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Feb. 1, 2020 -Vol. 16, Issue 3

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LEADERSHIP / pg. 6

Leadership meeting reinforcescommunity relationships among Tribal Nations, state representatives and governmental agencies

Three Oklahoma House Representatives introduce new legislative bills aimed to address Missing & Murdered Indige-nous Women (MMIW) epidemic. From l-r: Rep. Mickey Dollens (D-Oklahoma City), Rep. Daniel Pae (R-Lawton), Mere-lyn Bell (R-Norman) and Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Gov. Reggie Wassana. (Photo / Rosemary Stephens)

Rosemary StephensEditor-in-Chief

With several newly intro-duced Oklahoma legislative bills that could impact Indi-an Country, building strong relationships across the state of Oklahoma is a main focus point for Cheyenne and Arap-aho Tribes leaders, Gov. Reg-gie Wassana and Lt. Gov. Gib Miles.

On Jan. 23 the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes hosted a luncheon at the Embas-sy Suites in Oklahoma City with guest speakers includ-ing Oklahoma State Repre-sentatives Mickey Dollens, D-Oklahoma City, Daniel Pae, R-Lawton, Okla., and Merelyn Bell, R-Norman, Okla., Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association’s Exec-utive Director Sheila Morago and over 50 guests and rep-resentatives from six Tribal Nations, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services.

“This morning we are ap-preciative and thankful you all are here to network and hear not only some important information on the Oklahoma legislative session but from other agencies and to hear important information from other Tribes across the state,” LaRenda Morgan, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ governmental affairs officer for the Cheyenne and Arap-aho Tribes said. Morgan has played a key role in assisting to build these rela-tionships with state representatives and government agencies.

Several bills being introduced for the 2020 legislative session by the Jan. 16 deadline addresses cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people, which include House Bill 3345, named Ida’s Law, introduced by Rep. Mickey Dollens.

Ida’s Law would create an Office of Liaison for Missing & Murdered In-digenous Persons within the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations. This office would work with tribal communities, state, federal and tribal law en-forcement agencies on missing persons and homicide cases and assisting

families in using the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS). The bill also stipulates the liaison’s office to be staffed by a miss-ing person specialist with experience working in and with tribal communities.

Ida’s Law is named after Ida Beard, a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes who went missing from her hometown area in El Reno, Okla., in 2015.

Dollens was contacted by some of his constituents about the high number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Oklahoma, and one family’s story in particular, Ida Beard’s story, moved him to sponsor an interim study on the topic during the legislative off season.

“LaRenda, this bill would not exist without your help, bringing this all together, helping with the interim study and introducing me to tribal members across the state. When LaRenda approached me about her cousin Ida Beard, I knew I wanted to help, but I didn’t quite know how, so my plan was to listen and give families, who have been impacted, a platform to share their testimo-

Taxi Anyone?

Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal citizen Georgia McGee is the new owner/operater of McGee TaxiCab, LLC in El Reno, Okla. Driving a Scion XB, McGee will be able to accomodate wheelchairs. (Photo / Shane Smith)

It just got easier to get around El Reno or even to Oklahoma City.

At an El Reno city council meeting, a new taxi service business was approved for El Reno.

McGee TaxiCab, LLC will likely begin op-eration within a few days. The owner and sole cab driver, Georgia McGee, has been pushing this idea for a couple of weeks. She's excited the road has been cleared for her.

“I just want to help my community,” McGee said. “There's a big need for this service in El Reno.”

McGee, a lifelong Oklahoman and a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, has lived in El Reno off and on for 25 years. She gradu-ated from the El Reno Beauty College in 1995

By Shane Smith, El Reno Tribune

TAXICAB / pg. 9

PAGE 2 Tsistsistas & HinonoeiCheyenne & Arapaho Tribal Tribune

Latoya LonelodgeStaff Reporter

(CLINTON, OK) Changes are underway for renovations to the Elderly Nutrition Center in Clinton, Okla. The Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes Planning and Development Program held two citizens participation meetings to dis-cuss the expansion project and welcomed any ideas and suggestions from the commu-nity.

During the citizens partic-ipation meeting held on Jan. 21, community members in and around the Clinton area attended and participated in discussion of the proposed Elderly Nutrition Center Ex-pansion.

In applying for the 2019-2020 Indian Community Development Block Grant (ICDBG) by the Housing Urban Development (HUD), plans were set forth to prioritize renovations to the building that the Elderly Nutrition program is currently housed in.

“When we started coming up here, we was looking at the roof and of course the roof was done by our program, we noticed that the bathrooms were way out of code and out of date, they’re not really ADA compatible, that’s when we real-ly started noticing needs in there,” Damon Dunbar, Planning and Development director said.

Dunbar said the ICDBG grant is what the tribes go after every year.

“This year they’re actually combining FY19 and FY20 together, normally it’s $800,000 but this funding is going to be $900,000 and we got everything over to the Corp of En-gineers, we always partner with them out of Tulsa and they do all of our engineering, cost estimates, site plans, support letter, our letter for operation of maintenance of everything and then they come back and we do a agreement with them if

we get the grant, they do all of our inspections, they do all of our payment authorizations, they check it all out and do the filing,” Dunbar said.

With the grant due Feb. 3, Dunbar said if awarded, the grant will award $900,000 and $500,000 will be requested from tribal funds to support the expansion project.

“I included 500,000 tribal funds because it always seems like we always come up with renovations and expansions, we always find something unseen when we’re starting to tear and do stuff, I probably over estimated but they’re going to try to get that budget to drive out to 1.4 million,” Dunbar said.

With the New Year, Dunbar said the building needed a new look.

“We can’t do anything on the brick but we can do some-thing else to lighten it up a little bit to make it look better than it is … we want to give it a new look,” Dunbar said.

For the floor plans, Dunbar said they hired New Fire Na-tive to draw the preliminary renderings with options.

Elderly Nutrition Center Expansion Project

Rendering of the proposed Elderly Nutrition Center expansion project submitted by New Fire Native Designs.

Damon Dunbar, Planning and Development director conducts the citizens participation meeting to discuss the proposed Elderly Nutrition Center expansion project on Jan. 21 at the Clinton Community Center in Clinton, Okla. (Photo / Latoya Lonelodge)

ELDERLY NUTRITION CENTER / pg. 6

(AP) Attorneys representing Okla-homa Gov. Kevin Stitt filed their re-sponse to a gaming lawsuit brought by the Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choc-taw Nations just before the first of the year. The tribes’ suit asks for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma to rule on a section of the state’s Model Tribal Gaming Com-pact that the tribes say has triggered its automatic renewal.

Stitt, a first-term governor and en-rolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has argued otherwise. In an essay dis-tributed with his attorneys’ legal brief, Stitt described the battle’s background from his perspective.

“When I came into office, I inherited letters from two Oklahoma tribes con-cerned that their Model Gaming Com-pact would expire on Jan. 1, 2020. They explained that their compacts were “dated” and “unsuitable for the current and future business environment of gaming in Oklahoma” and asked that the state begin negotiating new gam-ing compacts. I took those letters se-riously and consulted numerous legal experts to learn more. They all agreed the compacts expired on Jan. 1, 2020. Therefore, in July 2019, I invited all Oklahoma tribes to discuss new gam-ing compacts. Our goal was to update compact terms to be more responsive to market conditions and to better account

for the State’s interests while protecting economic growth and development for our tribal partners. I still hold to that mission today.”

(Note: The two “inherited” letters Gov. Stitt refers to were written in 2017.)

Stitt attorneys seek five areas of re-lief

The response filed on behalf of Stitt rebuts claims made in the tribes’ suit and asks the court for five areas of re-lief:

declare that the tribes’ compacts did not automatically renew Jan. 1;

“declare that the tribes’ continued conduct of class III electronic gaming activities violates federal and state law”;

“enter an injunction prohibiting the tribes from conducting class III elec-tronic gaming unless and until new gaming compacts are negotiated and entered into”;

create a “constructive trust upon class III electronic gaming revenue earned by the tribes from and after Jan. 1, 2020”;

and award all fees and court costs in-curred from the lawsuit to the state of Oklahoma.

