Ernie BlueBack

Services for Ernie BlueBack, 73, of Lawrence, will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Ponca Indian Cultural Center in White Eagle, Okla. A feast will precede the service at noon. Burial will be in the Ponca Indian Cemetery.Mr. BlueBack died Saturday, March 31, 2007, at St. Francis Health Center in Topeka. He was born Sept. 6, 1933, on the Ponca Indian Reservation in Kay County, Okla, the son of Garry and Martha (Fireshaker) BlueBack.He received his high school diploma from Haskell Indian Nations University in the early 1950s. He was a veteran of the Cuban conflict and the Vietnam War. He first served in the Oklahoma National Guard, followed by the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy. Mr. BlueBack moved to Lawrence in August 1967. He worked as a residential assistant at Haskell from 1967 to 1990, when he retired. He had also worked for Mount Hope Nursery and for Kansas University maintenance department.He was a member of Buffalo Post 38 in Ponca City, Okla., and of the VFW.He was married to Lydia Harjo in 1956 in Pasadena, Calif. She died in June 1981. He was then married to Melinda Lomahoema. She survives, of the home.Other survivors include one daughter, Elizabeth Rose BlueBack, Ponca City; two sons, Noah and Darrell, both of Lawrence; two sisters, Virginia BuffaloHead, Ponca City, and Elizabeth Goodman, Marland, Okla.; and five grandchildren.He was preceded in death by an infant son, Levi BlueBack, two brothers and two sisters.The family will receive friends from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at Warren-McElwain Mortuary.