Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2006-07-21

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe
History in a Nutshell
pSge4
Correction to
Ojibwe News article
by Georgia Downwind
page 4
Skip Lyons comments
on LaRose/
Leech Lake RTC
reconciliation
page 4
Writer shares concerns
about Grand Portage tribal
enrollment process
page 4
Red Lake
voters lose to
off-reservation
votes
page 4
Absemee voters defeat Roy in Red Lake Election:
Beaulieu, Nelson, Green, Desjarlait, Westbrook win
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
By Bill Lawrence
With approximately 47% of the
eligible voters turning out for the
general election, July 19, 2006,
Judy Roy nearly unseated Chairman Floyd "Buck" Jourdain.
Roy was just 71 votes short. She
won the reservation vote count by
83 votes, but the absentee votes
weighed in heavily for Jourdain.
Absentee votes put Jourdain's
numbers over Roy's.
Out of approximately 7200 eligible voters, a total of 3377 votes
were cast; 1724 for Jourdain
and 1653 for Roy. The absentee
count was: 596 Jourdain and 442
for Roy.
The total absentee vote of 1038
was about 100 over the number
of absentee votes cast in the May
primary.
In other races, Kathryn "Jody"
Beaulieu won the Tribal Secretary position by a comfortable
margin over Donald Cook, Sr.
(1970 to 1370).
Donald "Dez" Desjarlait, with
56% of the vote, won the position
of Red Lake Representative.
Gary L. Nelson, Sr. won a
substantial percentage of the
vote for the Ponemah Council
position. He got 67.5%. His
opponent Clifford C. Hardy received 32.4% of the vote.
Tom "Jambi" Westbrook,
with 464 votes, took the Redby
Council seat away from Julius
'Toady" Thunder who received
402 votes.
Little Rock voted to retain
William "Billy" Green as their
representative over former council member Harlan R. Beaulieu.
The vote was 284-254.
Vote counts are unofficial until
certified by the Red Lake General
Election Board.
The campaign for the chairmanship captured most of the
attention during the weeks be-
ELECTION to page 6
BIA director overrules previous decision on
Shakopee trust lands
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS - The director
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
has withdrawn permission for the
Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux
Community to put about 750 acres
of land in Shakopee and Prior Lake
in a tax-exempt trust.
BIA Director W Patrick Ragsdale overruled an earher decision
by his agency's own Midwest
Regional Office to allow the land
transfer, which is opposed by Gov.
Tim Pawlenty, Scott County and
Shakopee city officials.
vTt was my understanding
that I would have an opportunity
to review the decision before it
was issued," Ragsdale wrote in a
memo to officials in the Midwest
Regional Office. He wrote he was
withdrawing the decision ^because it was issued prematurely,"
and that he would issue the final
decision after reviewing the record
himself.
The local governments risk
losing up to $2.9 milhon a year in
property-tax revenues if the land
comes off the tax rolls, according
to county estimates.
Shakopee Mayor John Schmitt
said local officials are confused by
the mixed messages by the BIA,
but glad they have another chance
to keep the land on their rolls.
vvWe don't know where this is
going to take us, but we just have
to sit back and hope for a positive
outcome," Schmitt said.
Tribal leaders maintain that as
a sovereign nation, they should be
able to develop the land as they
see fit - without local zoning and
land-use rules.
Tribal Chairman Stanley Crooks
said last week that new projects
on the land could include new
houses for community members, a
new cultural center and powwow
grounds.
Willie Hardacker, spokesman
for tribal leadership, did not immediately return a call seeking
comment Tuesday.
The BIA had previously overruled a similar tribe request in 1998,
saying given the tribe's wealth it
failed to show why it needed tlie
benefits of a land tnist.
Red Lake victim
families, school
district reach
$1 million deal
Pioneer Press
The Red Lake School District
and 21 families of students, teachers and other victims have reached
a $1 million setdement of a civil
suit brought against the district
after the March 2005 shootings at
Red Lake Senior High School.
A total of 10 people died, including eight at the school, when
troubled teenager Jeff Weise
opened fire at his home and then
took weapons and began shooting
at the school.
U.S. Federal District Court
and Beltrami County District
Court judges must approve the
settlement announced today. The
school district will pay $900,000
to the families. Another $ 100,000
would be held in an account until
2011 for future disbursement to
f amities or to pay any other claims
against the school district.
"With this settlement the school
district and the Red Lake community take a significant step toward
healing and our future together,
always remembering and respecting the victims and families lost
and affected by this tragedy," said
school board chairman Arnold
Pemberton.
Group hopes to launch first
American Indian cable channel
By Dionne Walker
Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. - Hipping
through TV channels, Jay Winter
Nightwolf noticed something:
While blacks, Latinos and other
minority groups had niche cable
networks, American Indians had
no national TV oudet for their
issues _ everydiing from tribal
sovereignty to language preservation.
The Washington-area radio
personality has joined a group
of Virginia broadcast journalists
and other media professionals to
launch Native American Television, joining a handful of groups
racing to establish the nation's first
American Indian cable channel.