The state-tribal legal dispute large-ly focuses on Part 15 B of the gaming compact, which reads:

“This Compact shall have a term which will expire on January 1,

2020, and at that time, if organization licensees or others are authorized to conduct electronic gaming in any form other than pari-mutuel wagering on live horse racing pursuant to any govern-mental action of the state or court or-der following the effective date of this Compact, the Compact shall automat-ically renew for successive additional fifteen-year terms; provided that, within one hundred eighty (180) days of the ex-piration of this Compact or any renewal thereof, either the tribe or the state, act-ing through its Governor, may request to renegotiate the terms of subsections A and E of Part 11 of this Compact.”

Stitt’s legal response was filed by four attorneys with the Ryan Whaley law firm (Phillip Whaley, Dan Webber, Patrick Pearce and Matthew Kane), two attorneys from the Lytle, Soule & Felty law firm (Steve Mullins and Matthew Felty) and Stitt’s staff counsel, Mark Burget and Jeffrey Cartmell.

The brief does not feature attorneys from the Perkins Coie law firm that the Stitt administration said Jan. 3 it had engaged to help with the gaming compact issue. In distributing the legal brief, the administration announced the firm would no longer be representing the state.

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter is not listed on the filing either.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s attorneys file response to gaming lawsuit

GAMING LAWSUIT / pg. 6

PAGE 3Tsistsistas & Hinonoei Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribal Tribune

Cheyenne and ArapahoT r i b a l T r i b u n e

Latoya Lonelodge, Reporter/Advertising Sales405-422-7608 / [email protected]

1600 E. Hwy 66, Suite 8, El Reno OK / P. O. Box 38, Concho, OK 73022 Fax: 405-422-8204

2010-2019 NATIVE AMERICAN JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION MEDIA AWARD WINNER & 2012-2017 AWARD WINNER OF THE OPA BETTER NEWSPAPER CONTEST

DISCLAIMER: Letters to the editor, opinions and commentaries do not reflect the views of the Tribal Tribune unless specified. Correspondence must be signed and include a return address and telephone number for verification, otherwise it will not be published. The Tribal Tribune reserves the right to edit letters for clarity and length. Submission of a letter does not guarantee its publication. Photographs, news stories or other materials in this publication may not be reprinted without prior permission. Printed by Lindsay Web Press, Lindsay, Okla.

Oklahoma Press Association member Native American Journalists Association member

Rosemary Stephens, Editor-in-Chief405-422-7446 / [email protected]

Society of Professional Journalists members

Latoya Lonelodge, Staff Reporter

(CONCHO, OK) In accordance with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes constitution, Article VI, Section 6b, states, “The governor may call special sessions of the legislature. All special sessions of the legislature shall be held within a voting district. The purpose of the special session shall be stated in a notice published not less than five days prior to the special session, and the legislative shall not consider any other subject not within such purposes.”

A special session called by Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Gov. Reggie Wassana was held Jan. 22 in Concho, Okla.

Nineteen items were on the agenda to be discussed and voted on. All eight sitting legislators were present for the pub-lic hearing, A1 Billie Sutton, A2 Kendricks Sleeper, A3 Tra-vis Ruiz, A4 Rector Candy, C1 Bruce Whiteman, C2 George Woods, C3 Darrell Flyingman and C4 Byron Bird.

Not present at the special session voting was C3 Darrell Flyingman.

All 19 items on the agenda passed, which included, A resolution to approve the confirmation of Richard. J

Phillips as Associate Judge.“Judge Belanger and Judge Lisa Otipoby contracts came

back before the legislators a few months ago and we ap-proved Judge Belanger’s, but did not approve Judge Lisa’s contract so in that time, I think the executive office has been looking for a judge to replace her docket, in the mean time we had Judge Garcia take on the juvenile cases and child support cases, so he’s done that to up to this point and continues to do so until we find a judge to assume those cases. I can tell you in a 12 month period, probably in the last year and a half we had 1,824 case hearings that is all together, of those 319 were juvenile which would be what this associate judge that we’re looking at would cover … those that are child support take up 398, overall this judge does have a heavy caseload,” Paul Fuentes, Judicial Branch probation officer said.

Phillips was confirmed with a vote of 5 yes and 2 no.A resolution for confirmation of Charlene Wassana to the

position of Executive Director of Health. As an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho

Tribes, Wassana introduced herself and provided a brief his-tory of her education and experience in the health field.

“I’ve been a nurse for over 28 years, I’ll say I had the opportunity to work in many fields of nursing and with many different sections of the nursing department, I worked in home health, I’ve worked in ER, where I currently work now is in the emergency room, I’ve worked at Mercy with a part time nursing company on weekends, I’ve worked there in the cancer unit of course at Indian Health Services …. and also had the opportunity to work as the supervisor of the ER de-partment for my shift and then when IHS and the clinic was at the old hospital we were allowed to be supervisors whenever our main supervisor was out so I have that experience too,” Wassana said.

Wassana was confirmed with a vote of 6 yes and 1 no.

A resolution for confirmation of Easton Yellowfish to the position of Executive Director of Treasury.

Yellowfish is an enrolled member of the Ottoe-Missouria Tribe and is from Bethany, Okla. In 2013 he graduated with his degree in accounting from the University of Oklahoma and soon began work at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in the Treasury Department.

“I took care of the per capita department, our various in-surance, reconciliations, oversaw a couple of the grants so I have a little bit grant experience. Through some circum-stances I was appointed acting treasurer in May 2019 so about seven or eight months now I’ve been acting. Since then it’s been kind of crazy but we’ve started to get everything un-der control. I would say the main thing we accomplished was we did improve our audit opinion from an adverse opinion … I think that was really important for us as a department to do that. We’ve always had an adverse opinion so that’s something that we’re proud of to take and accomplish, going forward that’s something that we want to try to get better at doing,” Yellowfish said.

Yellowfish was confirmed unanimously.A resolution for confirmation of Winona Youngbird to the

position of Executive Director of Social Services. “I am from Watonga, Okla., I’m half Cheyenne half Ha-

waiian, I’m an enrolled member here at Cheyenne Arapaho Tribes. I am a mother of four and currently work at the Food Distribution program as the program coordinator. I started my career with the tribes in march of 1998 as a houseware aide

for the program I currently work for, so in the last 22, almost 23 years with the tribe, I’ve had about a six month break with the service, probably about 15 years ago, so the majority of my time since then has been at Food Distribution, I was at law enforcement as a police officer for about four and a half years and I had worked as an office manager for Economic Development for about three and a half years. I started my college education at Haskell Indian Nations University and transferred to Redlands and received my associate of arts and associate of applied science at Redlands, and transferred to SWOSU and got my bachelors degree in criminal justice and a minor in pre-law and basically that’s my education and ex-perience with the tribe,” Youngbird said.

Youngbird was confirmed unanimously.A resolution for confirmation of Ronald “Sonny” Redshin

to the position of Executive Director of Parks and Recreation. “I was a former legislature but before that I was inspector

for the Housing Authority and I was there for a little over a year and then prior to that I was one of the assistant managers at Homeland for three and half years. It was a good experi-ence to learn, it was one of them deals where I kind of accept-ed the job without having any prior experience but the kind of person I am, I don’t feel that limited, it’s always something new to learn and that’s what I look forward to when I take a job. I really don’t see that there’s anything I can’t do. Before I was at Homeland I worked for the Housing Authority for over eight and half years, I worked my way from labor, to

First Special Session of the Eighth Legislature

At the first special session of the Eighth Legislature, four new executive directors were confirmed. Pictured l-r: Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes Gov. Reggie Wassana, Winona Youngbird, Executive Director of the Dept. of Social Services, Easton Yellowfish, Executive Director of Treasury, Charlene Wassana, Executive Director of the Dept. of Health and Ron-ald Redshin, Executive Director of Parks and Recreation. (Courtesy photo)

The Cheyenne and Arap-aho Tribal Election Law 6L-RS-2017-02-006 in ac-cordance with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Constitution Article IX, Section 2 (a) states: Cheyenne voters shall register to vote in the Chey-enne district in which they reside. Cheyenne voters who do not reside within a Chey-enne district shall register to vote in any Cheyenne dis-trict; provided that once reg-istered in such district, the voter shall not be permitted to change districts unless he or she establishes residency in another Cheyenne district.

