Valentina Blackhorse, Navajo Pageant Winner With Dreams, Dies at 28

Valentina Blackhorse, the winner of one pageant after another in the Navajo Nation, was known for helping others. When the coronavirus began tearing across her reservation, she counseled family members to stay home, wash their hands and wear masks.

Then the virus somehow made its way into her own home in Kayenta, a town in the Navajo Nation near the sandstone buttes of Arizona’s Monument Valley. Her companion, Robby Jones, a detention officer with the Navajo Department of Corrections, caught Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.