Lynda Benoist Nuttall

By Virginia Culver| The Denver Post
October 15, 2011 at 12:33 pm

Lynda Nuttall, who opened the first school in Denver dedicated to American

Indian education, died of colon cancer at her home Friday. She was 64.
Nuttall, who was reared on a South Dakota Indian reservation, opened the Native

American Multicultural Education School (NAMES) after a similar school at the

Denver Indian Center, at 4450 Morrison Road, had to close in 1996. She was a

teacher at the school.
Nuttall told a Denver Post columnist earlier this year that she wanted to be a

teacher “because I wanted to give better than I got.”
Nuttall made a plea in a letter to The Denver Post for continuing American

Indian education, saying American Indian students have the lowest graduation

rates and the highest dropout rates among all ethnic groups.
“You have a tragic educational and human situation in Denver,” she wrote.
A minister offered her a building for NAMES on South Lowell Boulevard.
She said that having members of different cultures at the school led them to

“understand that differences are often similarities.”
Money came in, and with government grants, she was able to open NAMES, but it

closed in July after 15 years because of inadequate funding and Nuttall’s

illness.
“Lynda was full of energy but calm and gracious,” said Connie Anest of Conifer,

who helped Nuttall open NAMES. “Lynda was the brains.”
NAMES was thought to have been the only Denver-area school dedicated to

American Indian education.

Lynda “was outstanding — the most honest and caring soul I ever met,” said her

niece, Holly Hardy. “She accepted everyone just where they were.”
Nuttall was executive director “but did practically everything” at the school,

said her son, Rob Nuttall of Denver.

Nuttall was “eloquent” when it came to grant writing, Hardy said. Her master’s

degree was in nonprofit organizations.
Nuttall always believed she would survive her more than three-year battle with

cancer, her son said.
“She never allowed herself to think negatively,” he said.

Lynda Benoist was born on the Cheyenne Sioux reservation in South Dakota on

Oct. 30, 1946.

She graduated from what was then Eastern Montana College, getting a scholarship

and supplementing her income working as a cocktail waitress in Billings, Mont.,

her son said.
She married Byran Nuttall, who died several years ago.

link to Lynda's original Denver Post obituary;
http://www.denverpost.com/2011/10/15/lynda-nuttall-who-opened-american-indian-school-in-denver-dies-at-64/