News from In4ian Country
3
First Native woman to run for tribal presidency
W INDOW ROCK, Ariz.
(AP) - For the first time, a
woman will be one of two can
didates facing off in the No
vember general election for the
chance to lead the country’s larg
est American Indian reserva
tion.
Tens of thousands of Na
vajo voters turned out at the
polls Tuesday to cast their bal
lots. With the results in from all
but one of the tribe’s 110 chap
ters, current President Joe
Shirleyjr. finished first, followed
by Lynda Lovejoy of
Crownpoint, N.M., and Frank
Dayish Jr., who is currently the
tribe’s vice president.
Shirley received 27.9 percent
of the vote in unofficial results,
followed by Lovejoy at 22.37
percent and Dayish at 17.26
percent.
The results must be certified
by tribal elections officials within
the next 30 days, but Lovejoy
said she had a feeling she would
be one of the top finishers in
the presidential primary.
“The results show people
want a change in the way our
government is functioning,” said
Lovejoy, who is a member of
the New Mexico Public Regula
tion Commission.
With Shirley and Dayish gen
erating the most attention in the
race, election observers hadn’t
predicted that Lovejoy would
separate the two.
“They thought she would do
good but not as good as she’s
doing,” said Edison Wauneka,
director of the Navajo Elections
Administration.
Former tribal council delegate
Ernest Harry Begay of Rock
Point, Ariz., finished fourth and
Vern Lee, a heavy diesel me
chanic from Fruitland, N.M.,
was fifth. The others candidates
were far behind after collecting
few votes in many chapters.
The results announced to the
crowd late Tuesday at the Win
dow Rock Sports Center were
unofficial, but that didn’t stop
those who were wearing yellow
Lovejoy T-shirts from chanting
“Joe’s got to go.” Meanwhile,
Shirley’s camp repeated “Four
more years.”
Shirley said he was surprised
by the results.
“I don’t think anybody could
have predicted it,” he said, re
ferring to Lovejoy making it past
the primary.
Lovejoy said her compassion
and honesty helped her reach
Navajo voters along with her
belief “about responsibility and
accountability for the people.”
Tribal officials had predicted
that more than half of the
96,582 eligible Navajos would
vote. The results showed the
turnout was nearly 48 percent.
Mary S. Johnson, 87, of
Records from missions
chronicle Indian life in
California
SAN MARINO, Calif. (AP)
— Researchers at the Hunting-
ton Library unveiled an immense
data bank that chronicles the his
tory and challenges faced by
more than 100,000 Indians who
lived in California’s Spanish mis
sions during the 18th and 19th
centuries.
The records, made public
Monday, include data from
handwritten records of bap
tisms, marriages and deaths at
21 Catholic missions and two
other sites between 1769 and
1850.
The information reveals an
extraordinarily high mortality
rate as Indians became exposed
to European diseases such as
measles, influenza and smallpox.
Also detailed are the hazards
of living in the early West,
where many people died in
earthquakes and from snake
bites, bear attacks and influenza.
Researchers behind the Early
California Population Project
hope it will provide a look at the
lives of the Indians and their
Spanish counterparts that has
proven largely elusive until now.
“It’s a history that emerges
from a deep native past and a
deep Spanish past and shows
how the two came together for
better or worse,” said the
project’s general editor, historian
Steven W Hackel.
The project, which cost
$650,000, focused on records
of Indians who lived in the
coastal regions from what is now
San Diego to Marin County.
Although there are some gaps,
the Franciscan priests were
good record-keepers. They as
signed numbers to each baptism
and carefully noted parents and
godparents, village of origin,
ethnic background and trades.
A nthony M orales, tribal
chairman and chief of the
Gabrieleno/Tongva Band of
Mission Indians of San Gabriel,
said he thought some people
would search for evidence of
brutality in the mission system,
while others would try to dis
cover what happened to their
ancestors after they were con
verted to Catholicism.
