The Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1995-01-06

              NAPP protests Sen. Harold 'Skip' Finn at
legislative opener
By Gary Blair
This week the PRESS attended a
demonstration by the Native American Political Part)7 (NAPP) against
Minnesota State Senator Harold
"Skip" Finn, DFL-Cass Lake and
Leech Lake resenation enrollee.
The NAPP protestors became part
of a group numbering over 200 people
who gathered in the capitol rotunda
on the first day ofthe 1995 legislative
session. NAPP, led by Leech Lake
enrollee Wally Storbakken, is seeking
impeachment of the first term senator.
Finn, who is presently awaiting sentencing for masterminding an insurance scam that cost his resenation's
people millions of dollars, was later
confronted as he left his office at the
capital.
Native American Press publisher
William Lawrence was the first to
question the enraged senator: "Skip,
are you going to resign? Are you going to return the money?" he asked.
"No. Why should I?" Finn fired back.
"Then why don't you give us a complete disclosure? How about releasing
your tax returns for those years?"
Lawrence continued. "I don't want to
be in your newspaper!" Finn retorted,
looking like he was about to cry.
A short distance down the hall Senator Finn came face to face with Wally
Storbakken. "How can you be a senator after you stole from your own
people?" Storbakken asked. But this
time the senator refused to answer
questions. Instead, he responded, "So,
your Wally Storbakken." Finn and
Storbakken then exchanged some
heated words.
Earlier, Storbakken had been invited to speak on the floor of the
capital's rotunda. There he denounced
Finn's involvement in the theft and
asked for his removal from office.
As Storbakken spoke Larry Kitto,
part-time lobbyist, full-time spin-doctor for most of the state's so-called
Indian leadership, watched from the
balcony above. Kitto's eyebrows narrowed as the Leech Laker lambasted
the fallen senator.
"How can someone whose broken
the law like he's done be allowed to
make laws?" Storbakken bellowed
over the microphone.
Information contained in a state senate press release, dated January 4,
1995, reads as followings:
"SENATE REPUBLICANS CALL
FOR RESIGNATION OF HAROLD
"SKIP" FINN." State Senate Independent-Republican Leader Dean E.
Johnson (IR-Wilmar), Senator Tom
Neuville, (IR-Northfield), and Senator Linda Runbeck (IR-Circle Pines)
demanded that Sen. Harold "Skip"
Finn (DFL)-Cass Lake) resign his seat
Protest cont'd on pg 3
NAPP confronts Finn at state capitol/ pg.1
Prostate Cancer: Low profile, but a high risk/ pg.1
Red Lake Warriors win third straight Bismarck Classic/ pg.1
Who killed Anna Mae Aquash?/ pg.1
Native rock band combines talent with tradition/ pg.1
New Native American Press 1995 - Calendar/ pg.8
Voice of the Anishinabeg (The People)
^
1
Red Lake claims third straight title
By Abe Winter
Tribune Sports Editor
There's no stopping the Red Lake
Warriors in Bismarck.
The Minnesota entry roared to its
third straight title in the third annual
All Indian Nations Basketball Classic with an impressive 89-75 victory7
of Standing Rock of Fort Yates on
Thursday night.
Red Lake, 8-1 this season and 9-0
all-time in this tourney, scored 26
points in the third quarter and 21 in
each of the other three.
Coach Doug Desjarlais said his
team will be back to try for a fourth
straight title.
"This is bit-time for us," he said.
"It's a good experience . . a beautiful
arena... and I've got four junior starters."
Both teams displayed their scoring
power early. All 10 starters, in fact,
scored in the first 3:28.
"That's unusual," said an admiring
Tex Hall, the tournament manager
who was watching from the scorer's
table.
Standing Rock had gotten off to a
good start, hitting 9-for-13 at the outset. But the Warriors from Red Lake
led 23-18.
The two-time defending champs
upped their advantage to 40-29 and
were running a spread offense, seemingly content to run out the half with
the last shot.
