In nearly four decades at the Journal-World, I can’t even imagine how many pictures we’ve run. Thousands, obviously.

From time to time, we hear from people whose pictures have appeared on our pages. Sometimes, unfortunately, it’s because a person was misidentified, but we also hear from people who just want to thank us.

That was the case the other day when Ernest L. Stevens sent perhaps the most gracious e-mail I ever have received concerning a photo : and it didn’t even appear in the sports section. It ran in the B section.

Stevens is the father of Haskell Indian Nations University basketball player Brandon Yellowbird-Stevens. The elder Stevens, his wife, Cheryl, and Brandon were pictured along with Brandon’s infant daughter during a recognition ceremony last Saturday prior to the Fightin’ Indians’ home finale.

The photo, snapped by J-W chief photographer Mike Yoder, conveyed a genuine sense of moment that enhanced the enrichment of the family side of athletics.

Stevens, who played for the Indians when the school was a junior college, doubly was proud to watch his son play on the Coffin Complex floor, he said, because he had helped raise money to purchase it.

When the HINU facility opened in 1981-82, it had a Tartan basketball floor as did KU’s Allen Fieldhouse. Artificially surfaced basketball floors were all the rage in those days, but not for long when evidence proved they caused shin splints and other leg problems.

“We thank you so much for this small gesture,” Stevens wrote about the picture, “because it is worth a million to this Haskell family.”

Then Stevens, who is chairman of the National Indian Gaming Assn., went on to toss rose petals on the “other” university in Lawrence.

“You may want to print this,” he continued, “or it may be something that just shows you how much Haskell means to us and what its education has done for thousands of native people for many generations.

“I apologize for taking so long, but I have to tell somebody because I love Haskell, Lawrence and the legacy our family enjoys. That picture was an awesome reward.”

In all my years in the newspaper business, I have never heard anyone refer to a photo as an awesome reward. In other words, I was touched.

Stevens’ wife, then Cheryl Yellowbird, also played basketball for the Indians, and he recalled the days when Brandon and Ernie III, also a Haskell graduate, “ran the gym floor for hours before, during and after the home games.”

The Stevens family doesn’t stop there. Their daughters – Maria and Margaret – are current members of the HINU women’s basketball team. Both played under their mom at Oneida Nation High in Wisconsin. The Stevenses have another daughter who is a junior in high school.

“I just wanted to share this with somebody,” Stevens concluded, “because we are proud that we took the teachings of this great institution and changed our lives for the good. Our lives were positively affected by Haskell in a great way.”

Thank you, Ernest, for sharing your family story.