While it is great to see a new school built in Birdsprings to educate our youth, the original Little Singer School should not be destroyed.  The original Little Singer School represents an amazing amount of technology, and compassion, from the inventor and creator, Thomas Lee Ryan, and his inspiration, the honorable Medicine Man, Little Singer.  The school was built without original help from the BIA or BIE, strictly with private funds from Thomas Ryan's family, Dave Packard, students of Foothill College in California, and the elders and children of Birdsprings, Arizona. 

The school was unique in its dome construction, solar heating, and wind-powered electricity.  Tom actually invented and patented the solar panels used at Little Singer School and other locations across the Navajo Nation. He created Birdsprings Solar company, training local Navajo to create these panels, bidding on government contracts and installing them at places like Chinle Indian Health Services Hospital. 

We are grateful that a new school expands the history of this great legacy into the future, but we would like to see the original buildings remain as a testament to the original plight of native children being sent to government boarding schools. This school speaks to the healing of bringing the children home to the community based on the dreams of Little Singer and Tom Ryan. 

We envision a space within the new school campus that the original domes could provide an additional educational experience to current students, especially those in native history, engineering, and mathematics.

If we and the school board cannot find the space on it's campus for the original domes, we would like the opportunity to find a new location for the school. We would like to create an amazing interpretive exhibit, showing the history of Birdsprings, of government forces removal of school aged children to residential schools. The legacy of our people, the dreams of Little Singer to bring the children home, and how Little Singer found a quirky white guy that devoted his entire life to bring these children home needs to be saved for future generations.

In the future we will be asking for funds to actually create or move this amazing historical opportunity.  But for now, we must just stop the irreversible destruction of an amazing future archeological historical site.

Please help my family and me to stop the destruction.  We can deal with the rebuilding later.  Thank you for listening.  Please take care. Love from the Ryan Family.