Elders

JOSEPH BOHANON is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and attended public school in Hugo, Oklahoma. He graduated with a high school diploma and worked ten years in the medical field as both hospital staff and an Emergency Medical Technician. He was actively involved with the Dallas/Fort Worth American Indian community for about ten years before moving to Houston. In 2001, he developed an American Indian HIV/AIDS Prevention Program with Montrose Counseling Center and the Native American Health Coalition in Houston, Texas. Previously, Mr. Bohanon worked as the Regional Tribal Affairs Specialist for the U.S. Department of Commerce Census Bureau in Dallas, and served as an adjunct faculty member with Eastfield Community College in Mesquite, TX. Currently, Mr. Bohanon is the Coordinator of Field Education at the University of Southern Mississippi in the School of Social Work, and he teaches courses in undergraduate and graduate Social Work.

Joseph received a Bachelors Degree in Social Work in 1996 at UTA and a Masters Degree in Social Work Administration and Community Planning in 1997, also at UTA. Currently, Mr. Bohanon is in the Higher Education Administration PhD program at the University of Southern Mississippi. He co-founded the American Indian Community Council in Dallas, and he is a consultant for nonprofit events and organizations. At UTA, Mr. Bohanon co-founded and served as one of the original members of the Native American Student Association. He also founded the THUNDER Alliance, Inc., a higher educational nonprofit organization for American Indians.

Currently, he advises the University of Southern Mississippi's native student group, The Golden Eagles Intertribal Society. Aside from speaking at various conferences, community activities, and universities, he enjoys time with his wife and family, playing fast-pitch softball, mentoring college students, and participating in cultural activities such as dancing, singing, and ceremonies.

In November, 2007, the UT Arlington home page featured a profile of Eugene Brown. You can view the Eugene Brown profile here.

DR. KENNETH M. ROEMER, an Academy of Distinguished Teachers Professor and an Academy of Distinguished Scholars Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, has received four NEH grants to Direct Summer Seminars and has been a Visiting Professor in Japan, a guest lecturer at Harvard, and lectured in Vienna, Lisbon, Brazil, and Turkey. His articles have appeared in journals such as American Literature, American Literary History, and Modern Fiction Studies. His "Approaches to Teaching Momaday's the Way to Rainy Mountain" (ed.) was published by the MLA; his "Native American Writers of the United States" (ed.) won a Writer of the Year Award from Wordcraft Circle.

Dr. Roemer has written four books on utopian literature:

1. "The Obsolete Necessity," which was nominated for a Pulitzer,
2. "America as Utopia" (ed.),
3. "Build Your Own Utopia," and
4. "Utopian Audiences."

His collection of personal narratives, verse, and photography about Japan is entitled "Michibata de Deatta Nippon" (A Sidewalker's Japan). He has also written "The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature." Dr. Roemer received his B.A. from Harvard and is M.A. and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.