US Mint releasing coin to honor Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller

(CNN) – Start taking a closer look at your quarters.

This year, the U.S. mint is releasing a collection of quarters featuring trailblazing American women.

The latest one is Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee nation and the first woman to lead a major Native American nation in the U.S.

During her three-year run, she tripled the tribe’s enrollment, doubled employment and was integral in launching new housing, health centers and children’s programs in Oklahoma.

On the coin, she is seen wrapped in a traditional shawl with the Cherokee nation seven-pointed star.

The U.S. Mint has already started shipping the quarters out for circulation.

Mankiller is the third of the “American Women Quarters.”

She joins poet, writer and activist Maya Angelou and astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

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