In all, statistics were gleaned
on an estimated 120,000 people,
including some with incomplete
records and some mentioned
just once as a parent. Included
are about 101,000 baptisms,
28,000 marriages and 71,000
burials at all 21 missions and from i
the Los Angeles Plaza Church and
the Santa Barbara Presidio.
The boy was one of six
teenagers - three boys, three
girls — who had gone to float
the river, came across others
playing on the rope swing and
stopped to use it.
The boy was found in
about eight feet of water,
roughly 50 feet downstream
from where he was last seen,
Combs said. He was the sev
enth drowning victim recov
ered from the Deschutes in
just over a year _ three in the
Bend area, three rafters on the
lower Deschutes and a man on
the Warm Springs Indian Res
ervation.
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August 17, 2006
Great Falls Native gets
Emmy nomination
GREAT FALLS (AP) - A
former Great Falls resident
has been nominated for an
Emmy for work casting ac
tors in last year’s mini-series
“Into the West.”
Rene Haynes, a Burbank-
based casting director, was
nominated for her work on
the Turner Television Net
work 12-hour project, which
was produced by TNT,
Steven Spielberg and
Dreamworks Television.
Haynes, one of three pri
mary casting directors on the
project, said she was thrilled
by the nomination.
“We all worked really, re
ally hard on that project,” she
told the Great Falls Tribune.
Spielberg was directly in
volved, with final say on ma
jor casting roles.
Haynes has been a cast
ing director for more than a
decade, specializing in casting
American Indians in Holly
wood films, television mini
series and other productions.
“She’s worked very hard,”
said her mother, Jane Haynes
of Great Falls.
Rene Haynes got her start
in the 1980s when “War
Party” producers hired her to
visit Montana’s reservations
to find actors for that film.
Haynes earlier worked in the
Montana production office
of “The Untouchables.”
Since then, Haynes has
cast American Indians in
films including “Dances With
Wolves,” which won the 1990
Best Picture Oscar; a series
of TN T films including
“Lakota
W oman,”
“G eronim o” and “Crazy
Horse;” and last year’s well-
regarded “The New World,”
directed by Terrence Malick.
For “The New World,”
Haynes auditioned more
than 4,000 girls for the cov
eted role of Pocahontas. She
chose Q ’Orianka Kilcher,
who went on to win the Na
tional Board of Review’s
2005 award for “Best Break
through Performance by an
Actress.”
Haynes will be among
those competing for Emmy
Awards in Creative Arts, to
be handed out at the Shrine
Auditorium in Los Angeles
Aug. 19. She is Qne of six
nominated for an Emmy for
casting in a mini-series, movie
or special. Primetime Emmys
will be given away to actors
and others during a live TV
broadcast on Sunday, Aug.
27. The nominations were an
nounced last month.
PacifiCorps could agree to removing five dams
Teenager drowns in Deschutes
BEND (AP) - A 15-year-old
Gresham boy drowned after
swinging into the Deschutes
River from a rope, authorities
said.
Divers recovered the body
late Wednesday. The boy’s name
was being withheld until relatives
were notified.
Witnesses said the teenager
had been swinging from a rope
that was placed in a tree, about
15 to 20 feet above the
riverbank, according to Sgt.
Marvin Combs of the county’s
search and rescue unit.
The boy rose to the surface
after hitting the water face-first.
He then sank, Combs said.
Black Rock, cast her ballot mid-
afternoon at the Fort Defiance
chapter house. She wouldn’t re
veal who she voted for but said
she hoped neither Shirley nor
Dayish wins.
“There’s no help at the local
chapter houses,” Johnson said
of the current administration.
“It’s almost like the government
is lacking in the local communi
ties.”
Tents were set up outside
some voting places early Tues
day and fry bread and other re
freshments were offered to vot
ers, some of whom traveled
dozens of miles to cast ballots.