NATV, which the group hopes
to launch by year's end, will feature programming aimed at the
nation's indigenous tribes: News
specials and cooking shows, films
and historic documentaries, video
of drumming, powwows and even
stand up comedy.
A program tentatively tided
vvMeet Native America" would
mirror NBC's ~Meet the Press,"
bringing together a panel of Indian
journalists to interview Capitol
Hill lawmakers. ""Talk to Native
America" would explore issues
like economic development in
Indian country, Nightwolf said.
"It's gonna run the full gamut,"
said Nightwolf, a Cherokee Indian
and weekly host of "The Nightwolf Show."
"We can see the culture, the
history, the issues, the everyday
life _ the smiles and the frowns _
of Native Americans."
Whde a handful of uibes have
set up regional channels in the
past, a cable network would be a
first, according to a spokeswoman
at Native American Pubhc Telecommunications .
At least two others haven't gotten past the planning stages.
Indian Country Today on TV
would be a televised version of
the popular Indian newspaper by
a sinular name. The New Mexico-
based Native American Television
Network includes reality TV
and talk shows on its proposed
lineup.
American Indians in Film and
Television estimates that of 41,000
acting roles cast in 2004, roughly
100 were filled by Indians.
NATV was founded in 1990 by
the late Charles Raster, a Washington-area freelance videographer,
said Randy Flood, executive director of NATV.
Using his basement as a studio,
TV to page 3
Where the Bison Roam
By Thomas Bray
BOZEMAN, Montana - The
Middle East is erupting, the
economy is cooling, the climate is
melting down. Let's talk buffalo.
The other day, in company with
some vacationing friends from
back East, my wife and I visited
the Madison Buffalo Jump State
Park outside Logan, Montana,
about 20 mUes west of here. When
we arrived, there were only two
other people there. It wasn't hard
to see why.
"Beware of Rattlesnakes,"
warned a sign at the parking lot,
which was enough to persuade the
ladies to stay in the car.
And though there were no
rattlesnakes in sight, there wasn't
much else in sight either, odier
than Montana's proverbial Big
Sky, a lovely landscape, and a
small but precipitous butte across
the way. From time immemorial,
explained die historical markers,
Native Americans had herded
buffalo to their deaths by running up behind nearby herds and
stampeding them over the edge of
the butte.
Such "pedestrian hunting" was
an efficient system for a horseless, gun-less people, but the
stampedes necessarily provided
far more meat and hides than the
Indians could use at any given
time. Far from treading lighdy
on the planet, in other words,
Native Americans — like any
other peoples — did what diey
had to do to survive. And once
they had horses and guns, they
only grew more efficient at the
killing: Serious historians have
concluded that bison populations
in the Great Plains already were
in marked decline by the time
the white hunter came along to
(nearly) finish them off.
No doubt diat will be disappointing news to Hollywood
romantics and others who like to
think of the Indians as living in
perfect balance with nature (and
each other) until the Europeans
came along to mess things up. But
diat view of the American Indian
comes in for much-needed correction in a series of scholarly essays
published by Stanford University
Press imder the tide "Self-Determination: Tlie Other Path for
Native Americans."
As Nobel Prize-winning economic historian Douglass North
writes in the Introduction, "The
history of Native Americans lias
been fundamentally colored by
the perceptions — or the belief
systems, if you will — ofthe writers." Native Americans, he says,
"deserve a better story — one diat
tries to comprehend the complex
evolution of Native Americans
..." And one that treats Native
Americans as fully human, not
some sort of primitive, half-human species. Among other diings,
the essays make clear, Indians developed institutions, such as property rights, diat bore a remarkable
resemblance to European systems
for managing scarcity where it
occurred.
The invading Europeans also
deserve a better story. While much
attention is paid in school textbooks about how the American
buffalo was reduced to a population of 1,500 or so by the end of
BISON to page 3
Tribal president
who proposed
abortion clinic
ousted again
By Carson Walker
Associated Press
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - A tribal
president who was ousted and
then reinstated after proposing an
abortion clinic on the reservation
was again stripped of her leadership role Tuesday.
An Oglala Sioux tribal judge
had reinstalled Cecelia Fire
Thunder to office Monday after
she argued diat her removal on
June 29 violated tribal procedure.
The judge acted after the tribal
council removed Fire Thunder
from office for proposing a clinic
on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that would be beyond the
reach of South Dakota's strict
new abortion ban.
On Tuesday, tribal Judge Lisa
Adams vacated her order after
receiving a motion that argued
she could not issue an injunction against the tribe or one of its
officials. The judge's order had
restored Fire Thunder to office
pending a July 28 hearing on the
impeachment issues.
Alex White Plume, who succeeded Fire Thunder and now
resumes office as president, told
The Associated Press Tuesday
the tribal council has more authority than the tribal court.
