I’m delighted to be here tonight. We are here to celebrate the 25th anniversary of NAJA, to think a bit about where we have been – and where we might go. We all know this is a time of great challenge. Or, put another way, we are all ready for our next great NAJA adventure.

But challenges are nothing new. Today at lunch we honored the founders of NAJA: Their vision starting this organization was important – but even better, especially for the younger people who are beginning their careers, is that they started something that will last. It wasn’t just a good idea by Tim Giago, but it was the sustained effort by Richard LaCourse, Minnie Two Shoes, Ray Cook, Loren Tapahe, as well as Margaret Clark-Price, Susan Arkeketa, and all of the presidents and executive directors who helped the organization go one more year.

I was touched by the honoring lunch today – it reminded me of how far this organization has come. Indeed, I think of our road and these lines from the Acama poet Simon Ortiz:
We traveled this way,
gauged our distances by stories.
We told ourselves, over and over again,
We shall survive this way.

We are traveling through what Ortiz called the American labryinths.

A year ago my way was in maze sitting in that old Media Tower. I had a corner office, a view of the Puget Sound that amazed me every day I sat down to work. I hosted editorial boards that ranged from presidential candidates to Bono. This job was intellectually stimulating and outright fun. Even better I was paid extraordinarily well.

But I will let you in on a secret. This journalism gig was the best one I’ve ever had. But so to was the job just before that, and the one before that, and the one before that. I’ve been fortunate to have a career of really great jobs at newspapers in Idaho, Utah, Arizona and Washington.

A few months later, shortly after my 19th birthday, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes advertised for a newspaper editor. I applied and was hired.

I was once the young kid at these meetings. I remember standing in a hallway of a meeting when Richard LaCourse and Chuck Trimble were talking about Wounded Knee. Who was where? What were they thinking? And so on. Some one turned to me and asked, “where were you?”
I scrunched. “Junior high.”

It was then I noticed that there were two camps: Those who called Richard, Richard … as did I. And those who were older who called him, “Dick.” Most in the “Dick” camp were from the American Indian Press Association days, people who came of age with Richard. Then most of us in the Richard camp were those who looked up to him as a legend.

To the young people out there: I want to say cling to your mentors. Keep the relationship vibrant. Think of it as essential – because it is. I’m fortunate to have had many such mentors. Richard, Rose Robinson and Forrest Gerard. I am grateful from what each taught me.

The newsletter handed out today had a story about an award I received – one that Rose nominated me for. When I won the award, a citation as editor of the year, I think Rose invited everyone she knew in DC.
Forrest was an unlikely mentor. He wasn’t a journalist – and was often on the other side. Yet we’ve talked at least once a week for some 30 years.

Tim Giago said today that Al Neuharth and what is now the Freedom Forum have been with NAJA every step of the way. That’s true. I also think it’s worth mentioning that one of our greatest champions was Jerry Sass. We would not here tonight without his steady support. Jack Marsh carries on that tradition – and we thank you.

I want to show how important the Freedom Forum is to NAJA. If you’ve graduated from any Freedom Forum program, such as the American Indian Journalism Institute or a Chips Quinn Scholar, please stand. The American newsroom would be very different – and less – without the Freedom Forum and NAJA’s partnership.

My story starts at The Sho-Ban News where I learned so much about journalism, starting with mailing labels.

At the Sho-Ban News, we had this fun task of labeling newspapers and then sending them in the mail via third-class postage. The year was 1977. We had recently began publishing weekly. There were no computers to print the labels, or better sort them, so the newspapers were stacked into small piles based on zip codes. The largest piles were obvious: The Idaho towns next to the Fort Hall reservation, Pocatello, 83201 and Blackfoot, 83221. Then the stacks would get smaller, mixed zip codes in Idaho Falls, Boise and Portland, larger cities where tribal members lived. The next biggest stack, however, was not to tribal members at all (except, perhaps, one or two) but it was to zipcodes starting with 202 — Washington, D.C.