Not so. A turnover got Standing
Rock on the way to an 11-2 spurt-all
in the final 29 seconds ofthe second
quarter. That's right, 13 points were
scored in only 29 seconds.
The Standing Rock surge was
spurred by R.J. Kuntz, who hit eight
points and was part of a 5-point play
with 15 seconds left. His 3-pointer was
on-target and teammate Brian Thunder Hawk was fouled underneath.
Thunder Hawk hit both free
throws and, after Red Lake's Tom
Savers made a layup at :06, Kuntz
drilled a 25-footer at the buzzer to
make it 42-39.
Red Lake stayed in front despite 17
turnovers before intermission. Standing Rock had 12.
Robert Barrett offset Kuntz by netting 11 points in the third quarter,
which ended with Red Lake ahead 68-
57.
The advantage stayed in double digits the rest of the way as Red Lake
reduced its turnovers-eight the entire
second half—and displayed patience
while scoring virtually at will down
the stretch.
All five Red Lake starters scored in
double figures, led by Barrett's 24.
Randy Holthusen added 18, Jeremy
Martin 17, Shane Garrigan 14 and
Keveon Kingbird 11.
"We like to distribute the points,"
Desjarlais said. "It keeps everybody
in the game and the kids enjoy it
more."
Kuntz finished with 25 points to
lead Standing Rock. Brian Thunder
Hawk added 13. Vance Giroux 12 and
Jeremv Clavmore 10.
Who killed Anna Mae Aquash?
Nineteen years ago, the AIM activist was found dead in a ditch. Now a frtebfl
investigation is underway, and the possible suspects are wide-ranging.
By Pat Doyle, StafT writer
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation,
S.D.
Two decades ago, Roger Amiott
found a body on his ranch in the
South Dakota badlands, discovering
a death that even today remains a
symbol of the intrigue and violence
surrounding the takeover of Wounded
Knee by Indian activists.
Authorities at first said that the unidentified woman had died from exposure, and they buried her in a
pauper's grave. Then the real story
emerged: The woman was Anna Mae
Aquash, a prominent member of the
American Indian Movement (AIM)
and a fugitive, and she died from a
gunshot fried execution-style into her
head.
For years the mystery surrounding
her murder has been a hot topic for
Indian in the Twin Cities, where AIM
began and where Aquash once
worked as a teacher. The case pro
vided the grist for conspiracy7 theories, books and movies and became a
cause for actor and AIM supporter
Marlon Brando.
Now a new U.S. marshal—Robert
Ecoffey, the only American Indian
holding such a position—is conducting another investigation into the
murder. Rolling a cigarette on a wind-
swept ridge overlooking the spot
where he made his discover, Amiott
said that heritage played a role in the
marshal's pursuit of the case. Both
men belong to the Oglala Sioux Tribe
on the Pine Ridge Resenation.
"Some of these things just don't die
with old age," Amiott said.
At the core of the mystery are nagging questions about Aquash, an associate of AIM leaders Vernon and
Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks and
Russell Means. She became an
enigma* in the final months of her life,
Was she a staunch AIM activist who
ran afoul of Indians opposed to the
movement? Did someone sympathetic to AIM kill her because of rumors that she was an informant for
the FBI? The FBI denied that she
played such a role.
Or was she the victim of random
violence?
"It's like an Agatha Christie
novel," said Hennepin County medical examiner Garry Peterson, who as
a young pathologist in 1976 discovered the fatal bullet would. "It's one
of the most interesting cases I've
worked on—a historic case."
The story begins in the 1970s amid
the desolate buttes and badlands of
the Pine Ridge Indian Resenation, a
place and time that came to symbolize a violent political struggle on
American Indian resenations. Oglala
Sioux dissidents had accused the
tribal government. AIM came to Pine
Ridge and joined the Oglala dissidents against the tribal government.