Shirley’s campaign stationed
supporters at each chapter
houses to outline the president’s
platform. The incumbent has
touted economic development
as a solution to poverty and
unemployment on the reserva
tion, which extends into parts of
New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.
But he said, “Our demise is
that there’s really nothing to en
tice big business to come to
Navajo land. Even small busi
nesses have a hard time because
of lack of infrastructure.”
Lovejoy spent weeks on the
campaign trail, and Dayish held
rallies before the primary to
drum up support.
Dayish, a former Marine and
businessman who also is sup
portive of economic develop
ment on the reservation, said
that to move the Navajo Nation
forward, federal funding needs
to be supplemented by big busi
nesses that can generate eco
nomic activity.
“The two com bined, I
strongly believe, will be adequate
to start addressing some of the
basic needs we have on the res
ervation,” he said.
Those basic needs such as
electricity, telephone service and
water, are what some of the
other candidates say the current
administration has ignored.
“My people are in dire need
of water,” Lee said. “They have
to go to border towns and haul
water back to their residents to
feed their animals and to have
drinking water. There’s nothing
really happening in that area to
improve the quality of life.”
The other candidates on
Tuesday’s ballot were Calvin H.
Tsosie Sr., a medicine man from
Yah-Ta-Hey, N.M.; Harrison
Todacheene of Shiprock, N.M.,
who ran for Navajo president
in 2002; former Arizona state
Sen. James Henderson Jr. of
Window Rock; Hoskie Bryant,
a pastor from Sheepsprings,
N.M.; and Wilbur Nelson Jr., an
Albuquerque-based business
man from Window Rock. Jon
C. Reeves of Kirtland, N.M.,
dropped out of the race, but his
name remained on the ballot.
Spily^y Tymoo
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GRANTS PASS, Ore.
(AP) — The new president of
PacifiCorp’s power generat
ing division says the utility
could agree to removing five
dams from the Klamath
River to help restore salmon
if customers don’t have to
pay more for electricity.
“We have heard the tribes’
concerns,” PacifiCorp En
ergy President Bill Fehrman
said in a statement posted
Wednesday on the utility’s
Web site. “We are not op
posed to dam removal or
other settlement opportuni
ties as long as our customers
are not harmed and our prop
erty rights are respected.”
The company said the
statement reflected its posi
tion all along in talks over a
new 50-year license to oper
ate the dams, but Indian
tribes characterized it as an
encouraging move toward
restoring salmon to 350 miles
of rivers blocked by the
dams for nearly 100 years.
“The company is behav
ing differently under the new
management,” Craig Tucker,
coordinator of the dam re
moval campaign for the
Karuk Tribe, said from Port
land. “Certainly when we first
started, they said there was no
way they were going to consider
dam removal. This is the first
time they’ve released a media
statement with us saying, ‘Dam
removal is OK by us.’ They just
don’t want to stick it to (their)
ratepayers.”
PacifiCorp posted the state
m ent at the request of the
Yurok, Karuk, Klamath and
other tribes, in conjunction with
the rally they were holding in
Portland to bring attention to
their campaign to remove the
dams.
“By working with us on this
visionary restoration effort,
PacifiCorp could become a
model for corporate responsi
bility,” Allen Foreman, chairman
of the Klamath Tribes, said in a
statement.
The tribes will be looking to
the states of Oregon and Cali
fornia to develop a package of
grants and tax incentives to help
PacifiCorp remove the dams,
Tucker said.
The cost of that package will
become more clear as the
relicensing process continues
and PacifiCorp sees what it will
have to spend to continue op
erating the dams, he added.
PacifiCorp
created
PacifiCorp Energy and hired
Fehrm an from a N ebraska
power cooperative as part of a
reorganization after being taken
over this year by MidAmerican
Energy Holdings Co., based in
Des Moines, Iowa, and con
trolled by billionaire Warren
Buffett.