We sent at least ten copies — enough for a “direct” label on the stack — to 20240, the Department of Interior’s zipcode. This also included papers for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (although technically it had its own zipcode of 20245). We also sent a few copies — I don’t remember if we reached the magic number of ten — to the U.S. House and Senate, 20215 and 20210. The remainder went to individuals living in the city of Washington or to national Indian organizations in the capital. I wish I would have kept a copy of our routing sheet, I am interested in the exact numbers now — but I think at the time, I was just glad to get rid of the mail every week. It was not one of my favorite chores, but since we had become a weekly newspaper it was something we had to do every Thursday morning.

The Sho-Ban News, and every tribal newspaper, has Washington readers. The dialogue between the national government and tribes — the government-to-government relationship — is the cornerstone of U.S. Indian policy. For me the relationship was deeper because it was federal dollars that attracted me to The Sho-Ban News. I was attending classes at Idaho State University when the tribe advertised for an editor. The position was funded by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act or CETA.

The Sho-Ban News, had been dormant for about five years when it had been a respected monthly newspaper edited by Lorraine P. Edmo. She left to work at a TV station and then eventually moved on to Denver, Albuquerque and Washington, D.C., as a successful administrator of Indian organizations. When she moved away from Fort Hall, the newspaper died. But the CETA grant was a way of funding the newspaper’s biggest cost — a staff — and bringing The Sho-Ban News back to life.

I answered the ad and was hired. I still remember my first issue, published on December 10, 1976. From my high school journalism class, I recalled how to count headlines (an old technique for writing a headline that fits the space) and lay out a page. I did everything exactly by the book. On the front page was a picture of our office building, a modern brick teepee. The cutline read: “The Dawn over the Human Resource Center Symbolizing (sic) the Dawn of The Sho-Ban News.” Awful. But I was proud, my byline even read: “BY MARK N. TRAHANT, Editor-in-Chief.” Perhaps too many Superman books — but I was completely in charge of a staff of one.

The content was slightly better. A timid editorial reprinted the tribal council resolution creating the newspaper. Education reports. Office training programs. Facts you should know about Dental Health. And, of course, the sports reports — the standings of the Fort Hall winter basketball and the winners of the Buckskin Gloves Boxing Tournament. Perhaps the most important role for a tribal newspaper is to print the sort of news that is missing from mainstream publications. In most communities, a story about a teenager’s winning boxing bout would be clipped and taped on the refrigerator for family and friends. But most Indian children don’t have such a forum; their names rarely get printed in ‘fridge-bound columns.

From the beginning of our publication, we wanted to clearly chronicle national trends affecting Indian affairs and government policy. When Vice President-Elect Walter Mondale toured Idaho, for example, we thought we ought to tag along and see if we could get the soon-to-be vice president to talk about the new policies. So a photographer and I applied for credentials from the U.S. Secret Service and we set out to cover the trip to northern Idaho.

Wes Edmo (the brother of the current News’ editor) and I arrived in Lewiston, Idaho, on January 10, 1977. Mondale was set to arrive the next day but we had to get our badges for the press events. At the credentials office — an old hotel in downtown Lewiston — I noticed that all the other reporters dressed in suits and ties. In those days, my wardrobe consisted of jeans, tee-shirts and cowboy boots or sneakers. I wanted to blend-in; I wanted a chance to ask Mondale a question at the news conference and felt that if I looked as “professional” as the other reporters (and if I shouted loud enough) I could ask the vice president a question about the new administration’s proposed western water policy.

I could not afford a suit. My salary was exactly $1,000 a month, before taxes, and after a car payment and rent there was not all that much left over. (Actually, I thought it was a lot of money — enough to quit college at least.) Instead of new clothes, I would buy a tie and a shirt and a gray overcoat at Lewiston’s J.C. Penneys. I think the total was under $30. I thought that if I wore the coat all the time, then no one would know that I didn’t have a suit or sport coat underneath. I was ready to question the vice president. The only problem was that the following day, when Mondale arrived, it was a warm, sunny January day with temperatures soaring into the 60s. It was very hot underneath that coat. Still, I refused to take it off.

