JANUARY 15, 2003
Smoke Signals 9
The Native Voice Takes On The Nation
Created an opening for a "positive voice" and a vehicle for teaching at the Tribal level,
By Ron Karten
In December, 2001, when Indian Country
Today (ICT) picked up and moved from Rapid
City, South Dakota, to Oneida, New York, ICT
columnist Frank J. King III had a big idea. Three
months later, the first issue of The Native Voice,
a bi-weekly national newspaper going head to
head with ICT, News from Indian Country and
others, rolled off the presses.
King and wife, Lise, whose background is in
MTV and South Dakota public television, sought
to create "a newspaper around the culture rather
than adapt our culture to the newspaper."
"We threw everything out," said King. "We
asked ourselves, 'What is the commonality with
every Tribe?'"
As a result, sections take the names, Warriors'
VOICE, Women's VOICE, Elders' VOICE, and
VOICE of the Youth. And, said King, "We just
started an 'Amnesty' section."
To understand King's take on the publication,
a look back at his columns for ICT is instructive.
He used to bring back the old stories, the old
lessons, and relate them to today's issues. Even
today in The Native Voice, King continues mix
ing lessons and culture in the newspaper.
"Right now," said King, "if you ask a young per
son, 'What is culture?' they don't know. What we
will do is reprint old, traditional stories, trickster
stories, stories about behavior. And we won't just
run them once. We'll reprint them. We're pro
viding (readers) something they can learn from."
.... And King is out to change one more aspect of
news today: "There needs to be something that
projects positive stuff, an image of Native people,
Trf culture, history, identity?.. Where you see-a "
negative story, we see a lesson for the Tribe.
We're not thinking on a national level. We're
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thinking on a Tribal level."
Response has been exciting for the founders.
"When we started out, we were distributing al
most 8,000 papers," in the Dakotas, Iowa, Wyo
ming, Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona and part of
Kansas. "We thought that was great," said King.
"Then we grew."
Today, The Native Voice distributes 12,000 pa
pers on its bi-weekly rounds, and includes loca
tions from Washington state, north Texas, south
California, western Pennsylvania with Nevada
and parts of Utah still to come.
The paper makes this happen with seven in
house employees and a dozen or more stringers
from around the country. The paper also in
vites Native students from the University of
Montana, the home of www.reznetnews.org, to
contribute to the paper.
Initial investment for the project was 'Very mini
mal," said King, who with Lise and a silent part
ner, have funded and kept the project going.
According to King, the most important tool
that he brought to this project was "a business
mind." King comes from a background in social
services, in a treatment home. He learned over
the years how to manage employees and ac
counts. King moved from there to writing columns for
ICT. Lise's work in media focused on promoting
environmentalism and filmmaking. "I saw the
issues and wanted to figure out, 'how can I
change these issues?'" said King.
The Kings have been involved for years in com
munity business enterprises with rental homes,
but now, with the newspaper as a base, they
have supported many other social and cultural
events. Among projects, they provide support
for the Lakota Nation Invitational (LNI), a 16
team high school basketball tournament featur
ing teams from South and North Dakota Tribes.
The newspaper provides free advertisements for
struggling small businesses that support the
Invitational. And 10-percent of ad sales go to a
scholarship fund for the LNI.
Also among the paper's projects is the 27th
Annual American Indian Film Festival and a
'Politically Incorrect'-style talk show for the Na
tive American community called, "Out of the
Box." Chris Eyre, director of the movie, Smoke
Signals, will host the January 9, 2003 South
Dakota Public Television broadcast.
"We try to re-educate people in the image of
the Native American," said King. "We don't want
people to look at us wearing buckskin and beads.
We want people to look at us as human beings.
The image of the Native has been dehumanized.
Some non-Indian politicians believe that we still
can't take care of ourselves."
A look at the latest issue of The Native Voice
ought to dispel that myth. D
Casino To Be Communications Hub In Case Of Disaster
Amateur radio buffs get together, get organized to help if needed.
Photo and Story By Ron Karten
When you are involved
in the world of amateur
radio, you have your own
language, your own com
munications system and
plenty of compatriots.
Across Oregon, 5,000 are
registered as amateur ra
dio operators. Across
Yamhill County, 300 are.
Now, the Spirit Moun
tain Casino has gotten
involved, and with a
$3,000 grant, purchased
components that will
make the casino the hub
of communications in the
event of disaster that ei
ther cuts down or ties up
traditional communica
tions systems.
"One of the good things about the casino," said
Don Smith, Assistant Director of Security for the
casino, "is that we can come up with ideas and
we can do them." He was referring to the idea
suggested by Fred Rodley, a phone tech with
the casino and the Emergency Coordinator for
Yamhill County, to set up the casino as the area's
emergency response center.
Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is
only one small part of the amateur radio world,
but at the casino now, it is the most important
part. Rodley, who has been an amateur radio
operator for more than 40 years, said that in
Just In Case Amateur radio enthusiasts Fred Rodley
(from left to right), Johnny Jacobs, Jim Bates, Don Smith
and Dave Geotz have formed a group of Spirit Mountain
Casino employees who are interested in establishing and
maintaining an Amateur Radio Emergency Services group
here in the area. The group believes they could be help
ful in the event of a disaster.
general, "it's next to impossible" to find compa
nies to donate equipment for emergency response
centers, but the casino stepped right up.
"Our main concern is the safety of our guests,
the casino and the community," said Smith. "If
we can do anything to secure that better, we'll
doit."
By mid-December, the casino was ex
pected to be appropriately wired for the
equipment, which is housed on a small
roll-away table upstairs in the casino's
Conference Room C "the command
center in the event of an emergency," said
Smith.
Amateur radio enthusiasts like Rodley
(N7LQD), Johnny Jacobs (KD7LYI), Jim
Bates (KD7RGB), and Dave Goetz
(KT7H) will be available on a voluntary
basis to man the center. "We cannot, by
federal law, be compensated for anything
we do," said Rodley.
The group is always seeking interested
parties, whether newcomers to amateur
radio or old hams. Group members will
shepherd a novice through the study re
quired for a license, and the test, and note
that equipment needed to get communicating can
be as little as $100.
"The hobby is so diverse," Rodley said. "(Some
of) our members are blind or without limbs.
Nothing stops them. (Whatever the problem)
amateur radio operators will find ways around
it."
And likewise for the many needs they fill in
emergencies. Whether it is getting information
out of disaster areas, or getting it in, there is usu
ally an amateur radio operator around to get the
job done. With the development at the casino in
recent weeks, they are now just one step closer
to home.