According to the Chey-enne District 4 records, the following individuals have either been found to NOT RESIDE in the Cheyenne District 4 voting area or you have an INVALID district address on file or need to up-date voter registration:

Tommy Dale Bullcom-ing

Oscar DominguezMichael WhiteskunkLeanna Jonell CableCarin Minnie MitchellClara Denise WilliamsStephanie Rose Curley

Melvina Rose OsageClarice S ZotighJennifer Alyssa HigginsReuben Wesley SevenstarNellie Rae Zotigh Benny Highwalker Jr.Kelli SharpAnthony KauleyCarla Geniel StandingwaterJulia Inez KauleyShannon TapiaKristi Keith KauleyJason D White EagleJerome KoshiwayRandall Benson WhitemanCheyenne and Arapaho

Tribal Election Law 6L-RS-2017-02-006, 2.2 (A) states, “All eligible voters are required to register in accordance with Article IX, Section 2 of the Constitution. Only those persons duly reg-istered will be permitted to vote.”

Voter Registrations are available on the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Website, http://cheyenneandarapa-ho-nsn.gov, or you may con-tact the Election Office at 405-422-7619.

You may also update with C4 Election Commis-sioner Sarah Orange at 405-

637-6036 or at any of these locations, Clinton Election Commission Office; Canton Election Commission Office or Concho Election Commis-sion Office.

Please Note: The Consti-tution states if you have not voted in the past two elec-tions your name will be re-moved from the Voter Regis-tration List and YOU WILL HAVE TO RE-REGISTER TO VOTE. If you have not voted in the past two elec-tions or if you have moved and have not updated your registration address please contact one of the Election Commissioners below.

A1 Ray Mosqueda 405-422-7719

A2 Dale Hamilton 405-422-7718

A3 Patricia Smothers 580-331-2321

A4 Elizabeth Birdshead 405-422-7719

C1 Sandra Hinshaw 405-422-7718

C2 Norma Yarbrough 405-422-7715

C3 Ramona Welch 580-331-2322

C4 Sarah Orange 405-637-6036

Public Announcement: Cheyenne District 4 Voters

SPECIAL SESSION / pg. 7


BRIEFS AT A GLANCEElectronic Records

Management for Tribal Organizations

Feb. 19-20, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nev. For more infor-mation or to register visit www.falmouthinstitute.com.

The seventh annual Tribal General Manager & Casino Executive Ex-change

Feb. 23-25, 2020 at the Fashion Island Hotel in Newport Beach, Calif. For

more information visit www.nativenationevents.org.

The second annual Ca-sino Marketing Executive Exchange

Feb. 24-26, 2020 at the Fashion Island Hotel in Newport Beach, Calif. For more information visit www.nativenationevents.org.

Leveraging ICWA and Developing Your Tribes’ Own Child Protection

CodeMarch 26-27, 2020 in Las

Vegas, Nev. For more infor-mation or to register visit www.falmouthinstitute.com.

The 38th annual Pro-tecting Our Children Con-ference

March 29-April 1, 2020 in Denver, Colo. Hosted by NICWA. For more informa-tion or to register contact Lauren Shapiro at [email protected].

The NAFOA 38th annu-al Spring Conference

April 6-7, 2020 at the J.W. Marriott in Nashville, Tenn. For more information or to register visit www.nafoa.org.

The 13th annual Tribal Casino & Hotel Develop-ment Conference

April 20-21, 2020 at the Soboba Casino Resort in San Jacinto, Calif. For more in-formation visit www.native-nationsevent.org.

National Congress of American Indian’s 2020 Mid-Year Conference & Marketplace

June 7-11, 2020 at the Dena’ina Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska. For more information or to regis-ter visit www.ncai.org.

The 14th annual Native American Economic Devel-opment Conference

June 15-16, 2020 at the Penchanga Resort & Casino

in Temecula, Calif. For more information or to register vis-it www.nativenationevents.org.

Native American Can-nabis & Hemp Conference

June 15-16, 2020 at the Pechange Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif. For more information or to register vis-it 10times.com/native-ameri-can-cannabis-hemp-confer-ence.

Clinton Service Unit (CSU) invited Mr. Gordon Yellowman with the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes’ Culture and Heritage Pro-gram to staff meetings held at Clinton, El Reno, and Wa-tonga Indian Health Centers. Yellowman shared cultural insights and built cultur-al awareness for providers and health care staff to bet-ter serve and provide health care to members in the CSU community.

The cultural awareness training provided an oppor-tunity to share stories passed down from generations within the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

Yellowman laid a foun-dation of cultural knowledge and created an understand-ing on the range of dynamics to consider when providing health care services to the American Indian population. The power of culture and language in relation to peo-ple’s identity, especially the elderly, was discussed.

“Listen to the stories peo-ple tell you,” Yellowman said. “People may not an-swer you directly, and you may not realize their answer immediately. You will find their answer when you listen and think on the stories they have to say.”

The training looked at how the reservation system

formed some bands and tribes. Yellowman discussed how citizens of the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes were forced to co-exist. He spoke on the importance of family and cultural affilia-tions in groups across the American Indian communi-ty and development of cul-ture across regions in west-ern Oklahoma.

“Mr. Yellowman’s solil-oquy opened a window that gave us insight on what it is like growing up Native American in today’s Ameri-ca,” Dr. Solomon Ali, med-ical director said. “It cata-lyzed a deep yearning within our soul to better understand those experiences. He left his audience wanting more. Mr. Yellowman’s unassum-ing nature belies a deep in-tellect. Although they would never match his live talks, his presentations should be preserved in media for pos-terity.”

Yellowman went on to remind the staff tribal mem-bers come to Indian Health Service (IHS) when they do not feel well.

“Greet people when they come through the door,” Yel-lowman said. “You’re here to provide a service. Comfort them. Welcome them. This is your place, we’re here to make you feel better.”

IHS Mission: To Raise the Physical, Mental, Social & Spiritual Health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the Highest Level

Building Cultural Awareness

Mood disorders affect one in 10 adults in the United States each year. Depression is the most common, impact-ing 6.8 percent of adults in any one year. Of these adults, 57 percent receive the pro-fessional mental health care or other services they need. This means someone around you may be dealing with de-pression and not getting the support they need.

Indian Health Service Clinton Service Unit (CSU) is focused on training our entire staff on Mental Health First Aid, and how to better understand depression and provide support to our pa-tients. Integrated Behavioral Health Specialist Afton Lut-trell and Laboratory Techni-cian Lt. Zohaib Ishaq teamed to train CSU staff in Mental Health First Aid.

“As a Mental Health First Aid Trainer, I got to learn and teach others about the importance of recognition and early interventions for mental health disorders in our communities,” said Lt. Ishaq. “It has helped me to become more observant by being able to act as a first responder for individuals who may be in crisis and are in need of immediate assis-tance.”

Lt. Ishaq went on to say, staff members they have trained feel more prepared in terms of recognizing and helping someone suffering from mental health disor-ders. “I feel this training is a great tool for our staff and for the community. It brings awareness and lowers the stigma associated with men-tal health disorders.”

CSU Trains Staff in Mental Health First-Aid

Afton Lutrell (l) and Lt. Zohaib Ishaq (r) train CSU staff in mental health first-aid.

Clinton Service Unit’s Optometry Department is committed to improving the optometry services available to the American Indian and Alaska Native community in Western Oklahoma. The team has worked to dramat-ically decrease wait times and increase the accessibili-ty of eye care services.

“When I arrived to CSU late in the fiscal year of 2016, the Optometry Department was two to three years out using the consult system as a waitlist,” said Dr. Matthew Geiger, chief optometrist. “At that time, we told CSU providers to contact the Op-tometry Department directly by phone if a patient was in

need of immediate attention. Over the next year, Optom-etry reduced the consult list to zero and used a first of the month call-in day. At the start of 2018, Optometry began to use the Graphical User Interface scheduling waitlist and remained two to three months out for ap-pointments until Dr. Devin Staggs arrived in summer of 2019. For the past few months, Optometry has been operating three weeks out, with patients scheduling ap-pointments as they call or walk-up to the window.”

To schedule an appoint-ment for eye care, call the CSU Optometry Department at 580-331-3413.

Increasing Access to Eye Care

CSU Optometry team includes Dr. Matthew Geiger, Rainnie Michell, Francisco Castellano and Dr. Devyn Staggs.

