Holbrook SDA Indian School

Holbrook Indian School, like many ministries, started with very humble beginnings. Marvin Walter was a missionary working for the Arizona Conference, and he set out to learn about the needs of the Navajo. As Marvin talked with the people, he discovered their desire for their children to receive an education.

With his wife Gwendolyn and funding from the Pacific Union Conference, they set out to build a school. In 1945 the missionary couple moved to Holbrook, Arizona where a new school was built.

With 320 acres of land in Holbrook, the first mission school term started in 1946. That fall, 30 children sat on sheepskin rugs reciting their first lessons in a foreign language—English. This became the first class of students of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission School, now known as Holbrook Indian School.

The success of an educational institution is often measured by former students who’ve passed through its halls. For more than 70 years Holbrook Indian School has enriched the lives of hundreds of Native Americans. Former students have become nurses, lawyers, business owners, community leaders, pastors, human services agents, teachers, members of the US armed forces, school administrators, Gates Millennium Scholars, a Circuit Court Judge, and even a chief mechanic for the US Navy Blue Angels. But what surpasses these successes is that Holbrook’s alumni go on to live lives built on the knowledge that they are deeply loved by our Creator.