Ayanna O’Kimosh
Oneida/Menominee/Arikara
Induction Category:
Year Inducted
Athlete
2023
Ayanna “Naenwehtawukiw-Warrior Woman” O’Kimosh is from Keshena, Wisconsin and she is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation and descendent of the Menominee and Arikara Nations. She is a freshman at the Shawano Community High School in Wisconsin. She began a journey in boxing in 2018 with the Menominee Indian Boxing Club. As an amateur boxer, she won two Junior Olympic State Championships, two Silver Gloves State Championships, is a Silver Gloves National Champion and is a 2x USA Boxing National Champion. In addition to her love of boxing, she spends a lot of her time training and playing softball for Impact Sports Academy’s in De Pere, Wisconsin.
Living up to her Menominee name, she is a warrior spirit who represents resiliency in her tribal nations Oneida-Menominee-Arikara. Her platform inside and outside of the ring is to fight to bring attention and awareness to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and girls/people epidemic that plagues Native American communities throughout the United States and Canada. Her motivation in fighting is to demonstrate that resiliency by breaking down barriers and challenging the statistics, injustices, to change the narrative for future generations by being a positive role model for other native youth. She chose to focus her platform on awareness and supports prevention efforts fundraising to support much needed community resources aimed to reduce the risk for women and girls. Some notable awareness work includes local and national collaborative events with professional women boxers including local and international interviews, presentations, keynoting for 2021 Girls Summit and using her social media to spread the word.
When she is not at the boxing gym training or at the softball complex training, she enjoys some of her other favorites such as reading, singing, playing the guitar, painting, baking, creating art and crocheting.