As a boy, Philip Stevens hunted and fished with his father and grandfather on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in southern Arizona. He swam in the Gila River and hiked the canyons and high mesas.

Although he has spent many years away from his home and extended family since then, he always planned to return someday to help the people there in whatever way he could.

"Now that I see the reservation with adult eyes, it's kind of a shock," he says. "We have high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, arson, suicide, and gang activity, and an unemployment rate of 70 percent. They're really heavy problems."

After graduating, Phil worked for two years at Boys Hope in Cincinnati, the organization that had enabled him to attend Saint Anselm. He then served in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, where he became fluent in the native language Guarani.

In the spring of 2004, he returned to the reservation and began living his dream. He worked at the tribal wellness center, where he ran behavioral health programs and stressed the importance of education. Now he teaches fifth grade, where he believes he can do more to help young members of his tribe rise above the social problems that plague Native American populations.

"Whenever I've been away, what kept me going was the idea that I would take my knowledge and abilities back home," Phil says.

He plans to continue his own education, and someday start a college on the reservation.