Catherine Steele is an Apache Indian woman who has dedicated her life to improving the lives of children from the San Carlos Apache community. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from ASU and NAU, and is known as a “trail blazer” and role model for reservation educators. Catherine worked for the San Carlos schools for more than 40 years, first as a teacher, then as an administrator and finally as District Superintendent. She became a change-agent by becoming an educated woman and using that education to help her Apache tribe. .

 

The education of reservation children was always of urgency to Catherine Steele. “I am just sitting here, wondering,” she asked herself. “What are we not doing with our students? They come to school every day wanting and willing to learn with an infectious eagerness.” From 1965, when she began working at the age of eighteen for the Rice School District #20, until 2016, when she retired at the age of sixty-nine as Superintendent of the San Carlos Unified School District # 20, she has been asking and answering her own question, finding ways to change and improve the academic culture of children and high school students on the reservation in San Carlos and to make them successful learners and leaders for her tribe.

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As Superintendent, Catherine helped secure funding from a number of sources, including a federal nutrition program to provide reservation children healthy breakfast and lunch meals.  Her vision and influence will continue for many years to come.