Every school year, Pleasant Valley High School art teacher George Boudman has his advanced art students do a portrait of someone they love. Every year, he joins them in this exercise. This year, he was at a loss as to who to choose.

That was until his co-worker Don Wild Eagle Wuebber, a security officer at the school, showed him a picture of himself in full Native American regalia holding a traditional lacrosse stick.

“He showed me a photo on his phone, and there was my picture,” he said.

Wuebber is from the Maricopa and Pima tribes in Arizona. He has studied Seneca history at New York University and is a member of the Wolf Clan Elders Council and a peacekeeper. He gives educational presentations to organizations about Native American culture and especially loves teaching it to children. He often comes into Boudman’s art classes to talk to the students.

“This is a great honor,” Wuebber said. “It takes a lot to trust someone and have faith in them.”

“He makes you a better person just by knowing him,” Boudman said.

Boudman spent several hours in frequent conversations with Wuebber in order to get a good understanding of the regalia he was painting and Native American traditions.

“He’s become like family,” Wuebber said.

For six months, Boudman worked on the painting, trying to perfect it.

“It became an obsession for me and I couldn’t stop,” he said.

The result was astounding to Wuebber.

“It’s beautiful. It’s breathtaking,” Wuebber said with his eyes beginning to tear up.

On May 12, Boudman presented the painting to Wuebber at the end of the Performing and Visual Arts Awards Ceremony at the PVHS auditorium. It was his gift.

Thankful for the gift, Wuebber said he wanted to share it with the school community, so he donated it to the high school.

In the large 3-by-5-foot painting, Wuebber is holding handcrafted items as he treks through the forest. The painting will hang in the hallway outside of the auditorium, the same hallway that served as an art gallery for the awards event.

Wuebber is also donating a Native American dance stick that he made to the school. It will hang alongside the painting.

He explained that the stick consists of macaw feathers that are blue on one side and yellow on the other. The blue color represents intuition. The yellow represents unconditional love.

“When a bird opens its wings, it’s yellow,” he said. “We call it the Phoenix.”

The cane is curved like a hook because he said they don’t think of war anymore. On the hook, a cord is woven like a cross, indicating the directions of north, south, east and west.

Wuebber said he donated the dance stick “in honor of all the arts, all the clubs and all the sports, everybody in Pleasant Valley in gratitude and thank you for tonight.”

As a thank you to Boudman, Wuebber also made a Native American lacrosse stick for him. He has already made one and donated it to the school’s lacrosse team to inspire them. Boudman was speechless.

Boudman plans to make prints of the painting for Wuebber and for anyone else who would like to have one.