The news conference was held in a secluded area at the Lewiston Airport. It was my first encounter with the national press and I was struck by how rude most of the reporters seemed. Even though I had been standing in a spot close to the podium, when they came in (off the press airplane) there was no room for local media. They shoved and pushed until I found myself at the back of the room. When the vice president arrived it was difficult to ask questions. Most shouted and somehow a press secretary shifted through the noise to recognize one of the reporters. I am not particularly loud and shouting is not one of better skills; still on every question I tried to be just a little bit louder than my previous attempt.

Near the end of the news conference, I was recognized. “Mr. Vice President, will Indian water rights be protected under the Carter Administration’s new federal water policy?” Walter Mondale looked for a moment, then he turned to Interior Secretary-Designate Cecil Andrus and said, “I think I had better let the secretary answer that one.”

So much for my one-rain-coat question. For the record, Andrus answered by saying that Indian water rights are independent rights; not part of the federal claim. It was a good quote and one that I used in the next week’s edition of the News. But it wasn’t worth a new rain-coat.

The Sho-Ban News started as a bi-monthly newspaper. The definition of “bi-monthly” was that anytime I got everything together twice in one month, there would be two editions. Actually, the publication cycle averaged one issue every three weeks. But that troubled me: The other communities in Southern Idaho, no matter how small, were served by weekly newspapers. Was Fort Hall and its 3,000 people any less deserving? Of course not. Just by asking the question, I knew I had to press The Sho-Ban News’ deadline. In September 1977 paper became a weekly.

The News’ grew so fast that we went though four office suites in less than a year. When the newspaper started it was one desk and one telephone in the middle of a tribal education office in the new Human Resource Center. A couple of months later we (I now had a colleague) moved to a larger one-room office next door to the tribal council’s chambers. As we geared up to go weekly, we moved into a temporary suite of offices (our computer and photographic equipment was expanding too) and, finally, the News returned to the suite where it had begun. The only difference was the entire wing of that building was now the Sho-Ban News housing its five to eight employees (we hired students in the summer with money from another federal program) darkroom and computer typesetting terminals.

This was a good era for many native newspapers because federal money was subsidizing our experiments. My editor’s salary was paid for, at least initially, by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act or CETA. I then used more CETA support to hire an assistant editor, and then a reporter, and finally a sales representative. These funds were not completely without strings — and they disappeared after 78 weeks. But it did help the News get started and paid for our core staff.

Even the Bureau of Indian Affairs also helped. In February of 1977 the BIA sponsored, and paid for our travel, to a seminar in Spokane, Washington. It was my first lesson in what a tribal newspaper could be. I heard people like Loren Tapahe and Richard LaCourse for the first time talking about the rich history of native communications.

Loren did a workshop on advertising – and to make his point, he pulled a $100 bill out of his pocket. This is what advertising was all about, he told us. You have to know: This was the era before casinos – and a $100 bill was rare. But this was a demonstration of what was possible.

In Richard, I saw the excellence that can be journalism, in the Confederated Umatilla Journal, and it inspired me.

At that same conference, Joe Grubber a non-Indian reporter from the Spokesman-Review, made the mistake of assuming an answer for the complicated question. He said Indian newspapers have a special perspective. “The trade name is house organ; it is not a newspaper. It is a special perspective publication with a purpose, with a message you are trying to convey.” Grubber then offered a strategy: “Slant every word you write. Think of what you are trying to convey. You can’t say how terrible the other side is, just ignore the other side.”

Richard LaCourse stood up. He was almost shaking: “I’ll have to admit that you are making me extremely angry with your presumption about Indian newspapers are ‘house organs.’ Are you aware of the 1968 law which guarantees freedom of the press in Indian country?”

Grubber did not understand. Others asked why he presumed tribal newspapers to be house organs. “I am making this presumption because I believe you are not trying to make a profit. You are selling an idea,” he said. “If you’re trying to make a profit on this thing then I am all wet!”

