Ed. Note: The column in question can be found here: Column: Deloria advanced some wacky views .

"What a disappointment to open the Rocky Mountain News on the day of my father's funeral to find Vincent Carroll taking a couple of nasty pokes at him.

Vine Deloria Jr. was a complicated thinker, to be sure, and he was open to any number of ideas that might be called "wacky." He was willing to step outside the boundaries of acceptable knowledge, but he did so as a way of asking others to question seriously that knowledge.

Of course, this isn't the first time the News has felt compelled to make light of his intellectual openness and curiosity. Who could forget the complaint a couple of years ago that the Center of the American West's Wallace Stegner Award was being given, not to a legitimate figure of some import, but to a "crank"?"

Get the Story:
Philip J. Deloria: Deloria reveled in thinking outside the box [see last item] (The Denver Rocky Mountain News 11/23)

Indian Country Today Articles from January 10, 2005:
Wilma Mankiller: An original thinker with a warrior's spirit
Suzan Shown Harjo: Selective memories of Vine Deloria Jr.
Faith Spotted Eagle: Deksi (Uncle) Vine
Charlie Wilkins: Visionary thinker and wordsmith par excellence
Hank Adams: A Vine Deloria Jr. collaboration: The first decade
John Mohawk: Vine Deloria Jr.'s unfolding legacy
Philip Deloria: Tales of a remarkable father
Norbert Hill: A hero to many

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