The first time I saw Ku Stevens run was at a track meet in Fernley during his senior year in the
spring of 2022. I had been taking pictures of field events, and one of the distance races was in
progress as I walked toward the track.
I noticed one kid, wearing the purple Yerington colors, who was half a lap away from the rest of
the runners. I couldn’t tell at first glance if he was that far ahead or behind, but it was obvious
really quickly that he was just that much faster than everyone else in the race.
I don’t remember whether it was the 3200 meters or the 1600, but he lapped the entire field well
before the race was over. The first thing I did was ask a friend who coached track in Yerington:
“Who is this distance runner for you guys?”
Once he told me it was Stevens, to say I knew who he was would be only in the barest terms. I
knew who his parents were but didn’t know them well at all. I had interviewed his father Delmar
once, several years earlier when Delmar became the Chairman of the Yerington Paiute Tribe, but
that was my first time meeting him and all I knew about him was what he told me that day.
You might say Stevens has become pretty well-known since then. Athletically, he won state
championships in track in the 800, 1600 and 3200 as well as in cross country. In the 2021-2022
school year he became the Gatorade state athlete of the year twice, for both cross country and
track.
But it was his work in creating the Remembrance Run to honor his great-grandfather Frank
Quinn that earned Stevens the name recognition he has now. He’s been featured in many
newspaper and magazine articles and on lots of podcasts, and he was profiled in the New York
Times in 2021.
Now he’s the star of a new documentary, Remaining Native, that he and filmmaker Paige
Bethmann hope to market nationally.
Two public screenings of the film were shown last weekend in Yerington. The film has been
presented at several film festivals, including at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in
Austin, TX and has won several awards and it is very good.
I was generally aware of Quinn’s story through reading about Stevens and the Remembrance
Run, and I knew he had earned a scholarship to run at the University of Oregon and is
transferring to Washington State this fall.
But there was so much more I didn’t know that I learned from watching the film.
My favorite things about being a reporter are shining a light on the things that people accomplish
and sharing their stories with people who might not otherwise hear them.
Stevens’ story has already been well told, and Bethmann does a beautiful job of putting it on
film.
Stevens has spent most of his young life running past the competition and is now running toward
a fuller understanding of his legacy and of what it means to make history by honoring it.
It’s a story worth telling over and over again.
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