linda pistun, thank you very much. linda: you're welcome, so nice to meet you.nk you very much. ♪ as a native american heritage month draws to a close this week, we look at the legacy of the first native american engineer. mary golda ross was a pioneering figure of the space age, the first native american woman to be an engineer -- achievements she attributed to the cherokee emphasis on education, and on educating boys and girls equally. she was born i1908 in park hill, oklahoma to a family with a proud cherokee heritage -- her great, great grandfather, john ross, was chief of the cherokee nation during the turbulent and traumatic era of the indian removal act of 1830. thousands of cherokee people were forced to leave their ancestral lands in the american southeast and walk to indian territory in what is now oklahoma, a route known as the trail of tears. as a child, ross was sent to live with her grandparents in tahlequah, oklahoma, the one-time capital of the cherokee nation, so she could attend school. after high school, ross earned a math degree from northeas