Kenneth Lincoln died on May 10 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 80. Ken was born in Texas and grew up in Nebraska, where his great-grandparents homesteaded along the North Platte River. He lived in Bayard as a child and graduated in 1961 from Alliance High School, where he was an accomplished musician, a varsity football and golf player, and named “best all-around student.” As a young adult, Ken was adopted into the Oglala Sioux by the Mark Monroe family and given the Lakota name, Mato Yanmi. He went to Stanford University for an A.B. in American Literature, to Indiana University for a Ph.D. in British Literature, and to UCLA in 1969, where he taught Contemporary and Native American Literatures for over forty-five years. While at UCLA, Professor Lincoln developed the American Indian Studies curriculum, chaired the country’s first interdisciplinary Master’s Program in American Indian Studies, and published widely in the field: Native American Renaissance (University of California Press 1983), The Good Red Road: Passages into Native America (Harper & Row 1987), UCLA Native American Poetry Series (nine titles, 1975-1993), Indi’n Humor: Bicultural Play in Native America (Oxford University Press 1993), Men Down West (Capra Press, 1997), a collection of essays on growing up along the frontier. He is survived by his daughter, Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff. Those interested in sharing their memories of Ken or interest in attending his memorial in Los Angeles can email kenrobertlincoln@aol.com.
