Frank C. Dukepoo was a geneticist, but he was equally well known
for his tireless efforts to improve Native American education.
As one of a handful of Native Americans with science doctorates,
he was a crusader for scientific and educational change. Dukepoo
was born in 1944 on Arizona's Mohave Indian Reservation to
working class parents Eunice, a Laguna, and Anthony Dukepoo, a
Hopi. His older brother Freddie, a former lab technician, and
his high school counselor, Abraham Lincoln Herm, served as his
role models. As a college freshman in 1961 (when Native American
college students were virtually nonexistent), Dukepoo
experienced rampant racism at Arizona State University (ASU).
Struggling with the enormous freedom and responsibility he found
in transitioning from high school to college, he lost all five
of his scholarships. Fortunately, Charles Woolf, a professor of
zoology at ASU, mentored Dukepoo. Woolf helped him raise his
grade point average from 1.16 to near 4.0 and helped him
initiate his birth defects r