The purpose of this notice is to provide guidance to all interested tribal citizens and parties within the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes who find it necessary to file a com-plaint against a member or staff of the judicial branch as required by the 2018 Judicial Commission Act. This Judi-cial Complaint process will serve as a frame-work basis and should there be more specificity required, outside counsel will be sought to help remedy the situation and help provide relief for interested parties.

To submit a formal com-plaint in regard to the Chey-enne & Arapaho Tribal Courts, please submit it to: Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes Judicial Commission, P.O. Box 9, Concho, Oklahoma 73022.

Please follow the formal complaint process outlined in the notice below.

Making A ComplaintWho may file a com-

plaint?Any person with a com-

pelling interest in the tribal judicial system may file a complaint.

Process for filing a com-plaint against regarding the Judicial System

In order to file a com-plaint to the Judicial Com-mission for investigation, the following must be done:

The complaint must in-clude the date, printed name and signature of the individ-ual making the complaint.

Whomever is making the complaint should identify in writing who they are making the complaint against, i.e., Judge, Justice, attorney, a lay advocate, Court Clerk, or court personnel.

The Judicial Commission requires that details of an al-leged complaint are verified, and that the complaint is filed with the Judicial Com-mission.

Note: SPECIAL ACCO-MODATION – Should the individual making the com-plaint be unable to write, he or she may contact the Ju-dicial Commission and as-sistance will be provided to assist the individual to put the complaint in writing. If interpreting or translation assistance from another lan-guage is required, then the Judicial Commission will make arrangements.

Complaints need to be submitted in writing and mailed to: Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes Judicial Commission, P.O. Box 9, Concho, Oklahoma 73022.

Time Limit for Filing a Complaint:

The right to file a com-plaint with the Judicial Com-mission is two (2) years after the date of the alleged con-

duct, but if the alleged con-duct involves a pending legal proceeding, then the two (2) year limit begins after any right of appeal from a final decision has expired.

Investigating a Com-plaint

Upon receipt of a com-plaint, the Judicial Commis-sion shall conduct a prelim-inary investigation into the matter. All parties involved, including those whom the written complaint is filed against, (Judge, Justice, attorney, advocate, Court clerk, or Court personnel) will be advised of the fact that a complaint has been made and shall be provided with a copy of the complaint documentation.

Complaints Against a Ju-dicial Commission member:

A member of the Judicial Commission shall not partic-ipate in any discussion or de-cisions involving complaint against him or her. The Ju-dicial Commission member shall be afforded the same due process rights in accor-dance with the Making a Complaint as outlined in no-tice. The quorum for a meet-ing shall be the remaining Judicial Commission mem-bers. No more than one (1) Judicial Commission mem-ber shall be subject to disci-pline, or removal at the same time, in accordance with this

Act.Preliminary Investiga-

tion:The Judicial Commission

members shall undertake the preliminary examination of all complaints at a duly called meeting of the Judi-cial Commission. The quo-rum for a meeting is by sim-ple majority of the Judicial Commission members. The preliminary investigation will often involve an exam-ination of transcripts, sound recordings, judgments, court files, and other relevant ma-terial. It may also involve taking statements from rele-vant persons or witnesses. If necessary, a response to the complaint is sought from the Judge, Justice, attorney ad-vocate, Court clerk, or Court staff.

Time LimitsThe Judicial Commission

shall attempt to finalize in-vestigations and make final dispositions of complaint within one month of receipt, but no later than six months of receipt.

ConfidentialityThe preliminary examina-

tion of a complaint by the Ju-dicial Commission shall be conducted on a confidential basis.

Action Following Pre-liminary Investigation

Following the preliminary investigation, the Judicial

Commission shall take one (1) of the following actions:

Summarily dismiss the complaint;

Refer the complaint to the relevant head of jurisdic-tion (Relevant Chief Judge or Chief Justice who shall be the head of jurisdiction for the Tribal Court and the Supreme Court respective-ly); or hold a hearing on the matter

Summarily Dismissal of the complaint

A complaint shall be sum-marily dismissed if one or more of the following factors are met:

The complaint is friv-olous, malicious, or not in good faith;

The subject matter of the complaint is trivial;

The subject matter com-plained about occurred at too remote a time to justify fur-ther consideration;

The complaint is about a judicial decision, or other ju-dicial function, that is or was subject to a right of appeal, or right to apply for judicial review;

The person who is a sub-ject of the complaint is no longer a Judge, Justice, attor-ney, advocate, Court clerk, Court staff, or Judicial Com-mission member; or

In all of the circumstanc-es, further consideration of

the complaint is unnecessary, or unjustifiable.

When a complaint is sum-marily dismissed, the Judi-cial Commission shall, as soon as practical after its de-termination is made, inform the complainant in writing and provide the reasons for dismissal of the complaint. This shall include reference to the relevant provisions of the Legislation that have been applied in the han-dling and determination of the complaint. The Judge, Justice, attorney advocate, Court clerk, Court staff, or Judicial Commission mem-ber shall also be advised in writing of the Judicial Com-mission’s determination.

Records shall be kept on all complaints, including dis-missals. All complaints that have been dismissed shall be redacted. The Judicial Commission may declare, by a formal written decla-ration and full consensus of the Judicial Commission, a person to be a malicious complainant if the person habitually, persistently, and mischievously or without any reasonable grounds, makes complaints.

Requests for Full Hear-ing

Where a complaint has not been dismissed following the preliminary examination

Public Notice: Judicial Complaint Process

JUDICIAL COMPLAINT PROCESS / pg. 11


Recreation, Exercise & Sports for the Elders and Children of Our Tribes

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal youth with Athletic Shoes in school sponsored sports.

All applicants must be en-rolled citizens of the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and provide a copy of the CDIB or CDIB II. (Certified Degree of Indi-an Blood).

Assistance will be given to tribal students/participants who are enrolled in third grade - 12th-grade and active with school affiliated sports ONLY. (Shoe assistance does not apply to leagues, tournaments, camps or clin-ics.)

Allowance for tribal youth will be limited to one pair of athletic shoes for each sport per school year to be used in their respective sport. Shoes must fit the need of the sport. Shoes will only be or-dered during official season. The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will not replace lost, stolen or damaged shoes.

Vendors are limited to the following: Eastbay or the student athlete’s school. For shoes ordered by schools or coaches, the checks will be made out directly to the school that is ordering the team shoes, NOT the partic-ipant or parent/guardian of the participant.

The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Pro-gram will allocate the fol-lowing:

Third Grade-Sixth Grade = 50% Assistance on total purchase not to exceed $100

Seventh Grade-Eighth Grade = 60% Assistance on total purchase not to exceed

$125 Ninth Grade-12th-Grade

= 70% Assistance on total purchase not to exceed $150

A $5 shipping fee shall be added to applicant costs. Participants will be respon-sible for all fees at the time of pick up. Absolutely NO REIMBURSEMENTS for previously purchased shoes.

Must obtain a school let-terhead from school coach, athletic director or principal stating that the student ath-lete is participating in the school sport. For shoes or-dered through the school an invoice with vendor informa-tion is required.

Completed applications will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office ONE MONTH prior to the selected sports activity. Incomplete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submit-ting all required documents. Shoes will not be ordered at the end of the season.

Shoes not picked up with-in 30 days will be returned and will disqualify you from ordering during the next sea-son.

Participant and parent/guardian must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. program’s “Sportsmanship Creed.”

Participating in any sport can be a dangerous activity, including many risks of in-jury, and hereby release the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program and its employees, and the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes, of any responsibilities for acci-dents of injuries that may oc-cur while participating in the sports activity.

Athletic Shoe Assistance

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal youth participating in recreational, exercise or sports camps or clinics.

All applicants must be en-rolled citizens of the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and provide a copy of the CDIB (Certified Degree of Indian Blood).

Assistance will be given to tribal students/participants who are enrolled in Pre-K to 12th-Grade.

Applicants must provide a copy of the flyer or brochure with fees and vendor/camp information.

Allowance for tribal youth will be one time per year up to $100 for Sin-gle Day Camps and $200 for Overnight Boarding Camps, to be used towards an accredited camp or clinic in their respective sport or recreation of choice.

Checks will be made out directly to the organization who is conducting the camp or clinic, NOT the partici-pant or parent/guardian of the participant. Reimburse-ments will only be allowed for camps that require online payments. Reimbursement will be made after camp has been completed. Approval will need to be made prior to camp.

COMPLETED APPLI-CATIONS will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office two weeks

prior to the deadline of their selected camp or clinic. In-complete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submit-ting all required documents.

Participants/applicants will be responsible for the remainder of the fees, meals, transportation, supplies, etc., associated with the camp or clinic.

Participants are responsi-ble for registering and sub-mitting any required docu-ments to the camp or clinic itself. The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will only process payment, if approved. It is your responsibility to con-firm approval of application prior to registrations.

Participant and parent/guardian must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program’s “Sportsmanship Creed and Parent Creed,” and must conduct themselves accordingly throughout the camp or clinic.

Participants must agree to complete the camp or clinic in its entirety. If the partic-ipant fails to do so, he/she will not be eligible to apply for any assistance for an en-tire year.

Participating in any sport can be a dangerous activity, including many risks of in-jury, and hereby release the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program and its employees, and the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes, of any responsibilities for acci-dents of injuries that may oc-cur while participating in the camp or clinic.

Camp & Clinic Assistance

College Student-Athletic Scholarship AssistanceThe following is a

list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal citizens who are competing in athlet-ics for a college or universi-ty.


Scholarships will be giv-en to tribal students/partic-ipants who are enrolled in a college or university and are participating in school-spon-sored athletics. (No Intramu-rals).

Scholarship will be a one time per school year allow-ance of up to $500. Schol-arship will be issued after completed season or at the end of the school year. Dis-bursement is at the discretion of R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program. Failure to complete season disqualifies future assistance.

Checks will be made out directly to the scholarship recipient. Must include name and personal mailing ad-

dress. Application must include

a letter from the coach stat-ing that the participant is ac-ademically eligible and par-ticipating in their respective sport.

Completed applications will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office before the current school year is completed. No scholarships will be reward-ed for past years of partici-pation. Incomplete applica-tions will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submitting all required documents.

Participant must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program “Sportsmanship Creed.”


Community Event /Activity Assistance

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Cheyenne and Arapaho communities who are sponsoring recre-ational, exercise or sporting activities/events for tribal citizens.

Assistance will be limited to Cheyenne-Arapaho Trib-al community committees, crganizations or legislators ONLY. CDIBs may be re-quired.

Allowance will be limited to one package per communi-ty on a first come, first serve basis for holiday events or up to $200 per event.

There will be absolutely no checks made out directly to individuals.

Applications must include a flyer of activity or event. Invoices must be included

for any vendor payments. Completed applications

will need to be turned into the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office at least one month prior to activity or event. Incomplete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submit-ting all required documents.

Participants must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program “Sportsmanship Creed,” and must conduct themselves accordingly throughout the event.

Participants must agree to submit the following paper-work to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program following the event or activity, sign in sheets for event and sign out sheet for incentives/prizes. Failure to provide this information deems your organization in-eligible for future assistance.

R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program 2020 Assistance Guidelines

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our enrolled Cheyenne and Arapaho Trib-al Elders participating in rec-reational, exercise or sports leagues and activities.


All applicants must pro-vide a copy of the flyer or itemized invoice with fees and vendor information.

Allowance for tribal El-ders will be limited to one time per year for the selected sport or activity up to $200. Fees will be applied towards the combined membership, league, tournament and/or uniform fees in their re-spective sport or activity of choice.

Checks will be made out directly to the league or as-sociation that is conducting the sports league or activity, NOT the participant.

All completed applica-tions will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Pro-gram office two weeks prior to the deadline of their se-

lected sports activity. Incom-plete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submitting all required documents.

All participants/appli-cants will be responsible for the remainder of the fees, meals, transportation, etc., associated with the sports activity.

Participants are respon-sible for registering and submitting any required documents to the leagues or organization itself. The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will only process payment, if ap-proved.

Participant must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. program “Sportsmanship Creed,”and must conduct themselves accordingly throughout the sports league or activity.

Participating in any sport can be a dangerous activity, including many risks of in-jury, and hereby release the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program and its employees, and the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes, of any responsibilities for ac-cidents of injuries that may occur while participating in the sports or recreational ac-tivity.

Elder Assistance

Exceptional Student Ath-lete National & International Assistance Guidelines

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal youth who are selected to represent their respective sport, nation-ally or internationally.



Allowance for tribal youth will be one time per student, per year basis for partici-pation in SPORTS EVENT of up to $500 for National Assistance and $750 for In-ternational Assistance to be used to cover the expenses for the trip such as room, air-fares, entry fees, uniforms, meals and/or equipment that is necessary to compete in the event.

Checks will be made out directly to the organization who is conducting the sports event or the team account, not the participant or parent/guardian of the participant.

Applicants must include: · Official Letterhead

stating that the participant has been selected and has qualified to participate in the event

· Flyer or Brochure about the event (Include invoices with Vendor Names & Ad-dresses)

· Itemized budget stating what fees are associated with event (Lodging, Airfare,

Meals, Fuel Costs, Entry Fee’s, etc.)

· Letter of recommen-dation from the student’s school or coach

Completed applications will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office two weeks prior to the deadline of their select-ed sports activity. Incom-plete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submitting all required documents and following up to confirm ap-proval.

Participants must com-plete the entirety of the event, failure to do so dis-qualifies any assistance for an entire year.

Participants/applicants will be responsible for the remainder of the fees, meals, transportation, etc., associat-ed with the sports activity.

Participants are responsi-ble for registering and sub-mitting any required doc-uments to the organization itself. The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will only process payment, if approved.

Participant and parent/guardian must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. pro-gram “Sportsmanship Creed and Parent Creed,” and must conduct themselves accord-ingly throughout the sports activity.


Exceptional StudentAthlete National &

International Assistance

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal members participating in exercise or sports leagues and recre-ational activities.



Applicants must provide a copy of the flyer or itemized invoice with fees and vendor information (Name & Ad-dress).

Allowance for tribal youth will be $300 for the year. ($150.00 for Janu-ary-June and $150.00 for Ju-ly-December.) Fees will be applied towards the registra-tion and uniform fees in their respective sport or activity of choice.

Checks will be made out directly to the league or as-sociation who is conducting the sports league or activity, not the participant or parent/guardian of the participant.

Completed applications will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office two weeks prior to the deadline of their select-ed sports or recreational ac-tivity. Incomplete applica-

tions will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submitting all required documents. R.E.Sp.E.C.T. will not be responsible for acquiring documents on your behalf.

Participants/applicants will be responsible for the remainder of the fees, meals, transportation, etc, associat-ed with the sports or recre-ational activity.

Participants are respon-sible for registering and submitting any required documents to the leagues or organization itself. The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will only process payment, if ap-proved. It is your responsi-bility to confirm approval of application prior to registra-tions.

Participant and parent/guardian must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program’s “Sportsmanship Creed and Parent Creed,” and must conduct themselves accordingly throughout the sports league or activity.

Participating in any sport or physical activity can be a dangerous activity, in-cluding many risks of inju-ry, and hereby release the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program and its employees, and the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes, of any responsibilities for acci-dents or injuries that may oc-cur while participating in the sports activity.

Sports & RecreationAssistance (Youth)

R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Assistance Guidelines / next page


R.E.Sp.E.C.T PROGRAM ASSISTANCE GUIDELINEScontinued from pg. 5

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Chey-enne and Arapaho tribal youth participating in rec-reational, exercise or sports leagues or association, which will ensure their suc-cess of attaining the skills and attributes to compete at a higher level.

Applicants must be en-rolled citizens of the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and provide a copy of the CDIB (Certified Degree of Indian Blood).

Assistance will be giv-en to tribal students/par-ticipants who are enrolled in Pre-K to 12th-Grade and actively participating in school affiliated sports, sports leagues, sports tour-naments, sports camps or clinics.

Applicants must provide a copy of the invoice with all fees and vendor infor-mation.

Allowance for tribal youth will be limited to one pair of sports frames per year up of up to 70% on total purchase per appli-cant. R.E.Sp.E.C.T. will not replace lost, stolen or dam-aged frames.

Checks will be made out

directly to the vendor, not the participant or parent/guardian of the participant. Absolutely NO REIM-BURSEMENTS on pre-viously purchased sports frames.

Completed applications will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office two weeks prior to payment deadline. Incom-plete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submit-ting all required documents.

Participants/applicants will be responsible for the remainder of the fee at time of purchase.