Someone else responded: “If the tribal council came to us and said you are going to print it this way, we would walk out.”

“Then they would hire somebody like me and I’d do it,” Grubber responded to general laughter.
I have thought much about this debate over the years; it raises so many questions about the role of the tribal press in our generation. A few tribal newspapers are proud of their public relations role; the editors’ job includes speaking before the outside world as a spokesperson. I would like to think that the Sho-Ban News was not an internal newsletter. I felt that we worked for all of the people, not just those who happened to serve as elected officials. We were a community newspaper that collected its budget from four sources: the tribal council, CETA, some advertising and a few subscriptions. Did that ruin our independence? I think not.

Lori Edmo-Suppah, the current editor of the Sho-Ban News, has been a strong advocate for this concept. She has sent the message over and over that she works for the tribal members, the readers. What I really like is that she has made this argument based on traditional grounds, the idea that community discourse is a cultural value.

We traveled this way,
gauged our distances by stories.
We told ourselves, over and over again,
We shall survive this way.

I’ve thought for years: I can’t believe they pay me to do this. At The Arizona Republic I talked my bosses into letting me journey across the West writing stories. There’s a story I ought to tell because it says something about risk: I was hired at The Republic after the daily version of the Navajo Times was closed. My first job was working on an investigative project – Fraud From Indian Country – which if you read it today still raises relevant issues, such as trust fund management. When the project ended, I was assigned to cover federal courts. I like that job because it kept me involved in Indian affairs. But I had this idea for a “Western beat.” I’ve always thought it odd that Eastern newspapers, The New York Times and Washington Post, had bureaus that covered the West as a region, but western newspapers only focused on their states. Well I pitched the idea over and over and was told, “no way.”

Then I came up with this goofy idea. I told my boss, I believed in this idea so much that I would quit my job and do it as a freelancer. There was this managing editor that really was keen on budget savings – and he loved the plan. So it was a go. First week out I wrote about wild horses in Nevada: Sunday, A-1. A week later another page one story – and again and again. Finally Republic Publisher Pat Murphy told the editor to hire me back. It cost too much money for me to work as a freelancer.

I had my dream job. Writing about the West. I found stories about gold mining, nuclear waste, Spanish land grant communities, and tribal water rights. It was an ideal beat because I like the road as a metaphor. I think about how just three of those centuries ago the Shoshone trade route stretched from Oregon to Oklahoma, from Canada to Mexico.

Now I am on a new road again – and all I really know is the journey itself will be rewarding.

I am looking forward to my fellowship with the Kaiser Family Foundation.

I learned about the closing of the Seattle P-I while riding home from work on the ferryboat. A passenger rushed up to me and said a TV station had just broken the story that the newspaper was “for sale” but would more likely be sold.

This was a “what the hell?” moment. The second I got home I was calling everyone I knew, trying to find out more about the story so close to home.

After lunch the next day the Hearst Corporation officially announced that the story was, indeed, accurate. We were for sale, and it was unlikely that there would be a buyer.

Of course immediately I like every journalist there wondered what we could have done differently. Could we have changed this outcome?

Who knows? But this I do know: We are a people who know how to adapt. We should draw on the strength from those who’ve come before to prepare ourselves to travel this way. Again, gauging our distance by our stories. We are the fortunate because we have tribal histories – and our family stories – about massive disruption.

When I was a kid I spent as much time as I could playing basketball in an old gym, Timbee Hall. At the time I thought it was just a game. But basketball as a symbol of what it means to adapt.

My favorite scene in Sherman Alexie’s “Smoke Signals” makes this point with the sound of a dribbling basketball as if it were a drum, a deep rumble that is an echo of our hearts.

And this from a family story. My grandmother used to regularly sit us down and show us pictures from her special shoe-box collection in the closet. One of these photographs was of “Aunt Genie.”
I only knew my Aunt Genie through newspaper clips. From time to time, the newspaper from my grandmother’s tribe, Wotanin Wowapi, would publish old photos. Once there was a picture of Aunt Genie in a buckskin dress along with seven other young women. Another time it was a picture of women in what looked like sailor suits, but they were wearing basketball uniforms of that age.
The caption credited the Fort Peck Tribal Archives, and told little else, other than this picture was a girls’ basketball team from a government boarding school around the turn of the century.

