Westerville 250th Murals - Muscogee Nation Students - Artist Dexter Komakaru
Muscogee Nation Students: MVSKOKE
MVSKOKE tells a story of education, resilience, and Indigenous sovereignty. As part of the Westerville 250 Mural Project, the mural honors two young Muscogee Creek men, William Apueka and Taylor Chissoe, who came to Central College in Westerville in the late 1870s through the Muscogee Nation’s Youth-in-the-States program.
That program supported Muscogee students attending white universities so they could gain English fluency and civil service skills, not for assimilation but to strengthen and defend their nation. In the years after forced removal had pushed the Muscogee people from their southeastern homelands to present-day Oklahoma, education became a tool of survival and resistance.
Artist Dexter Komakaru centers that idea in MVSKOKE. In his mural statement, he describes Apueka and Chissoe as young men who came to Westerville to gain tools they could carry home in service of their people. Chissoe later became a judge, educator, businessman, soldier, and chief of Broken Arrow, while Apueka served as a farmer and a member of the “House of Warriors,” a Muscogee government council.
The mural also reflects this history through visual symbolism. Komakaru weaves together Muscogee traditional patterns, the Dawes Rolls, historical maps, and the sweet gum leaf, which is sacred to the Muscogee Nation and closely resembles Ohio’s buckeye. Through these elements, the work connects Oklahoma and Ohio while emphasizing resilience, adaptation, and the enduring pull of home.
Created by Dexter Komakaru, whose work draws from his Mexican and Native American identities and focuses on lineage, place, and community, the mural is located at the Westerville Public Library, 126 S. State St., on the brown wall across from the History Museum entrance.
As part of the Westerville 250 Mural Project, MVSKOKE expands the city’s historical narrative by reminding viewers that Native history is not separate from American history. It is central to it, and it is part of Westerville’s story as well.
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