Cecilia Fire Thunder

Cecilia Fire Thunder (born Cecilia Apple; October 24, 1946) is a nurse, community health planner and tribal leader of the Oglala Sioux.

Born Cecilia Apple on October 24, 1946, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, she is the third of seven daughters of Stephen and Lollie (Featherman) Apple.

Her father was a farmer who worked in agriculture and her mother a culture-keeper; the family spoke Lakota at home.

Her grandparents are Frank and Theresa (Garcia) Apple and John and Mary (Ice) Featherman.

Her sisters are Shirley Murphy, Mary Hawk, Dinah Apple, Carmine Red Eagle, Joanne Apple, and Wanda Apple (Wanda is deceased).

When Cecilia went to the Catholic Red Cloud Indian School, she had to speak English in class.

The school forbid her from speaking Lakota.

In 1963 her family moved from the reservation to Los Angeles, California, in a Bureau of Indian Affairs-sponsored urban relocation program.

The BIA encouraged Native American migration to cities to take advantage of educational and job opportunities.

Before she went back to the reservation, Cecilia had her children and divorced her husband.

Due to being a single mother, she had help from a social worker who got Cecilia into a nursing program.

Once she passed the state board test, that is when her life working in health care began.

A founder of community-based health clinics while living and working in California for two decades, Fire Thunder was among founders of the Oglala Lakota Women's Society after her return to the reservation in 1986.

She serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS) and has worked at a shelter for domestic abuse.

She is the coordinator of the Native Women's Society of the Great Plains.

In 1986, Cecilia returned to the Pine Ridge Reservation, where she was given the Lakota name of Good Hearted Woman for her services and advocacy for Native American healthcare.

Apple married John Fire Thunder while living in Los Angeles, and they had two sons, James and John Fire Thunder.

She has two granddaughters from her son John, Katie and Hannah Fire Thunder.

Cecilia and John divorced soon after their sons were born.

As a young nurse in California, Fire Thunder started community-based health clinics at in Los Angeles and San Diego at the San Diego American Indian Health Center, learning to work in a different culture and to seek resources locally.

She was able to persuade doctors from the University of Southern California and the University of California Los Angeles to donate time to the clinic.

After more than 20 years away, in 1986 Fire Thunder returned to the Pine Ridge Reservation and started work at the Bennett County Hospital.

She was among the founders of the Oglala Lakota Women's Society.

From her years working as a nurse, she had learned of the physical, developmental and learning problems for children born to alcoholic mothers, and encouraged women to get preventive treatment.

She serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS), founded in 1990.

In her work for Cangleska, Inc., a domestic violence shelter, she also dealt with women who suffered from abuse related to poverty and alcoholism on the reservation.

A Lakota native speaker, Fire Thunder has also been active in tribal efforts to recover and revive use of the Lakota language among its young people and adults.

She sees use of the language as integral to their culture.

Cecilia joined a political conference called the National Congress of American Indians.

She joined to talk about the issues they faced as natives and ways to change the current policies.

On November 2, 2004, she was the first woman elected as president of the Tribe.

On November 2, 2004, Cecilia Fire Thunder was elected as the first female president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation to serve the two-year term.

She defeated both Russell Means, notable as an activist in the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the incumbent John Yellow Bird Steele.

In 2005 the tribal council suspended her, initially for 20 days, in an action that ran to 66 days.

They began impeachment proceedings related to allegations that she used tribal land as collateral for a US$38 million loan from the Shakopee Tribe in Minnesota to help pay off short-term debt of the Oglala tribe that totaled $20 million; the remainder of the loan was invested for casino expansion to generate revenue.

Fire Thunder said the allegations were false, and she had openly negotiated the loan as part of straightening out the tribe's financial status.

After the complaint was dismissed by the council on December 30, Fire Thunder returned to her position.

She served until being impeached on June 29, 2006, several months short of the two-year term.

The major controversy was over her effort to build a Planned Parenthood clinic on the reservation after the South Dakota legislature banned most abortions throughout the state.

The tribal council impeached her for proceeding without gaining their consensus.