Fehrman has taken an active
role in settlement talks, and spo
ken with tribal leaders, since
becoming president, said com
pany spokesman Dave
Kvamme. *
“We would far prefer reach
ing a settlement agreeable to all
parties than to work through the
standard licensing process to its
conclusion because we think
there’s more room for a creative
outcome through settlement
than there is through standard
licensing process,” Kvamme
said.
Once the third-largest pro
ducer of salmon on the West
Coast, the Klamath River has
produced only a fraction of its
historic runs since the five dams
— the Keno, J.C. Boyle, Copco 1
and 2, and Iron Gate — were
built between 1917 and 1962.
Spring chinook are a remnant
of former runs. Fall chinook are
struggling. And coho salmon are
listed as a threatened species.
To protect the Klamath’s strug-
Work could resume at Lewis and Clark Park
ASTORIA (AP) - The
new Station Camp park on
the Washington shores of the
Columbia River was to be a
showcase attraction of the bi
state Lewis and Clark Na
tional Historic Park.
Work had begun there a
year ago, with great fanfare.
But barely a week later, it
screeched to a halt.
Workers had uncovered
human bones, remains that
were later linked to a historic
Chinook Indian village that
once occupied the site.
The human remains were
reburied where they were
found, and the $5.6 million
project has sat in limbo ever
since.
But representatives from
the various agencies involved
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continue to meet in an effort to
keep the project alive, and one
official is even optimistic that
construction could begin as early
as next summer.
Dave Nicandri, executive di
rector of the Washington State
Historical Society, said he thinks
his agency can reach an agree
ment with the Chinook tribe on
a plan that protects the site of
the remains while allowing the
park project to proceed, if on a
smaller scale.
The park was designed to
commemorate the spot where
Lewis and Clark’s party declared
their westward journey complete
and took its historic vote on
where to spend the winter.
The Station Camp site, about
two miles west of the Astoria
Bridge, was among several lo-
cations added when Fort Clatsop
National Memorial became the
new, expanded Lewis and Clark
N ational Historical Park in
2004.
The project was planned in
conjunction with a realignment
of a section of U.S. Highway
101 away from the river, free
ing up nine acres of waterfront
property for the park.
But in January, Chinook tribal
members voted overwhelmingly
to oppose any plan that routed
the highway over the burial site.
So engineers with the Wash
ington State D epartm ent of
Transportation have a new plan
for the highway realignment,
shifting the proposed roadway
a few feet from the original de
sign to move it away from the
location of the tribal remains.
gling fall runs of wild chinook,
federal fisheries managers this
year cut off most of the com
mercial salmon fishing along 700
miles of the California and Or
egon coastline. The Bush admin
istration is considering an eco
nomic disaster declaration to
make possible millions of dollars
in aid for salmon fishermen.
The dams produce about 150
megawatts, enough to power
about 75,000 homes in Califor
nia. The power represents 1.7
percent of PacifiCorp’s total
output for 1.6 million custom
ers in six Western states.
The Federal Energy Regula
tory Commission is expected to
issue an environmental impact
statement later this year on
PacifiCorp’s application for a
new license to operate the dams.
As part of the licensing pro
cess, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service has said it wants to see
fish ladders built over all the
dams and fish screens installed
on the turbines so salmon can
return to the upper Klamath
Basin. In the past that would
have been m andatory, but
changes this year to federal en
ergy law give PacifiCorp a
chance to challenge it. An ad
ministrative law judge will hear
the case starting Aug. 21.
New bar owner
says all is fine
STURGIS, S.D. (AP) -
The man behind a new
campground and concert
area for bikers attending
the Sturgis Motorcycle
Rally says everything has
gone smoothly so far.
Jay Allen’s cam p
ground has angered
American Indians who
consider nearby Bear
Butte to be sacred.
O pponents of in
creased commercial de
velopment in the area
around the m ountain
complain the husde and
bustle of the annual rally
are wrecking the spiritual
solitude and solemnity of
Bear Butte.