Participant and parent/guardian must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. program “Sportsmanship Creed and Parent Creed,” and must conduct them-selves accordingly through-out the sports activity.

Participating in any sport can be a dangerous activi-ty, including many risks of injury, and hereby release the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program and its employees, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, of any responsibil-ities for accidents of inju-ries that may occur while participating in the sports activity.

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our Chey-enne and Arapaho tribal citizens participating in recreational, exercise or sports leagues and activi-ties.

All applicants must be enrolled citizens of the Cheyenne and Arap-aho Tribes of Oklahoma and provide a copy of the CDIB (Certified Degree of Indian Blood).

Allowance for trib-al youth will be $150 for jackets or rings in their respective sport for which they have achieved the status of All State or State Champion and also for Letterman’s Jackets. NO CLASS RINGS.

Checks will be made out directly to the organi-zation or vendor supplying they ring and/or jacket, not the participant or parent/guardian of the participant.

Applicant must provide a copy of the invoice with all fees included and ven-dor information.

Completed applications will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program office two weeks prior to

the order deadline. Incom-plete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for sub-mitting all required docu-ments.

Participants/applicants will be responsible for the remainder of the costs as-sociated with the ring or jacket.

Participants are re-sponsible for ordering and submitting any required documents to the vendor itself. The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will only process payment, if approved.

Participant and parent/guardian must sign and abide by the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program “Sportsman-ship Creed and Parent Creed,” and must conduct themselves accordingly throughout the sports ac-tivity.

Participating in any sport can be a dangerous activity, including many risks of injury, and hereby release the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program and its employ-ees, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, of any re-sponsibilities for accidents of injuries that may occur while participating in the sports activity.

The following is a list of guidelines that the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will use to assist our tribal teams participating in a recreation-al, exercise and/or sports leagues and tournaments.

Teams must possess at least three-fourths Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Okla-homa enrolled members. Each of those members must include a copy of a CDIB or CDIB II with application. A complete roster must also be submitted with application.


Team must provide a copy of the flyer, brochure or in-voice with fees and vendor information (name and ad-dress).

Allowance will be up to $800 for the year to be used towards the league fees, uni-form fees and tournament fees. Players cannot get as-sistance for multiple teams in the same sport.

Checks will be made out directly to the league, tourna-ment or organization who is conducting the sports activi-ty, not the participant, parent or coach of the participants.

All completed applica-tions will need to be turned in to the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Pro-

gram office two weeks prior to the deadline of their se-lected sports activity. Incom-plete applications will not be processed. Applicants are responsible for submitting all required documents.

All participants/appli-cants will be responsible for the remainder of the fees, meals, transportation, lodg-ing, etc., associated with the league/tournament.

Participants are respon-sible for registering and submitting any required documents to the league or organization itself. The R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program will only process payment, if approved. It is your respon-sibility to confirm approval of application prior to regis-trations.

All participants on the team must sign and abide the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program’s “Sportsmanship Creed,” and must conduct themselves ac-cordingly.

Participating in any sport can be a dangerous activity, including many risks of in-jury, and hereby release the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program and its employees, and the Chey-enne and Arapaho Tribes, of any responsibilities for acci-dents of injuries that may oc-cur white participating in the sports activity.

Sports Frame (Eye Wear) Assistance Guidelines

Ring & Jacket Assistance Guidelines

Team Application: League, Uniform & Tournament Guidelines

nies,” Dollens said.Two companion bills to

House Bill 3345, addressing missing and murdered In-digenous persons has been introduced by Daniel Pae, R-Lawton, House Bill 2847 Red Alert and House Bill 2848 Cultural Competency Training.

HB2847 would be com-parable to an “Amber Alert,” however the Red Alert would be activated at the time of an Indigenous person being re-ported missing and report the Indigenous person to the Nation Crime Information Center immediately upon the issuance of a Red Alert.

HB2848 would require cultural competency and sensitivity training on miss-ing and murdered Indigenous persons for law enforcement.

“I want to express my ap-preciation to Representative Mickey Dollens, because he conducted a very powerful and very informative interim study last fall on the topic of missing and murdered Indig-enous people. What struck me on the interim study was how many of them focused on these incidences happen-ing in Comanche County, near my district so I felt com-pelled to look further into the issue. HB 2847 creates a Red Alert System because we learned during the inter-im study the current Amber Alert System does not in-clude when an Indigenous person goes missing, and to me that does not seem right,” Pae said.

Oklahoma Indian Gam-ing Association’s Executive Director Sheila Morago told the audience the gaming compact exclusivity fee for the December 2019 payment was mailed on Jan. 20. Hands flew in the air asking if Okla-homa Governor, Kevin Stitt had accepted the payment.

“Yes, yes he did, but it was for December 2019 pay-ment. The first payment for January 2020 will be made Feb. 20 and I guess we will see,” Morago said.

Gov. Stitt maintains the Oklahoma Gaming Compact

with Oklahoma Tribal Na-tions expired on Jan. 1, 2020. Oklahoma tribes maintain the compacts automatically renewed for another 15 years on Jan. 1.

In December Gov. Stitt spoke about the possibility of commercial gambling opera-tions beings allowed to move into Oklahoma in exchange for higher exclusivity fees than what tribes currently pay for Class III gaming.

The dispute of whether the compacts renewed or expired will now be decided in by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma after Chickasaw Nation, Cherokee Nation and Choctaw Nation filed on Dec. 31, 2019.

Meanwhile several new legislative bills have been introduced that would lay the foundation for non-tribal casinos to operate in Oklaho-ma.

Senate Bill 1902, authored by state Sen. Mark Allen (R) would authorize the ABLE Commission to develop poli-cies for commercial gaming, and operators would be re-quired to pay exclusivity fees of a minimum of 15 percent of adjusted gross revenue.

Additionally, two other bills being introduced are the Gaming Reform Act of 2020 sponsored by Rep. Todd Russ, R-Cordell, and the Gaming Modernization Act of 2020 sponsored by Rep. Avery Frix, R-Muskogee.

LEADERSHIPcontinued from pg. 1

Oklahoma State Rep. Daniel Pae (R-Lawton) in-troduces House Bill 2847 Red Alert in an effort to ad-dress missing and murdered Indigenous people.

“Option one and option two, the option two is prob-ably the best suited for the elders because it gives a lot more room for them do, but we also discussed in our last meeting that the covered pa-tio probably doesn’t need to be that big so we’re looking at maybe expanding that out further to the east and maybe not have so much of a big smoking area, I know that elders like to go outside and drink their coffee, but we would still have a couple chairs and pergola, some-thing of that nature out there, so we’ll expand farther to the east and still have a cover pa-tio,” Dunbar said.

From the first meeting discussing the expansion project, suggestions were made from fellow tribal el-ders and community mem-bers about improving the lighting, ADA compliant handicap push button doors, fixing the fireplace, updating the floors and adding a possi-

ble fitness area. With the second meeting

held at the Clinton Com-munity Center, tribal elders made their voices count by continuing the discussion of their own suggestions and opinions of what they’d like to see out of the expansion, including better services and building partnerships.

“The first meeting I thought was a success, a large number of those that voiced their opinions and thoughts and the limited grant money that you’re getting, I think what’s being proposing here is it’s a place for elders to come and go … it’s a place where us elders can go, get coffee, sit outside and smoke … it’s something that we all can use and come together,” Charles Fletcher, concerned tribal elder commented.

Another suggestion made by the elders present at the meeting were to form an elder’s committee after the completion of the renova-

tions to the Elderly Nutri-tion Center to continue the discussion of what improve-ments still need to be made.

From the two meetings discussing the expansion project and getting input from the community, Dunbar said the first meeting was a success as they held it at the Elderly Nutrition Center.

“We had a big turnout, we had a lot of comments, as they saw from the min-utes from this meeting, this meeting today turned out really good because I be-lieve they’re all going to get together to form an elder committee together and start expressing those needs to our department,” Dunbar said.

ELDERLY NUTRITION CENTERcontinued from pg. 2

For Oklahoma’s ongo-ing lawsuits against opi-oid manufacturers and dis-tributors, Hunter has contracted with Michael Burrage, the longtime gen-eral counsel of the Choc-taw Nation. Burrage was not listed on behalf of the Choctaw Nation in the three tribes’ suit against Stitt.