Like so many young men and women of that era, Genie Butch was sent to a government school at Fort Shaw, Mont. (about 25 miles north of Great Falls). One of the main schools at Fort Peck burned down in 1892, so pretty much all school-age children were sent away to these “industrial schools” where the course work was designed to “civilize” young Indians.

About the same time the Fort Peck school burned down, James Naismith popularized a game called “basket ball.” (I’ll leave others to fight over who ‘invented’ the game.)

It was a different game. Much slower. This game seemed ideal for a winter, indoor sport.
Well back in Montana the school decided to start a girls’ team. After a few early contests, they became good enough to play colleges and other Montana teams.

Soon it was clear the team was better than anyone imagined because it won every game they played.
The team’s legend was such that it was invited to compete at the 1904 World’s Fair, The Louisiana Purchase Exposition. A group of girls ranging in age from 12 to 18 traveled by train from Montana, stopping at towns along the way to play challengers. At the World’s Fair, the team again won every game and were crowned the 1904 Champions of the World (basketball was not then an Olympic sport – or the team probably would have won gold medals, too.)

The team was popular with fans. When games were played outdoors, the court had to be roped off just to keep the crowds at a decent distance.

One St. Louis enthusiast is reported to have said he stayed an extra day at the fair just to see Fort Shaw play. He praised the Fort Shaw team as easily the best in the world.

A year later the team traveled to Portland to challenge teams at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition. “They found no teams willing to accept their challenge, but a side trip to Salem, Ore., pitted them against the only Indian girls team they ever met, the Chemewa Indian School,” says a1965 story in the Montana Historical Society newsletter. “Fort Shaw triumphed again.”

By the way there’s a new book and soon a movie out about Fort Shaw.

I’m telling this story because these girls did not play the way the game was designed. Basket ball was supposed to be a dainty sport for girls. The first rules had more players than the boys so they wouldn’t have to run.

But Aunt Genie and her teammates would have none of that. They wanted to run. They wanted to shoot. They transformed the early game into the “rez ball” that we know today.
They took the limits of their day and found a new way of doing things. They made basketball their own. They were champions of the world.

This is our challenge as journalism writes new rules. We need to take elements of what’s been done before, look at the limits of the day, and make it our own. We need to do to journalism what those who came before did to basketball. Call it “rez journalism.”

We traveled this way,
gauged our distances by stories.
We told ourselves, over and over again,
We shall survive this way.

TABOR, S.D.—Experience the sights and sounds of the Czech Days carnival June 19.

“If everybody can come out here and have a real good time and everybody leaves happy, with a happy memory, that’s what it’s all about,” said David Thiel, foreman of the carnival operated by Mac’s Carnival and Attractions.

The carnival featured “the Slide, we’ve got the Scat, we’ve got the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Dragon, Teacups, Merry Go Round,” Thiel said. “We’ve got a brand new ride we just bought called the Cobra. We’ve got the Wheel, the Zipper. That’s about all we have here. We have more, but it’s just a matter of room.”

Everyone knows carnival workers have a reputation – and not a good one. But a multimedia project of the American Indian Journalism Institute found a dissenting voice. Covering the Tabor, S.D., Czech Days, one worker for Mac’s Carnival and Attractions says carnies are just like everyone else.

And the attraction of the work: “The people are nice,” said 26-year-old Rachel Brewer.

TABOR, S.D.— Kolaches were plentiful at the 61 annual Czech Days Celebration in Tabor, S.D. The sweet dough pastry was the focus of an hour-long baking demonstration open to all Czech Days attendees.

Rita Varilek and Ann Beran provided step-by-step instructions and tips to novice kolache-makers. Both women have been leading the kolache demonstration together for five years.

“The secret to a good kolache is a warm kitchen,” said Beran. “If you don’t have a warm kitchen it is very difficult for those kolaches to turn out for you.”