The unrest reached a flashpoint in
early 1973 in the small resenation
town of Wounded Knee, the place
where the U.S. cavalry killed more
than 150 men, women and children
a century ago. AIM militants and
their allies took over the town and
Aquash cont'd on pg 6
Prostate cancer: Low profile, but a high risk
By Thomas H. Maugh II
Los Angeles Times
Norman Schwarzkopf's prostate
cancer almost wasn't detected.
"When you are a general, the doctors don't tend to do a thorough digital rectal exam," says the leader of
American's Persian Gulf war forces.
Even though he had none of the
symptoms, Schwarzkopf had been doing a lot of reading about prostate cancer. So, during a hospital visit for a
different purpose, he asked a urologist to do a more thorough exam. The
doctor felt a tiny lump.
In May, after a biopsy indicated cancer, Schwarzkopf had so-called nene-
sparing surgery that removed the tumor while avoiding the two problems
that most torment men facing prostate cancer, incontinence and impotence.
Today, says the 60-year-old retired
army general: "I feel like a million
dollars . . . Everything is absolutely,
totally back to normal."
Schwarzkopf's experiences are typical of both the problems that can hamper detection and the promise offered
by quick diagnosis and new treatments in defeating a disease that,
among cancers, is second in prevalence only to skin tumors.
A new blood test has the capability
to detect prostate cancer before it has
metastasized, and new surgical and
radiation treatments can halt the tumor without debilitating side effects.
"If it is detected early, you can be
cured, and you can also have a normal life," said Dr. Patrick Walsh of
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Despite the advances, however,
prostate cancer remains a devastating
disease. About one in every nine men
will develop prostate cancer, about the
same risk as a woman has of developing breast cancer. This year, about
200,000 American men will develop
it, and 38,000 will die from it.
Part ofthe problem can be traced to
the disease's image. While it is more
common than breast cancer, relatively
few men are familiar with prostate
cancer, and fewer still are willing to
undergo screening. Men simply do not
want to think about it, experts say.
Unlike with breast cancer and other
diseases, celebrity spokesmen only re-
h
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Copyright, The Ojibwe News,  1995
NAPP spokesperson Wally Storbakken, confronts Sen. Finn, at State Capitol. H»<*° by: Gary Blair
Chippewa are asked to restrict spearing of pike
spear northerns in open water, there   mal response to the band's plan to
By Dennis Lien, Staffwriter
St. Paul Pioneer Press
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has asked the Mille Lacs
band of Chippewa to limit the spearing of northern pike to ice holes during an upcoming off-resenation winter fishing season.
If the band does that, and does not
should be little impact on that species,
according to jack Skrypek, chief of the
DNR's fisheries section.
"It's my initial understanding that
this will be strictly a through-the-ice,
traditional type of activity," Skrypek
said. "But they have to give us an
official reaction."
A spokesman for the band could not
be reached for comment Wednesday.
The request was contained in a for-
exercise its off-reservation fishing
rights from Jan. 14 until the ice goes
out on lakes within a 12-county section of east-central Minnesota.
In August, a federal judge ruled that
an 1837 treaty resened the band's
hunting, fishing and gathering rights
in that area. A second trial phase, in
which a resources allocation formula
Restrict cont'd on pg 6
Site of territorial prison, battlefield, up for sale
cently began talking about prostate
problems.
"There's been no Betty For [breast
cancer], no John Wayne [lung cancer]," Walsh said.
That situation is changing. In addition to Schwarzkopf, former pro
quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Len
Dawson have spoken out about their
experiences, as have Sen. Bob Dole,
R-Kan., and retired Sen. Alan
Cranston, D-Calif.
Also, prostate cancer was reported
as the cause of death for actors Bill
Bixby and Don Ameche, rock musician Frank Zappa and entertainment
mogul Steve Ross.
Nonetheless, in terms of public
awareness, "We're 20 years behind the
women," said Bill Whitmore of Boston, cofounder of one ofthe first prostate cancer support groups, US TOO.
