educate their children. The need for education was understood to be crucial to the survival of the tribe by the leadership of the tribe, a feeling expressed by the statement of one of their chiefs "Educate or we perish!" The schools created by the tribe with the help of Christian missionaries lasted until the early twentieth century when the federal government took over these schools. Today, all but one of these schools are gone, lost to European encroachment. This presentation will briefly touch on the Choctaw Education system as a whole, and follow in particular the history of one of these schools, the Armstrong Academy, once located in Bryan County Oklahoma.

Dennis B. Miles was born and raised in California and Oklahoma, and has a degree in history from Texas Tech University, and a Masters in Library Science from University of North Texas. He worked for almost 28 years as a reference and instruction librarian at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma.