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SD leads nation in Native American poverty rate

KRISTI EATON, Associated Press

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) – South Dakota leads the nation in the percentage of Native Americans living below the poverty line, and more than half of the Native Americans in the state’s second largest city live in poverty, according to new U.S. Census data released Wednesday.

More than 48 percent of the state’s 65,000 Native Americans live below the poverty threshold, according to the American Community Survey on poverty covering 2007 to 2011. In Rapid City, the poverty rate for Native Americans was 50.9 percent. This leads the nation among the 20 cities most populated by American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“The number is unacceptable,” said Rapid City Mayor Sam Kooiker. “And I think the situation is not limited to our Native population, although it affects the Native population more dramatically than other segments of the population.”

Under current federal guidelines, an individual earning less than $11,170 a year or a family of four with an annual income of less than $23,050 is considered to be living in poverty.

Kooiker said the Black Hills of South Dakota is an area that has struggled with high underemployment numbers for years. The mayor said the solution is a two-pronged one: increasing opportunities in both the government and private sector, and having potential employees work to improve their skill sets once those opportunities are in place.

For example, Kooiker said, the United Tribes Technical College out of North Dakota will soon be opening a campus in Rapid City to provide education and training opportunities for Native Americans.

Aside from South Dakota, eight other states had poverty rates of about 30 percent or more for American Indians and Alaska Natives. They are Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and Utah.

Mike McCurry, the state demographer for South Dakota, said he is not surprised by the numbers because the American Indians in South Dakota have never recovered from the financial collapse and the Dust Bowl in the early 1900s.

“Most of our concentrations of poverty are in the reservations, but they’re also concentrated – Rapid City gets a lot of people leaving the reservation looking for jobs,” he said. “The difference between being in poverty and not being in poverty to a lot of us is one paycheck.”

He said Denver is another city that many Native Americans from South Dakota’s nine Indian reservations move to in hopes of finding employment. Denver’s poverty rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives is 29.1 percent, according to the census data.

“So when we’re looking at nearly 30 percent of poverty in Denver, that’s probably also reflecting some of the people that aren’t in Rapid (City),” he said.

Wade Two Charge, 30, relocated to Denver and also tried moves to Phoenix, Florida and California with hopes of finding steady unemployment. He’s since returned to his home and family on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in south-central South Dakota.

Two Charge, who has a degree in business administration from the tribal college, said he has been unemployed since getting back to the reservation, except for some short construction stints.

“There are only so many projects going on on the reservation at a time – so many buildings going down and going up,” he said.

His most recent job, which involved construction of a new tribal jail and lasted about a year, ended last year. Another job he has coming up will only last about two months.

Two Charge, who lives in a trailer on a lot his family owns, doesn’t have a car and relies on social gatherings and $200 in food stamps for food each month.

“There are avenues to help, but it’s definitely a lot more difficult than other places,” he said of his current surroundings. “In a city, you can just jump in a bus and go across town. The whole society is different and it’s not the ghetto. Here, there are no buses. We rely a lot upon family members to help us out. I think that’s where we’re blessed to have an emphasis on respect for our elders.”

He still thinks about leaving the reservation, but said he doesn’t want to move away from his home and his people.

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Online:

American Community Survey: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-17.pdf

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Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton .

University’s Native American Center to honor Cobell

KIM BRIGGEMAN, Missoulian

President Barack Obama meets with Elouise Cobell in the Oval Office, Dec. 8, 2010 - the day he signed legislation approving the Cobell settlement. — President Barack Obama meets with Elouise Cobell in the Oval Office, Dec. 8, 2010 – the day he signed legislation approving the Cobell settlement.

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) – Elouise Cobell had a way of sorting through complex Native American land ownership tangles and combing out what’s right.

It’s part of the legacy the leader from the Blackfeet tribe left behind when she died in 2011, and one that still resounds with Terry Payne.

“Elouise had a voracious appetite for justice, and she was an inspiration to me and so many other people,” said Payne, a Missoula businessman whose family was the lead donor for construction of the Payne Family Native American Center on the University of Montana campus.

Now Payne is helping fund an effort to complete the building. He provided the launching gift for the $1.2 million Elouise Cobell Land and Culture Institute, dedicated to the passionate advocate of Native rights who was instrumental in obtaining a $3.4 billion Indian trust settlement from the federal government.

Pending approval by the Montana Board of Regents in Helena this week, the Cobell Institute is envisioned to be a complex of labs, classrooms and a small theater in the unfinished lower level of the three-year-old Native American Center on the southwest edge of the UM Oval.

University President Royce Engstrom announced creation of the institute Wednesday at a ceremony in the center’s Bonnie HeavyRunner Gathering Place.

“Her life’s work was the pursuit of justice and we here at the University of Montana are humbled that her family has permitted us to honor her,” he said.

The institute, said Engstrom, can be a place “where future leaders will meet the challenges around land and asset management as well as understand worldwide cultures of indigenous people.”

The addition in the “garden level” of the building will be “a space where students can work effectively in small and sometimes not so small groups on real-world problems, in this case all related to Native communities,” said Chris Comer, dean of UM’s College of Arts and Sciences that includes the Native American Studies Department.

Interesting Geometry

There are 6,500 square feet to work with, and on-campus charettes began Thursday (March 7) to determine how best to do it. Comer said the building’s “interesting geometry” – it’s built around a 12-sided rotunda, each side representing a Montana tribe – will make it “a real puzzle to say how we best use that space.”

The working idea is for two laboratories – a land lab filled with computers and a culture lab with digital and media resources. Another room will probably be set up as a classroom with projection capabilities for digital movies.

“Film studies have become important in a number of areas of the College (of Arts and Sciences) that really have no proper venue for that,” Comer said.

The other two rooms will likely be standard classrooms, built in a way that can accommodate meetings. Comer said the institute will be a collaborative affair, designed not just for the Native American Studies Department, but for geography, forestry and conservation, anthropology and law students as well.

The land lab will allow students to work on intensive mapping projects.

“When you think about mapping in Indian Country, it’s really complex because reservation land has all different kinds of overlapping ownership, from trust land to tribally controlled land to individual fee patent land,” said Dave Beck, who chairs the Department of Native American Studies.

A sophisticated GIS-centered lab will allow the overlay of historic maps to map landownership patterns with natural and cultural resources. An upstairs room in the Native American Center is dedicated to the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, which does similar work.

The Minnesota-based foundation has been very encouraging of the Cobell Institute project.

“They’ve basically said if you build this we’ll work with you to help students identify and get into real-world projects for Native communities,” said Comer. “We’re really excited by the prospect of working with groups like that.

“We don’t want busywork exercise. That’s really Royce’s vision: When they’re working on classroom projects, those projects will produce something that’s helping a community and making a real difference.”

Beck said the culture lab will probably provide access to such resources as creative language materials from tribes and communities, as well as distance learning capabilities that allow faculty from across the campus to have face-to-face interaction with indigenous communities in New Zealand, Australia and Norway.

While the Payne family provided the lion’s share of the $1.2 million toward construction, and other funding sources have been tapped, Comer said some money still needs to be raised. He hopes Wednesday’s announcement spurs those efforts.

Construction will begin as early as next month, and officials said the Cobell Institute could be ready for students by the end of the year.

Pacific NW sculptor wins ‘Best of Show’ at annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair

Mark Scarp, Heard Museum News Release

PHOENIX — A contemporary sculpture, “A River’s Spirit and Offering” by distinguished sculptor Marvin Oliver won the crowning artistic achievement of “Best in Show” at the 55th annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market on Friday, March 1.

The work by Oliver (Quinault/Isleta-Pueblo) is “formulated by merging the spirit of past traditions with those of the present, to create new horizons for the future,” according to his website, marvinoliver.com.

During his 40-year career, Oliver has experimented with cedar, bronze, steel and glass to create masks, helmets, wood panels, totem poles, blown glass bowls, bronze ravens and sculpted whale fins that mix ancient and contemporary styles. His art is inspired by the imagery of the southern Coast Salish, and incorporates northern formline designs into his work as a tribute to his Northwest Coast heritage, according to a description on the website quintanagalleries.com. His work “Mystical Journey” is prominently featured at the Seattle Children’s Hospital, and he has had many other public art pieces displayed across the United States, Canada, Japan and Italy, according to the artist’s website.

Oliver currently serves as the department director of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington, where he also teaches two-dimensional design, woodcarving and art history. He also holds the title of curator of contemporary Native American art at the Burke Museum in Seattle.

“Best of Class” award recipients are listed below. A full list of winners and this year’s judges is at heard.org/fair, click on “Competition Winners.”

I – Jewelry and Lapidary – Benson Manygoats (Navajo/Diné), “Shush”

II – Pottery – Jennifer Moquino and Russell Sanchez (San Ildefonso Pueblo / Santa Clara Pueblo), Lidded Pot

III – Paintings, Drawings, Graphics, Photography – Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa), “Profile Portraits”

IV – Wooden Carvings – Curtis Naseyowma (Hopi/Taos), “Vision of Mongwi”

V – Sculpture – Marvin Oliver (Quinault), “A River’s Spirit and Offering”

VI – Textiles, Weavings, Clothing – Jason Harvey (Navajo), “Red Mesa”

VII – Diverse Art Forms – Leith Mahkewa (Oneida), “Raotonnets – His Spirit”

VIII – Baskets – Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band Cherokee), “Separating the Chaff”

Conrad House Award – Susan L. Folwell (Santa Clara Pueblo), “Love Gun”

The 55th Annual Guild Indian Fair & Market took place on Saturday and Sunday, March 2 & 3, 2013.

US clergy victims make demands of new pope

By Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press

Associated Press/Nick Ut - Ken Smolka, 70, who alleges he was molested in 1958 by a Jesuit priest, poses at his home Friday March 15, 2013 in Glendora, Calif. The election of a new pope could help heal the wounds left by a Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis that has savaged the church's reputation worldwide. For alleged victims, much depends on whether Pope Francis disciplines the priests and the hierarchy that protected them. (AP Photo/Nick Ut ) — Associated Press/Nick Ut – Ken Smolka, 70, who alleges he was molested in 1958 by a Jesuit priest, poses at his home Friday March 15, 2013 in Glendora, Calif. The election of a new pope could help heal the wounds left by a Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis that has savaged the church’s reputation worldwide. For alleged victims, much depends on whether Pope Francis disciplines the priests and the hierarchy that protected them. (AP Photo/Nick Ut )

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Most Roman Catholics are rejoicing at the election of Pope Francis, but alleged victims of clergy abuse in the U.S. are demanding swift and bold actions from the new Jesuit pontiff: Defrock all molester priests and the cardinals who covered up for them, formally apologize, and release all confidential church files.

Adding to their distrust are several multi-million dollar settlements the Jesuits paid out in recent years, including $166 million to more than 450 Native Alaskan and Native American abuse victims in 2011 for molestation at Jesuit-run schools across the Pacific Northwest. The settlement bankrupted the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus. The order also paid $14 million to settle nine California cases.

“I would like to see this pope stand up and say to those cardinals, ‘You need to square this away and change everything that was covered up,’ ” said Ken Smolka, a 70-year-old retired actor who claimed in a lawsuit he was abused as a teen by a Jesuit priest. “You need to get them on their knees, and let them spend the rest of their lives on their knees praying for the victims.”

Pope Francis, who has already set the tone for a new era of humility and compassion, is likely to be sensitive to the plight of clergy abuse victims and aware of the need to work with the worldwide church to prevent more abuse, said Christopher Ruddy, an associate professor at Catholic University of America. Meting out punishment to individual cardinals, however, is much less likely, Ruddy said.

“My sense is that if a bishop really wanted to dig in his heels, it would be very difficult to get him to resign. We have this idea that the pope says something, and everybody just leaps. It doesn’t really work that way,” Ruddy said. “The bishops themselves have certain rights under church law and they have authority, so that’s a hard thing to talk about.”

The new pontiff, who comes from Latin America where the clergy abuse scandal has been more muted, will likely lean on the American cardinals for advice when it comes to handling the crisis – particularly Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who was instrumental in setting up a meeting between alleged victims and Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

O’Malley himself voiced confidence in Pope Francis’ willingness to address the clergy abuse crisis at a news conference in Rome.

“This is a man who has a great sense of mission, and he values transparency,” O’Malley said Thursday. “He will further the process of healing.”

Alleged victims said that while that is their hope, they will nonetheless scrutinize the new pontiff and his actions.

