In Praise of Old Friendships

They say a true friend is a great gift, and that an old friend makes the best mirror. LaVonne Ruoff is both to me—we have known one another for over twenty years. What more could one want from a friend but someone who belongs to you in a kinship way, and at the same time knows how to hold up a mirror when you need to look upon yourself through someone else's eyes. LaVonne is the person to whom I have turned what seems like a million times for a kind word, for help, for letters of support, for a textual reference, for news, even for a phone number (I swear she has everyone's phone number!). I must say that LaVonne has mentored, in one way or another, every up-and-coming scholar in our field. She has always spoken with great enthusiasm as she has seen new scholars finishing up their work in graduate studies. I cannot imagine a more generous scholar, mentor, or friend—she is all those things to and for us all. And she relates to others with the sort of kindness that only comes from great wisdom.

Despite the valuable role she has played in so many people's lives, LaVonne remains humble about her service to individuals and to the field of Native American literature. As the recipient of the Modern Language Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, LaVonne rightly stands tallest, heads and shoulders above the rest of us, as someone who has devoted her career to doing the next thing that needs doing to assure that native voices will be heard. She will long be known as the person who kept banging her drum slowly until Native American literature and literary study became institutionalized in mla and recognized and respected as on a par with other literatures and literary studies. Along with others in her generation such as Karl Kroeber, Dan Littlefield, and James Parins, LaVonne set about to document all that could be found, to foster growth in the critical examination of those early works, and to develop institutional homes, such as ASAIL and the MLA Division of American Indian Literatures.

LaVonne has done more to recover American Indian texts, to reinterpret old texts, to promote the growth of an American Indian professoriate, to support all scholars in the field of American Indian literatures, to institutionalize the Weld, and to foster a new generation of scholars in American Indian studies at the Newberry Library than anyone else. (I have elsewhere referred to her as the Willie Nelson of native literary study—she's sung with anyone, because she loves the song [the literature] so much!) I would dare to say that there is no one in the field who does not possess a copy of American Indian Literatures: An Introduction, Bibliographic Review, and Selected Bibliography. That text has become the veritable bible of American Indian literary study. I always recommend it as the first text new teachers of native literature ought to own. LaVonne's work on Charles Eastman, Alice Callahan, George Copway, and Pauline Johnson creates the foundation we all need for more deeply understanding those authors' lives, times, and works. Her work enables us to pick up such authors with authority, knowing the information we use to introduce those works to students will be sound and deep. The editing role LaVonne has played also enhances greatly the books available to us for our work; I am particularly grateful for the Life Studies series LaVonne edits with the University of Nebraska Press, because those books are essential to the study of American Indian autobiography.

I stand in awe of LaVonne for all that she has accomplished, yet I'm also so very fond of her, because she gives to her friends from her heart. She has offered true friendship to me over the years, even when I was so ornery it's a wonder anyone could put up with me—I love her crackling laugh and all those wonderful times we've shared. What more can I say, but that she's a gift to us...