Kevin Killer

Killer grew up in Denver, Colorado, where his father Francis was a CPAand member of the Oglala Sioux.[2] His mother Janice is from the Kiowa tribe of Oklahoma. When young, Killer returned to his father's people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation every summer, in order to know them and the land. His father died when Killer was 20, but he was helped by mentors.

Killer graduated from Oglala Lakota College. His first experience in politics was working in 2004 for former United States Senator Tom Daschle.[3] He was Young People For's, a youth leadership development organization, first Tribal College Fellow and expanded its tribal college network into a Native-American-led group called the Native Youth Leadership Alliance in 2009.[4]

Killer was first elected to the State House in 2008. He is part of a generation of Native Americans who have won office in electoral politics. He served on the House State Affairs Committee, which has an important role in moving legislation forward, and its Judicial Affairs Committee. In 2016 he was elected to the State Senate from district 27 [3] and in the year prior, 2015, was a Bush Fellow.[4]

He is also Director of the Native American Youth Leadership Alliance, a role he began in 2010 and which sees to his working to build youth leaders among the people of the reservations.[5] He has noted that a high percentage of residents on the reservations are under age 18.[3] In 2019, Killer became a senior fellow at Prism.[6] He is noted as being the co-founder of Advance Native Political Leadership, a non-profit which aims to expand indigenous representation in elected and appointed offices across the United States.[7] Concurrent to his political work, Killer has been involved as an actor and executive producer on two short films, Running Shadow and Istinma.[8]

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