Elsie Boudreau, a Yup’ik Eskimo, was abused for nine years by a Jesuit priest in a tiny village in northern Alaska.

She settled her case in 2005 and now works as a social worker helping 300 other sex abuse victims in Alaska. She has since learned that Vatican officials had been aware of her alleged abuser since before she was born, she said.

“If Pope Francis were to defrock him and all the other perpetrator priests and all those who covered up the crimes and send a clear message to everybody else in the church I would be like, ‘Hmm, OK, there could be a change,”’ said Boudreau, 45, who now lives in Anchorage. “But I don’t believe that will ever happen. There’s no track record.”

Other alleged victims called on Pope Francis to order the release of all confidential records on pedophile priests to cleanse the church and make amends.

Some of those files have been made public through litigation and released under court order, including in Los Angeles where a judge ordered more than 10,000 pages of priest personnel files be made public in January after a five-year legal battle over privacy rights.

In many other dioceses, however, alleged victims still don’t know everything the church knew about their abusers.

“The pope has an opportunity to bring about true justice, change, and transformation in a church torn from scandal and the rape of children,” said Billy Kirchen, who is one of 550 plaintiffs fighting to see files from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. “Real change has to come from the pope.”

Other abuse victims said they were disgusted that cardinals who covered up abuse helped elect the next pope.

Michael Duran, a 40-year-old special education teacher from Los Angeles, said Pope Francis’ elevation is tainted because of their presence. Duran and three others settled with the Los Angeles archdiocese earlier this week for nearly $10 million over childhood abuse by the Rev. Michael Baker.

Recently released confidential files show Baker met privately with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony in 1986 and confessed to molesting children, but he was put back in the ministry for 14 years, where he abused again. Authorities believe Baker, who was convicted in 2007 and paroled in 2011, may have molested more than 20 children in his 26-year career.

If Pope Francis did take action against any U.S. cardinals, it would be a departure from the way his predecessors addressed the clergy abuse crisis.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a decree saying all clergy abuse cases needed to be funneled through the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith – then headed by the future Pope Benedict XVI.

In 2002, in his strongest comments about the unfolding scandal, Pope John Paul II denounced U.S. bishops for the American clergy abuse crisis after summoning them to Rome for a special meeting. He said there was “no place in the priesthood … for those who would harm the young.”

In 2003 and 2004, he approved changes to canon law to allow the Vatican to quickly defrock abusive priests without cumbersome internal trials.

Given the progressive decline in his health, however, it is widely presumed that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – the future Pope Benedict XVI – was the architect of those measures in his role as head of the Vatican department that handled petitions to defrock abusive clergy.

Earlier this year, the Vatican’s new sex crimes prosecutor, quoting Benedict, said the church must recognize the “grave errors in judgment that were often committed by the church’s leadership.” He added that bishops must report abusive priests to police where the law requires it. The comments came days after the release of the Los Angeles confidential files.

Now, with a new pope, victims in the U.S. hope more change is coming.

“If it’s not this pope who will do it, maybe it will be another one,” said Molly Harding, of Spokane, Wash., who waited 40 years to come forward about her abuse at a San Gabriel, Calif., school.

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Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Nicole Winfield in Rome; Mike Warren in Buenos Aires; Donna Blankinship in Seattle; Matt Volz in Helena, Mont.; Jay Lindsay in Boston; Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee, Wis.

Passamaquoddy’s BlackBear Communications Launches Campaign To Improve Healthcare Options for Natives

By Eisa Ulen, Indian Country Today Media Network

To create a healthcare ad for the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Passamaquoddy-owned public relations, marketing and advertising company BlackBear Communications looked through a pile of Polaroid pictures of ordinary, everyday Native Americans. One of the images was of a beautiful girl, Ta’Shon Rain Little Light, who had been misdiagnosed with depression at the tender age of 5. This child’s real condition was cancer, and Ta’Shon’s young life was lost because of the poor healthcare she received at a local clinic. She became the cover image of a stunning BlackBear-produced NCAI campaign to improve healthcare options for Native people, people like Ta’Shon, whose lives are too often cut short because of the socio-economic conditions that limit their access to quality medical care.