What’s the Horse Racing Commission got to do with it?

In their original gaming lawsuit, attorneys for the three tribes argued that the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission’s past actions triggered the automatic renewal provision of the compact described above.

“The Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission au-thorizes ‘organization licensees’ to conduct elec-tronic gaming. (…) The commission considers ap-

plications for and issues licenses authorizing such gaming pursuant to state statutes and its own rules and regulations,” the tribes’ attorneys wrote. “The com-mission did not promulgate its original Rules for Race-track Gaming until after the compact went into effect, and those rules were subse-quently approved by Okla-homa Gov. Brad Henry on April 6, 2005. Since then, the Commission has repeat-edly amended these rules, most recently in 2013.”

Stitt’s attorneys dis-agreed in their response:

The tribes’ gaming com-pacts automatically renew only “if organization licens-ees or others are authorized to conduct electronic gam-ing in any form other than pari-mutuel wagering on live horse racing pursuant to any governmental action

of the state or or (sic) court order following the effec-tive date of this compact.”

The organization licens-ees that conducted electron-ic gaming on Jan. 1, 2020, were authorized to do so by Oklahoma voters pursuant to State Question 712 ap-proving the act in 2004.

Neither the state nor a court has authorized orga-nization licensees or others to “conduct electronic gam-ing in any form other than pari-mutuel wagering on live horse racing” follow-ing the effective date of any of the gaming compacts.

Tribal leaders have crit-icized Stitt for his position on the compacts.

“Gov. Stitt has made comments about ‘uncer-tainty that exists’ regard-ing Class III gaming after Jan. 1, threats to our casi-no vendors and their live-

lihoods and demands for redundant audits,” Chero-kee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a Dec. 31 press release. “We have little choice but to ask a federal judge to confirm the compact’s automatic re-newal on Jan. 1.”

Stephen Greetham, gen-eral counsel for the Chick-asaw Nation, released a statement Wednesday night.

“We are glad Gov. Stitt has not sought to delay the proceedings,” Greetham said. “We are reviewing the pleading his lawyers filed on his behalf and look for-ward to learning what legal basis he will claim to jus-tify the uncertainty he has endeavored to create. Go-ing forward, we look for-ward to working with the court and obtaining a final resolution.”

GAMING LAWSUITcontinued from pg. 2

Tribal elders and community members attend and par-ticipate in meetings to offer ideas and suggestions to the ex-pansion of the Elderly Nutrition Center.


the end I was the supervisor. I’ve been a coach for little league football for over nine years trying to be a men-tor to our youth. One of the things that I always tell them is don’t ever limit yourself. I believe in education I believe it’s strong, that’s one of the things I always pressed the issue with when I was leg-islator, I feel like given this opportunity I can continue to prove that I can do these jobs cause hard work isn’t any-thing new to me,” Redshin said.

Redshin was confirmed unanimously.

A resolution to authorize all 2020 federal funds asso-ciated with the Department of Labor’s JP&T and Adult Education to be added into a 477 grant effective Jan. 1, 2020.

“The resolution regard-ing the funding association is kind of a technicality that was overlooked when I first presented the first resolution I created before setting this in the plan. Basically just wanted to make sure that we spend all our money and then we’re starting with our new monies, that’s all they really want from the BIA and they’re the only ones that are concerned with the Depart-ment of Labor and Human Services, they’ve already given us the blessing on Dec. 9. Last year we received our award already, we’re already recognizing 477 plan was approved by Department of Interior so this is just some-thing of a formality for the BIA,” Erwin Pahmahmie, Department of Labor execu-tive director said.

A resolution authorizing the appropriation of De-

partment of Business 2020 funding to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Business Develop-ment Corporation.

“One of the rules that we had to fulfill in our mandate was expanding business opportunities beyond gam-ing, we wanted to create a corporate entity around all these businesses, so that got accomplished last year in 2019 with the creation of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Busi-ness Development Corpora-tion and at the time in 2019 when we went through the budget process, the corpora-tion wasn’t established yet, the Department of Business, we see the appropriation funding for 2020, what we’re doing here today is we’re asking you to transfer some of the money that you’ve al-ready appropriated to the De-partment of Business to now appropriate that to the new corporation, we met with the executive attorneys and with the Department of Treasury and because the corporation is an entity, separate from the department of business, it needed legislative action, to transfer our funds from our department to the corpora-tion, so the resolution before you today accomplishes that transfer,” Nathan Hart, De-partment of Business execu-tive director said.

A resolution to support the FY 2019-2020 ICDBG application to the US Depart-ment of Housing and Urban Development to expand the current Clinton Elder Nutri-tion Facility.

“This is one of several we’re going over today, the Indian Community Devel-opment Block Grant is one we go after every year, either

for new buildings or as we’re doing it here, an expansion and renovation to Clinton Elderly Nutrition. We went through there several times, before we noticed that the bathrooms are not ADA com-pliant, they need some work done I believe, nothings been done to it really except fix-ing the roof and other stuff, we had several meetings … from the meetings that we’ve been having we’ve discussed wellness, we talked about trying to get some walking treadmills for elders, lockers for arts and crafts area, doing that type of stuff,” Damon Dunbar, Planning Develop-ment director said.

With the ICDBG for FY19 and FY20 together, $900,000 will be requested through the grant application and an additional $500,000 was re-quested from tribal funds for leveraging construction costs associated with the project.

A resolution approving the Herd Development Grant application to the Intertribal Buffalo Council.

“This resolution is just authorizing us to apply for that grant, now if all the tribes remember to apply … we’ll get $14,000 if not all apply then we’ll get more than that, in the past when we applied we get anywhere from $18,000 and we got as high as $32,000 so we usual-ly get in that range. We don’t anticipate really what we’re going to get, just depends on how the tribes apply, but the money that we have coming in, we’ll think of fields and fences, we’ll apply this to building some infrastructure on fences that we need and improvement on our grass-lands,” Hart said.

A resolution approving the submission of FY 2020 coordinated Tribal Assis-tance Solicitation Grant to the US Department of Jus-tice.

In submitting a grant ap-plication to the US Depart-ment of Justice for the Co-ordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation grant, Fuentes said that for this year they will focus on purpose area three and nine, which are for Tribal Justice Systems with awards approximately $250,000 to $900,000 for up to five years and for Tribal Youth Programs with a max-imum of $400,000 per award up to five years.

A resolution approving the submission of FY 2020 Circles of Care Grant to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administra-tion (SAMHSA).

“This grant is shorten-ing Circles of Care grant for SAHMSA, it is up to three years for approximate-ly $310,000 per year and this is geared towards youth and families that have men-tal health, substance abuse issues, and it was passed around to several people and we weren’t certain if any-body was really interested in going after this but Wi-nona with Social Services, we think that this would be a good thing for the Emer-gency Youth Shelter, Indian Child Welfare, Social Ser-vices, for therapists, coun-selors, substance abuse pre-vention, where they’re all working together bringing family therapy, those that are involved with the court trying to get their kids back, doing things like that with family. There’s no matching

funds on this grant either and we would be requesting $310,000 from SAMHSA for the three years for each year,” Amber Nelson, Plan-ning and Development grant writer said.

A resolution to request approval of S&S water lo-gistics, LLC for construc-tion and installation of an 8’ HDPE pipeline (SWD Pipeline) right of way for the purpose of transport-ing produced water from the Boh’ooo BIA 1307 1-6-7WXH and the Nonoma’i BIA 1307 1-6-7MXH.

A resolution of support for S&S Water Logistics LLC for approval of con-struction and installation of an 8’ HDPE pipeline (SWD Pipeline) right of way for the purpose of transporting pro-duced water from the Chey-enne Arapaho BIA 1307 1-20-17MXH and the Chey-enne Arapaho BIA 1307 1-20-17WXH.

“We got the well down south of the casino, the Chey-enne and Arapaho BIA well and then we have the two wells up north, these wells are producing not only oil and gas but they’re also pro-ducing the water and there’s a significant amount of water that they’re producing and we need to dispose of that water … right now they’re trucking the water and taking it to a disposal well, this is to install this pipeline with an 8 inch HDE pipeline which is high density … nonethe-less they’re installing that to transport that water from each location that produces water from each location to a salt water injection well, there are safety measures that are being put in place

with the installation of the pipeline, they’ll have pres-sure transducers that they will install, both a high pres-sure transducer and a low pressure transducer, the high pressure transducer will shut down any pumps if it senses pressure more than 120 PSI, a low pressure will indicate that it will shut down pumps as well because that will indicate some sort of leak, once those safety measures are put into place, we have a monitoring system and also a 24 hour standby remediation service,” Scott St. John, with Reagan Smith Energy Solu-tions said.