As a result, research support has
lagged.. Funds for study of breast cancer, which strikes about 180,000
American women annually and kills
46,000, will total $262.9 million this
year, or about 13.5 percent ofthe National Institutes of Health research
Cancer cont'd on pg 3
STILLWATER, Minn. (AP) _ In
1839, it was the scene of a bloody
battle between Sioux and Chippewa
Indians. In 1853, the Minnesota
Territory opened a prison on the site
that would eventually hold cohorts of
Jesse James.
Now the eight-acre site and the
buildings on it are for sale.
The Maple Island Co. has used the
site since the end of World War II for
dairy product storage and a truck
garage. But the firm is downsizing
and no longer needs the space,
company president Dan O'Brien said
last week.
The land and buildings were
appraised in 1987 at almost$2 million,
but O'Brien said he doubted he would
get that much. "I think it is in pretty
bad condition," he said.
Complete with two dungeons, the
582-cell territorial prison opened in
1853, five years before Minnesota
became a state. It was built at a cost of
$20,000 in Battle Hollow, a ravine
just north of downtown Stillwater
that was the scene a bloody clash
between the Dakota and Chippewa in
1839.
The prison's most famous inmates
belonged to the Cole Younger gang,
sentenced to life after they confessed
to killing two men in the infamous
1876 Northfield bank robbery. Their
partners, Jesse and Frank James,
escaped capture.
Bob Younger died of tuberculosis
therein 1889, after he and his brothers
started the Prison Mirror, the oldest
prison newspaper still being
published. Coleand Jim Youngerwere
paroled in 1901, and Cole was
banished from the state. By then the
prison had more than 700 inmates. It
closed in 1914.
Most ofthe original prison buildings
were replaced in 1871, but a three-
story stone-walled binder twine plant
that still stands on the property was
built in the 1880s, records indicate.
The only remnant of the original
prison, the warden's residence, is now
used by the Washington County
Historical Society and is not for sale.
. After years of neglect, Maple Island
Co. founder John Stolz established
the non-profit Stillwater War
Industries truck repair garage on the
site about 1942, O'Brien said. In
return for any profits, the federal
government allocated adequate truck
parts and tires for the company' s milk
tankers and other essential business
vehicles, O'Brien said.
State cancer rates highest on reservations
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) _High cancer
rates on South Dakota Indian reservations shows the need for more
preventative medicine in counties
with high Indian populations, an
American Cancer Society official
said.
Jim Schmidt, the administrator
for the South Dakota Division ofthe
American Cancer Society, said the
resenations also have poor access
to medical treatment.
Records from the state Health Department showed the four counties
with the greatest incidence of death
from cancer all included Indian resenations between 1989 and 1993 .
Shannon County topped the list with
a death rate of 187.1 per 100,000.
Part of the Pine Ridge Resenation
is in Shannon County.
Todd County, which is home to
the Rosebud Indian Resenation, had
a death rate of 175.8.
Buffalo County had a death rate
of 165.3. The Crow Creek Indian
Resenation is in Buffalo County.
Dewey County, home to the Cheyenne River Indian Resenation, had
a death rate of 164.8.
"The priority for us is education
to develop an attitude of preventive
medicine," Schmidt said.
Schmidt said American Indians
are often beyond treatment by the
time they come in to hospitals or
clinics for cancer treatment.
Miner County had the lowest death
rate from cancer, 71.5 per 100,000.
The state average was 121.6, while
the national average was 134.4.
Todd Vik of the state Health Department said the statistics are taken
from where a person is born.
"It's not by where you die but
where you are from," Vik said.
The information does not try to
explain why Miner County, for example, has such a low cancer death
rate compared to the rest of the
state, Schmidt said.
"I can't offer concrete reasons,"
he said. "I know as we continue to
educate people about
mammographies and pap smears
and physicals, along with good diet
and healthy choices, we'll see real
results in maybe a generation from
now.