Ta’Shon Rain Little Light (Facebook)

According to Elizabeth Neptune, BlackBear’s public health specialist and former councilor of the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Indian Township, Maine, the BlackBear NIH campaigns “will range the spectrum of health initiatives, from anti-obesity efforts to reminders to schedule prostrate exams. On any campaign that BlackBear is selected to participate in, BlackBear will provide a number of different services to ensure cultural sensitivity and message penetration.”

BlackBear is a Tribal owned venture between the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Indian Township and a team of public relations, advertising and marketing professionals, and the firm’s reach through this NIH partnership will extend throughout Indian country.

Neptune says BlackBear will “micro-target” the hundreds of diverse tribes throughout the United States. The firm, Neptune explains, understands that a person might self-identify as Native American and Choctaw, or Alaskan Native and Haida, and BlackBear “hopes to speak with the target audience in their own voice. Just as one wouldn’t tell a Texan to ‘fer git a bout it’ or invite a New Yorker to hoedown, BlackBear does not take a one-size-fits-all approach to communications.”

With health disparities and income inequality plaguing Native people, this great diversity within Indian country demands that the communications firm in place to help save lives understand the full range of Native experiences. “The prevailing image of Native Americans,” Neptune says, “is of destitute reservations in the backlands of America. While roughly half of all Native Americans live in rural reservations, millions of Native Americans live in urban settings.”

Neptune says that Native Americans living in cities struggle with the same issues of drugs, violence, and poverty facing other urban Americans, but “these problems run deeper and with much greater impact in the Native American/Alaskan Native population. When a national politician talks about the horrors of over 10 percent unemployment in the African American [community], imagine the difficulty for a rural tribal council member who faces over 50 percent unemployment amongst their people. Studies have proven that socio-economics play a major part in health and healthcare management.”

The major health disparities impacting Native health, Neptune says, are diabetes and substance abuse. Education through public communication helps identify substance abusers who need help, the best places for them to go to get help, and the training addicts and their family members can get to learn how to help improve health outcomes. Likewise, Neptune says, through public education, ordinary people can identify a pattern of family diabetes, learn how to talk to a nutrition expert, and begin to think about ways to cook healthier meals to have a positive impact on family wellness.

Neptune says her background as a public health specialist gives her a distinctive perspective within the BlackBear Communications team. “My particular experience in direct care and the whole health care system has placed me in the unique position to talk about those challenges faced in Indian country with authority. But the issues that confront Native American communities are many. Communities are learning, talking and tackling the problem with internal and external resources is the only way we will ever see improvement. There are also opportunities if the Native American communities want to fight for them in the realm of public debate. Whether it is a local, state or nationa initiative, Native Americans will only be heard if they speak up. BlackBear, we hope, will be more than a communications firm to reach Indian country. We want it to be a megaphone for Native Americans to address the issues and opportunities important to them.”

Perhaps BlackBear’s new partnership with NIH will help more people who deserve better healthcare information and access—and prevent tragic, avoidable loss of life, life as precious as young Ta’Shon Rain Little Light.

Lightning Cloud Win ‘Battle for the Best’ at South by Southwest

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Photo by Joshua Touseym source: Facebook

It was a massive competition between the best new hip hop acts from New York and L.A., and when all was said and done it was LightningCloud — a Native act from the left coast — who reigned supreme.

The finale took place at South by Southwest, the entertainment-industry mega-event that descends upon Austin, Texas annually and which concluded on Sunday night. On Friday, LightningCloud, the delegate from Los Angeles as selected by hip hop radio station Power 106, faced Brooklyn product Radamiz, who had earned his spot in the finals by winning the contest held by New York’s Hot 97.

The matchup was decided by text voting on Friday, and LightningCloud were announced as the winners following a performance by hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar. For their victory, the group, which consists of MC Redcloud, Crystle Lightning, and DJ Hydroe, will open for Lamar on tour, and received a cash prize of $10,000.

LightningCloud were one of several Native acts to play during South by Southwest — as detailed at AboriginalMusicWeek.ca, the list also included A Tribe Called Red, Samantha Crain, Angel Haze, and Yelawolf.

Congressmen Explain Their Surprising Violence Against Women Act Votes

By Rob Caprioccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

Rep. Markwayne Mullin (left), Rep. Don Young, and Sen. John Barrasso

While the tribal court inherent jurisdictional provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed both chambers of Congress in February, and President Barack Obama subsequently signed them into law on March 7, the votes of three congressmen are getting special attention from Indian country.

Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a Cherokee Nation citizen, voted against VAWA in the House, perplexing many of his fellow tribal citizens and other observers.

“Mullin, a Tea Party darling and Constitutionalist, ran a campaign on fiscal conservatism,” reflected journalist Aura Bogado in a blog post for The Nation. “Perhaps he didn’t like money being poured into a federal program that protects women. In the end, he was one of only 27 House Republicans who voted against both reauthorization versions. As a first-term lawmaker, he has already illustrated that he won’t necessarily stand with other Natives and their best interests in Congress.”

Mullin’s vote stood in stark contrast to that of fellow Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, who paved the way for the House’s passage of the Senate version of VAWA that included the strong Native protections. Cole is a Chickasaw Nation citizen.

Sensing he had a PR nightmare on his hands, Mullin finally said it wasn’t the Native provisions that bothered him—it was the protections for LGBT families that persuaded his vote.

“The language regarding ‘sexual orientation’ in the bill’s non-discrimination provisions was unacceptable to me, and in my opinion had no place in a bill whose primary intent was to deal with protecting women from domestic violence,” Mullin wrote in a letter published by the Cherokee Phoenix later in March.

Then there was the temporarily perplexing situation surrounding Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs. He was expected to be an affirmative vote on the House bill. But when the final votes were tallied, he was a no-show.

What was going on? Had Young backtracked?

Nope, he explained. He was too sick to vote.

In a personal note he had posted to the Congressional Record, Young explained, “Mr. Speaker, on February 28, 2013, I was unable to vote because of medical reasons and missed roll call vote No. 55, on passage of S. 47, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013. Had I been present, I would have voted ‘yea.’ I strongly support reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which was delayed for far too long. I am pleased that Congress was able to overcome the obstacles that blocked its final passage. VAWA’s programs are a critical component of our Nation’s effort to reduce violence and care for victims. Reauthorizing VAWA will help Alaska, and the rest of the country, combat the epidemic of abuse and rape that plagues our families and communities.”

Young’s spokesman, Michael Anderson, elaborated on the situation, telling Indian Country Today Media Network, “Congressman Young had a minor medical issue late last month that didn’t allow him to fly from Alaska back to D.C. He is now clear to fly and will be back in D.C. this week.”

On the Senate side, there were a few senators who raised alarm bells surrounding their tribal VAWA positions, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and John Thune (R-S.D.) among them. But it was Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-WY) “no” vote that has most concerned Indian country, in no small part because he is the vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

Barrasso said he was concerned that the bill, which allows Indians to prosecute non-Indians for crimes committed on Indian lands, could be perceived as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, so he didn’t want to risk Indians losing sovereignty over the matter.

Barrasso’s spokeswoman, Emily Lawrimore, explained, “As a doctor, Sen. Barrasso is very concerned about the problem of domestic violence in Indian country and supports measures that protect women and children. He voted against the recent VAWA bill because it contains provisions that would likely be ruled unconstitutional by the courts. A Supreme Court ruling against this provision could be damaging to tribal authority and have irreversible consequences.”

Ryan Dreveskracht, an Indian affairs lawyer with Galanda Broadman, found that to be a “weak position” since the Supreme Court has already ruled that tribes have the inherent power to prosecute non-Indians.

Former Washington State Governor Booth Gardner passes on

ICTMN Staff

March 19, 2013

He was a friend to Indian tribes and served two terms as governor of Washington state; Booth Gardner, a democratic, died at the age of 76 on Friday, March 15 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

“Governor Booth Gardner was a wonderful man and an exceptionally good governor. He was clearly a very close friend of the tribes, a man who truly understood the great value of establishing and maintaining positive relations with us, on a government-to-government basis, and who had the courage to stand up for what is right,” said Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, in a statement.

“It was under Booth’s leadership that the State of Washington and the Northwest Tribes stepped away from constant court battles into a new era of cooperation in the 1980’s. It was he who signed the Centennial Accord with tribal leaders in 1989 and it was he who helped open the door to positive state/tribal relations in places where conflict and polarization existed before,” Sharp continued. “Booth Gardner was a brilliant and visionary man. We pray the leadership he provided in his life will live on for generations to come. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and to all the people of Washington who we know will also miss this great and vastly accomplished man.”

