Raised by her maternal grandparents on the Umatilla Indian reservation, Marjorie Waheneka has devoted herself to passing the wisdom of tribal elders on to young people.

Twenty-five years ago she became the first Native American ranger at the Whitman Mission National Historic Site in Walla Walla, Washington. In 1999, after many years of building bridges between the National Park Service and local tribes, she became Assistant Director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation’s Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, a tribally-chartered museum near Pendleton, Oregon. She is now the Institute’s exhibits manager.