Wade Blevins was born on January 9th, 1973, in Grove, Oklahoma (Cherokee Nation) where his family has resided since the 1840s. He was predominantly raised by his Native grandparents, a schoolteacher and a Southern Baptist minister whose first language was Cherokee. With his light skin and his Native upbringing, Wade grew up feeling different from the children around him. At age twelve, he also realized his lack of attraction towards women, which enhanced his sense of alienation from other children and his family’s religious Baptist community.
Originally wanting to be an artist, Wade’s grandmother convinced him to pursue teaching instead. He became a state regent scholar, earning a bachelor’s in Spanish education, followed by a master’s from Oklahoma City University in Gifted and Talented Education with an emphasis on Native American students. He was offered his first teaching job at a high school in Cherokee, North Carolina, where he taught for a year.
After leaving the school, Wade moved to Tulsa to take care of an HIV-positive friend and work in a gay bar. Eventually, he returned to his hometown for a teaching job. Before accepting the role, the superintendent’s secretary expressed discriminatory concerns about his sexuality based on his appearance. Although Oklahoma enforced an anti-sodomy law at the time, Wade confronted the secretary and successfully got her to backtrack and apologize. Throughout his teaching years, Wade had boyfriends, and while he didn’t tell anybody about his sexuality, he also refused to hide it. He stayed in that teaching job for ten years, forging deep connections with the Native children in his community.
During that time, Wade trained in TPRS (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling), specializing in pedagogy and methodology. Increasingly passionate about preserving Cherokee language and culture, Wade became actively involved in initiatives such as the Cherokee Nation Johnson O’Malley (JOM) program summer camp. By the end of the summer, his students were able to read a book completely in Cherokee. This led to him co-founding the Unite Conference, which focused on Indigenous methods for the teaching of Indigenous language. In the early 90s, he attended his first Two-Spirit gathering, surrounded by people who mostly grew up in rural traditional Native communities.
In 2019, Wade was appointed onto the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s language advisory team, teaching the language of the Cherokee Nation. The role is one step closer to his dream of seeing dual language tracks in Cherokee and English in schools all across all counties in the Cherokee Nation jurisdictional service area.
Wade is multilingual, speaking English, Cherokee, Spanish, and some Mandarin. He is also an expert Martial artist, with over 25 years’ experience in Chinese and Koran martial arts. An indomitable spirit, Wade resides within the embrace of the Butler community, a steadfast guardian of Cherokee heritage, tirelessly dedicated to enriching and perpetuating the legacy of his people.