"The tribal council action is
the supreme law, so she overstepped her bounds a litde bit,"
OUSTED to page 3
web page: www.press-on.net
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
A weekly publication.  Copyright, Native American Press, 2006
Founded in 1988
Volume 19 Issue 5
July 21, 2006
Leech Lake Tribal College gains accreditation
recommendation
President Leah Carpenter, said,
"This is an great day for our
College; all the hard work that
has been invested in becoming
a accredited institution of higher
education has now been recognized and awarded."
By Diane White
CASS LAKE, MN—The
-Leech Lake Tribal College was
founded in 1992 as a division of
the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
From meager beginnings, the
College operated out of the old
Cass Lake High School building in downtown Cass Lake.
The College was incorporated
in 2000 and received 501(c)(3)
non-profit status in 2003.
Their first audit as a non-profit
corporation was for fiscal year
2003 and was completed in
mid-2004. Non-profits must file
tax form 990, which is open for
public inspection for three years
(and can be found free of charge
on the GuideStar website).
The Tribal College was founded in 1992 and for many years
operated out of the old Cass
Lake High School. Tribal College President Leah Carpenter
was recendy selected as a 2006
National TRIO Achiever, and
has been invited to participate
in the Council for Opportunity
in Education's 25th Annual Conference in September. Wliile in
New York for the conference,
President Carpenter will also be
honored at the TRIO Achiever's
Luncheon at die New York Marriott Marquis.
TRIO—a federally funded
program that includes Upward
Bound, Talent Search, and Smdent Support Services—is designed to offer educational
opportunities for low-income
smdents. Wliile Carpenter was
in liigh school, she participated
in die Upward Bound Program
in Bemidji, where she was
mentored by Barry Yocom.
As a result of the encouragement and training she received
through Upward Bound, she
began a journey that has led to
her receiving a B.A. degree in
Political Science and American
Indian Smdies at Bemidji State
LIniversity (1985), a J.D. degree
from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Law School
(1989), and she will complete a
PhD at the University of Arizona
in December 2006.
The College plays a crucial
role in teaching die Ojibwe language, an endangered language,
and Anishinaabe cultural arts.
On April 26, 2006, a review
team from the North Central
Association (NCA) that they
are recommending Leech Lake
Tribal College (LLTC) for five
years of accreditation —the
longest any educational institution can be granted initial
accreditation. The NCA is one
of the largest higher education
accrediting organizations in the
country, responsible for over
9,000 schools in 19 states. The
NCA is a governing authority,
creating a network of schools
interlinked with one another to
help generate opportunities that
are not available for non-accredited institutions of higher
education.
The library's archives include
valuable document collections
on the Leech Lake Band of
Ojibwe and Chippewa National
Forest. We offer AA degrees in
Early Childhood Education, Liberal Education, and Anishinaabe
Smdies. We offer AAS degrees in
Law Enforcement and Business
Management. We offer an AS
degree in Nutrition, a one-year
certificate in Nutrition and a
Cliild CDA certificate.
We offer two-year diplomas
in Carpentry and Electrical. We
have matriculation agreements
with Bemidji State University,
University of North Dakota, and
Sinte Gleska University in South
Dakota.
The four-member NCA review
team was impressed by LLTC's
progress since their last review
in 2004, when the college was
awarded continuing accreditation candidacy status, and they
thanked LLTC for "the incredible
Dr. Vanis, the
accreditation will
"bring Leech Lake
Tribal College into
the status of being
an equal with other
institutions of higher
learning," and it is
something of which
the College can be
genuinely proud.
amount of time spent in preparing for this site visit."
Mary Vanis, chair of the NCA
review team especially commended President Carpenter
and the college for its improved
organizational leadership and
for the strength of its external
relationships. Dr. Vanis said,
"We feel that Leech Lake Tribal
College has shown substantial
improvements in its organizational management and leadership, especially by impacting
the positive perceptions and
attitudes about the value of your
college to your internal and
LLTC to page 5
Table 1: Typical Student
LEECH LAKE TRIBAL COLLEGE
Female
Mother
First Generation College Student
Low-income
Single
28-34 years old
American Indian
Lives on Leech Lake Reservation
Table 2: Revenue Less Expenditures
LEECH LAKE TRIBAL COLLEGE
Julv 1, 2003 to June 30, 2004
REVENUE
Grants
4,164,822
Service Fees
388,573
Interest
6,576
Transfer from Tribe
656,631
Transfer from General Fund
162,293
TOTAL REVENUE
$         5,378,895
EXPENDITURES: DIRECT SERVICE
Instruction
987,562
Research
118,105
Academic Support
450,890
Student Services
1,488,350
TOTAL EXPENDITURES DIRECT SERVICE
$        3,044,907
EXPENDITURES: MANAGEMENT
Public Service
70,491
Institutional Support
1,375,722
Operation/Maintenance Plant
17
Auxiliary Services
70,102
TOTAL EXPENDITURES MANAGEMENT
$         1,516,332
TOTAL EXPENDITURES
$        4,561,239
ENDING FUND BALANCE
$            817,656