Spotlight

Wirta fills a void

Twenty years ago, Warner Wirta (BSE 1960) developed a way to aid his Native American community, and he’s still just as excited about it today. Wirta, of Duluth, Minn., developed a holistic approach to treating post-traumatic stress disorder in Native American veterans by considering alcoholism and the pitfalls of poor home lives alongside the PTSD effects of war. He implemented the mental health program at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minn., in the late 1980s, and it is still the model for VA hospitals across the country today. There were those who considered the spiritual side of the program as inappropriate, but it was protected by a VA attorney who recognized that a disproportionate percentage of Native American veterans had engaged in high-risk combat. Wirta, who is of Native American and Finnish heritage, says he is “elated” to have helped his community. “I was accomplishing what I saw as a problem. I was fulfilling an objective I saw. This to me was something that I felt a real internal need that I must do, and that created deep internal satisfaction to me,” he said.

Wirta saw that Native American veterans with PTSD were hiding in alcohol, and supported them like he cheered on his teammates as an ESU cross country runner on the 1958 and 1959 back-to-back national championship teams. For the two-time All-American, being an athlete strengthened a valuable life lesson first nurtured by the mentorship of his father, who helped him overcome the stigma of being called a “half-breed” Indian.

“Responsibility. That’s what I really developed. That my fellow runners mattered a lot to me. I’d say, running along, ‘Come on, you guys! Let’s go!’ Kinda like a cheerleader,” Wirta said, standing beside the teammates this fall at Homecoming who he hadn’t seen since 1960. “These guys were so supportive. They were part of the structure that created me.

“And that kind of attitude carried on with me. I did something for others,” Wirta said of the work with veterans. “I could see a lot of myself in this suffering.”

After graduating from Kansas State Teachers College, Wirta began teaching high school in Minnesota in the fall of 1960. It was there that he saw the impact of depression on the Native American community, and he was convinced to pursue his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Recognizing that depression interfered with learning, he developed a mental health program for reservation youth at the Range Mental Health Center in Virginia, Minn. By 1987, he was working for the Veterans Administration Medical Center.

Wirta, who was inducted into the ESU Athletic Hall of Honor during Homecoming in October, wore a T-shirt with his nickname, “The Fastest Flying Finn-dian.” He had wanted to compete for a spot in the 1960 Olympics, but an injured right calf muscle – traced to Paget’s disease in 1999 – sidelined him. So instead, Wirta spent his career running for others.

See the story in the electronic magazine

Back to the Spotlight home page

Last Updated April 17, 2008