Edison Red Nest III of Alliance started drinking alcohol and using drugs when he was a teenager, and he later also started selling drugs before getting arrested and spending three years in prison. Red Nest III didn’t like the person he had become, so he vowed to turn his life around, which he did. He committed himself to living a positive lifestyle and doing what he could to help other people. That’s why he and his wife started their own business, Native Futures, which aims to help people, especially Native Americans. It’s also the reason he started a youth lacrosse league in Alliance and decided to be part of the Alliance School Board. He and his wife also own the drive-in movie theater in Alliance, and that, too, was part of their plan to give back to their community.
JEFF FIELDER Editor
ALLIANCE – Looking back, Edison Red Nest III of Alliance is proud of who he was and what he accomplished during his elementary and middle school years.
“I was a good kid who tried hard and didn’t get into trouble,” he said. “I was a straight ‘A’ student.”
That changed drastically, however, when Red Nest III was about 14. His parents got a divorce, and soon after that, he started hanging out with the wrong crowd. He even started doing drugs, like weed, and he also started drinking. He also started getting into trouble with the law.
“Things went downhill for me pretty quickly,” he said. “I spent my 15th, 16th, and 17th birthdays in a detention center.”
His downward spiral, unfortunately, only got worse after that. He started selling drugs in September 2003. He sold drugs until December of that year.
“I caused a lot of harm to people,” said Red Nest III, who graduated from Alliance High School in 2002. “I took people’s money for drugs – money that those people could have used for groceries, diapers, and other important things.”
Red Nest III was caught and convicted in March 2005 and was sentenced to six to 10 years in prison. He ended up serving three and a half years in prison before being released in July 2008.
While he was in prison, he had major regrets about both using and selling drugs.
“For me, it was a wake-up call in the fact that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing as a Native American man,” he said. “I wasn’t being a provider or a protector. I was a taker. I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I wanted to be a better person.”
You can read the entire story in the September issue of Nspire Today! magazine. A one-year subscription (12 issues) is only $15. You may sign up for a subscription by sending $15 to Nspire Today!, P.O. Box 454, Scottsbluff, NE 69363, or you may pay with a credit card by calling 308-220-8865.
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