The three-day event featured a carnival, parade, polka dance-off competition and live music.

The Dick Zavodny Band is a favorite at Czech Days.

By Molly K. Young, AIJI

Tabor, S.D.- For more than 60 years, a tiny South Dakota town has hosted a big summer celebration. The two-day event celebrates the community’s common bond: its ancestry.

“This is a Czech community,” Judy Lundy, from Tabor, said. “Czech Days, to a lot of them, represents home.”

Lundy said she and other volunteers from Tabor, population 400, begin preparing kolaches, a Czech fruit pastry, one month in advance to prepare for the celebration.

The weekend’s events included a Polka Mass, parade, memorial service, queen pageant carnival rides and dancing. Thelma Koupal, who greeted vistors in Czech Heritage Park, said almost 10,000 people were expected to attend the annual celebration, including nearly 200 dancers dressed in traditional Czech attire.

Links to other Czech Days 2009 coverage

Polka Dance-off and Dick Zavodny Band Stories

Czech Days “Giant Parade” stories

Midway and Carnival stories

Kolache Baking Demonstration story

Traditional Czech Clothing story

Czech Days Queen Candidates story

Town of Tabor celebrates rich tradition with Czech Days parade

Tractors, trucks, bands and antique cars floated through Tabor, S.D. as part of the 61st annual Czech Days giant parade on Friday, June 19.

The parade featured 101 entries from Tabor and the neighboring five state areas, said parade marshal David Kloucek.

Politicians, musical acts, churches, businesses and other groups walked the 10-block parade route handing out candy and interacting with the community.

“Czech Days is a tradition that was brought over by our ancestors, when they came over from Czechoslovakia many years ago. And we’re trying to keep the tradition alive,” Kloucek said.

Sioux Falls Shriners drum group is a parade tradition

Benny Polacca and Annie Taylor, AIJI

VERMILLION, S.D. – More than 60 University of South Dakota athletes are sharpening their game skills this summer during a voluntary training session now in its second year.

The University’s Athletics Summer Workout session trains its men’s and women’s basketball, football, swimming and volleyball teams for about nine weeks during summer weekdays. The hour-long trainings are more lax than during regular season trainings, but still require full focus, its participants say.

“The summer is a little bit more social just because of non-mandatory workouts and because we have athletes from different sport teams training together,” said David Frazier, USD’s head strength and conditioning coach who heads the trainings.

Frazier started the trainings last summer after USD recently transitioned to a Division I school. Frazier said 65 of the university’s 350 athletes are participating this summer – a 15-student jump from last year’s participation count.

“Across the nation, most of the universities at the Division I, IAA level are all training throughout the summer,” Frazier said. Since USD is a new Division I school, “it’s going to take a little while for more of our athletes to commit to staying in Vermillion throughout the summer to train and actually improve.”

John Kreklow, a forward on the basketball team and business management junior, describes the trainings as “a pretty full day of work.”

By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan and Molly Young, AIJI

Brady Orvis, the owner of Skin Gallery Tattoos in Yankton, S.D., decided to open his business a year and a half ago after moving to the town from Sioux Falls, S.D.

“At the time I moved here, there wasn’t a tattoo shop here, so I figured Yankton needed one,” Orvis said.

Orvis, who has drawn his entire life, became a tattoo artist eight years ago.

“A lot of people ask, ‘What’s the craziest tattoo you’ve done or what’s the oddest or the weirdest or whatever?’” Orvis said, “It’s like, well, what’s weird anymore these days?”

A steady flow of customers come into the shop, located at 1012 Broadway Avenue, where state highways 50 and 81 merge. Some clients choose tattoos from books in his shop, while others bring in their own designs, Orvis said.

“A lot of people come in and just pick whatever,” he said. “Hopefully it’s something that means something to you.”

Orvis’ artwork can be found at www.skingallery.org.

Ramon-Sauberan and Young are student journalists at the American Indian Journalism Institute sponsored by the Freedom Forum.