April 28, 2025

Leland Robinson

Quanah Parker: War Leader, Civil Leader, Religious Leader

Double Paxton Award winner Lee will give a presentation on the Comanche chief Quanah Parker (1848—1911), war chief for the last band of free Comanches. After finally surrendering and settling on the reservation, Parker became a successful cattleman and was, at the time, probably the wealthiest Native American. He also became a religious leader helping his people deal with their depression, the first elected chief to represent all of the Comanche bands, and the first diplomat to represent the Comanches in Washington where he became
friends with Theodore Roosevelt.

Presenter

Leland Robinson was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California. After graduation from high school, he began an eight-year stint in the Army Reserves, and after graduating from San Jose State University with a BA in Sociology he served two years in the Peace Corps in India (1966-68). He then earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University, and began a thirty-year career teaching sociology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. During the last ten of those years he was Department Head.

Leland has a daughter from a previous marriage and in 2006 he moved to Frederick to marry Frederick Torch member Linda.

This will be Lee's fourth Torch presentation. In 2013 and again in 2019, he was awarded Torch International's Paxton Prize awarded annually for the top-rated article in The Torch magazine. Only one other time has there been a double winner, Roland Moy in 2012 and 2018.