Superintendent search nears its final steps

By Kirk Boxleitner, Marysville Globe

MARYSVILLE — The search for the Marysville School District’s new superintendent is heading into its homestretch, and as he has throughout the process, MSD Board President Chris Nation is encouraging community members to take part in the selection.

The six candidates whom the Marysville School District Board of Directors have selected to move forward to the first round of preliminary interviews on Saturday, March 23, are Dr. Becky Berg, Dr. Carl Bruner, Dr. Tony Byrd, Michelle Curry, Dr. Dennis Haddock and Jon Holmen.

“Each interview should take about an hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes each,” Nation said. “If we start at 8 a.m., we should be able to wrap it up that Saturday by 5 p.m. If members of the public want to attend and submit feedback to the Board in writing, we’d only ask that they do so for all six candidates, since that’s only fair, but they can drop in to observe them at any time during the day.”

According to Nation, the Marysville School Board will ask questions of the candidates in the MSD Service Center Board room, and narrow the selection from six semifinalists to three finalists that evening, based on those interviews, so that the three days of finalist candidates’ interviews and visits to the district — from Monday, March 25, through Wednesday, March 27 — will devote one full day to each candidate.

Marysville School District staff, parents, students and community members will be able to meet each day’s candidate during open forums scheduled at 11 a.m., 4:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., again in the MSD Service Center Board room.

In the wake of the applicants’ files being screened on March 15, Nation reiterated the Marysville School District’s commitment to conducting its superintendent selection process as transparently as possible.

“This is not just the decision of the Board, but of the community as a whole,” Nation said. “We wanted to make sure that the community and school district staff were involved in this process, because the new superintendent will be a leader to both, hopefully for years to come. Through observation and feedback, we hope the community will help us choose a superintendent who fits the needs of our community, because if that person doesn’t understand our relationships, especially with the Tulalip Tribes, they might not get done what’s needed. Everyone has to be on board for this.”

The Marysville School District Service Center Board room is located at 4220 80th St. NE. The full schedule for the candidate visitations is posted on the MSD website at www.msvl.k12.wa.us. For more information on the search process, contact Jodi Runyon by phone at 360-653-0800 or via email at jodi_runyon@msvl.k12.wa.us.

Special Olympian Brady Tanner Leads Six New Inductees Into American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Cherokee Nation citizen Brady Tanner completes a deadlift during a competition.

On Saturday, March 16, six people were inducted into the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame, which is located on the campus of Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. Leading the group of outstanding athletes and coaches was gold medal-winning powerlifter Brady Tanner, Cherokee, of Lawrence. Tanner is the first Special Olympian to earn a place in the prestigious Hall.

Tanner won three gold medals and a silver at the 2011 World Special Olympic Games in Athens. He also competes in the World Association of Bench and Deadlifters and Natural Athletic Strength Association events. After Tanner completed high school, a football player from Haskell University (where Tanner’s father was coach at the time) noticed Tanner’s strength and began helping him train.

Tanner is a champion. (Submitted to Topeka Capital-Journal)

Meet the other five inductees:

• Kenneth O. Tiger, Seminole, who played football for Kansas in 1961-62 and was part of the Jayhawks 1961 Bluebonnet Bowl-winning team (a 33-7 victory over Rice). He was co-captain of the 1962 team.

• Roy Old Person, Blackfeet, who won the National Junior College Athletic Association cross country title in 1965 while attending Haskell. Old Person also was a two-time all conference selection at Wichita State.

• Herman Agoyo, Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, who played on the Manhattan College baseball team that won the New York City Baseball League Championship in 1957. He also was a standout Senior Olympian.

• Yawna Allen, Cherokee/Quapaw/Euchee, who was a Junior National Open Doubles Champion in 2000, 2002 and 2003 and is a seven-time North American Indian Tennis Association Women’s Open Singles Champion. Her aunt, Dawn Allen, also a tennis star, was inducted into the Hall in 1995.

• Sid Jamieson, Mohawk, who was the first lacrosse coach at Bucknell University and worked at the school for 38 years. He was the Patriot League’s Coach of the Year three times and is part of the Pennsylvania Lacrosse Hall of Fame.