Remaining items on the agenda also all passed, which included.

A resolution to approve of the Election Commission’s legal consultation service agreement.

A resolution to approve and appropriate tax revenue funds for payment of past due Election Commission attorney invoices totaling $32,021.18

A resolution to approve and appropriate 2020 trib-al membership dues in the amount of $30,000 and ap-plication to the National Congress of American Indi-ans.

A resolution for member-ship renewal of the Oklaho-ma Indian Gaming Associa-tion.

A resolution for mem-bership in the amount of $25,000 into the National Indian Gaming Association.

Public Notice for Special Session of Annual Chiefs meeting FY 2020. The annu-al Chief’s meeting is sched-uled for Friday, March, 13, 2020.

SPECIAL SESSIONcontinued from pg. 3

(CONCHO, OK) One import-ant topic that involves one another around the world is how people are actively involved or not involved in taking care of the environment.

To clear the airway and invite commentary from the public and community members in Cheyenne and Arapaho country, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Environmen-tal Protection Agency (EPA) pro-gram hosts monthly environmental oversight meetings focused on one thing ... our environment.

On the agenda for their January meeting to be discussed were oil & gas well sites, water wells and the USGS Water Planning and De-velopment Project, along with any other environmental concerns from community members.

EPA Environmental Specialist LaDonna Tallbear conducted the meeting, welcoming insights and comments from the public.

“One of the companies we’re dealing with right now is Reagen Smith, and the S&S Water Logis-tics and Paloma Resources, there are five oil and gas wells here in the Concho reserve and the one that’s south of Black Kettle, what this is talking about is the salt wa-ter disposal. They’re doing a line to the east, across Hwy 81, so that’s something that came up unexpect-edly and that we’re dealing with,” Tallbear said.

Attending the meeting were concerned citizens that live around the community of Fay, Okla.

“We got the sand mines, which use a whole lot of water, we’re concerned about the Rush Springs Aquifer, which is one of the largest aquifers in the state of Oklahoma and it has been depleted by over 10 feet in the last 15 years and it only recharges on average of 2 inches or less a year, so we’re concerned

about all the frack water, the mining water, all of that, we got some salt water disposals going in pretty close to Fay and we have to have water,” Jo Farris, concerned Fay citizen said.

Tallbear said that the community members of Fay are near tribal com-munities and it’s been a concern among other tribal citizens and com-munity members.

Tallbear then brought up the concern for air quality from the lines near the Concho reser-voir that transfer gas.

“There’s really no way to store or transfer the gas, so they have to burn it off and that’s an issue for air qual-ity. There’s so many around and we used to have an air grant, but it was managed through the Caddo Tribe and we had a monitoring station here at Concho and they would come up and monitor, but this was like 15 years ago and they dismantled it because they said we have good air here. But that was before all the oil and gas activities, so that’s something I’d like to see, something discussed, is air quali-ty,” Tallbear said.

Farris said that air quality is a concern around her community as well.

“I mean because of the sand mines and the particles, once they crush and screen all that out, there’s just a lot of particles in the air, like the silica, which can cause cancer, but one of the things that we’re try-ing to get people to be aware of is

that most of your oil and gas and your salt water disposals and your mines, they all monitor themselves, they’re not required to meter the water, we don’t have anybody else watching out for us, they do their own reporting, they don’t meter the water so they may have a per-mit that says they can use 10 gal-lons and then use 20. We think there needs to be a lot of legislative changes, regulations, and I hate regulations but we’re victims right now,” Farris said.

Max Bear, with the Tribal His-toric Preservation Office (THPO), commented on the difference be-tween state and tribal agreements.

“There’s none on the state side

but with our tribal, we have stipula-tions in there when you know how much water is taken and how much quantity they’re taking out of there, we mark those, outside our bounds there’s nothing we can do. That’s the unfortunate part,” Bear said.

Tallbear then discussed the salt-water disposal line that Reagan Smith proposed.

“The line is going to run east un-der 81 to the next section and there was a notification, the salt water company has to notify any land owner within a half mile of any issues or anything, and instead of setting that well up for that disposal well up in the center, that section, they scoot-

ed it over. I don’t know how many feet, so that the C&A tribes is out of that half mile area, so they don’t have to tell us anything, that’s something we have to deal with and keep on top of, keep the questions and the discussions open,” Tallbear said.

Tallbear said in the Concho area there are five oil wells and eight other reserves, but the discussion of the salt water line is ongoing.

“The negotiations were pretty heavy when they were planning the oil and gas lines and one of the things they wanted was the line, for it to be triple sealed or double sealed, and they kind of didn’t want

Bringing voices together for environmental issues

James Kelly (r), Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ Oil & Gas Administrator shares his thoughts on the topic of fracking induced earthquakes. (Photo / Latoya Lonelodge)

ENVIRONMENT / pg. 8



to do that but it’s something we want to try to do, doing what we can to ensure if there’s a leak,” Tallbear said.

Bear brought up in the discussion the waste well on Hwy 81 between El Reno and Concho that was pro-posed in late 2018, but was later dismissed after protests from local residents suc-ceeded. The disposal well was relocated to a more suit-able location.

Ariana Parkinson, anoth-er concerned citizen of the Fay community, said she’d like to get more people in-volved.

“Getting the word out there and a lot of people just don’t know, even if they do know, it’s hard to get people to actually take action and go with you. That’s kind of what we ran into was trying to get enough voices to come together to say, ‘hey, this is wrong,’” Parkinson said.

Farris said there is a salt-water disposal well two miles from her property and near the community of Fay. She believes the disposal well is what’s causing earth-quakes.

James Kelly, Oil and Gas administrator for the tribes, said that it contributes to it.

“It might be factors that are added to that also that causes it to do that but salt and water period is a major environmental problem, per-taining to any time it gets on the surface it’s going to kill vegetation and everything else. The other thing is that companies, as far as using the pipeline process, they feel like that would assist us in a better way, environ-mentally and it could. A lot of times on the surface, they come and drive water into a tank truck and a lot of times that can spill from the feed-ings and everything else, then they transport it on the surface and it can spill on the highway, they feel like the pipelines can stop a lot of that spill type process, on the opposite side of that, if that

is ruptured underground, it will cause more damage than it would if it’s under-ground because then the salt waters killing the roots and vegetation, the minerals and everything else inside it, so it can be a lot more danger-ous,” Kelly said.

With water rights and more environmental issues discussed in and around the communities, the conversa-tions were ongoing.

Farris said there are rea-sons behind her and Parkin-son showing up to several meetings involving the envi-ronment.

“This is why we’ve been to a lot of environmental meetings and why we’ve gone to the capitol, we’re just trying to wake people, they’re all busy and I under-stand all of that, but I think we need to work together and try to protect Oklaho-ma,” Farris said.

Janet Heapofbirds, EPA water coordinator, said that she is taking over the work from the former water coor-dinator for the tribes.

“What she was doing, in the service area and county she would go in and test for specific parameters and ide-ally the point was to test as the water was coming into Cheyenne and Arapaho trib-al jurisdiction and as it was leaving,” Heapofbirds said.

Heapofbirds said there’s currently two active USGS water well sites that she gets to test.

“As far as the oil and gas activity, we can kind of see where our water levels are, I’m going on my second month, so there hasn’t been a real decliner in anything noticeable as far as the data … we’ll go back through and we’ll get the results and we’ll go from there as far as the water levels, nothing too worth reporting. That’s where we’re at as far as the Concho water levels,” Heapofbirds said.

With the meeting spark-ing questions and conver-

sations, Tallbear said it was a good turnout with a lot of discussion involving en-vironmental issues in and around Cheyenne and Arap-aho country.

“This meeting went re-ally good … we discussed things that need to be out in the public, even if they don’t have an oil and gas on their property, we all deal with the issues as a community, trib-al members and local com-munity members,” Tallbear said.

Tallbear said the issues and discussions are needed for education.

“Just sharing knowledge and discussing items that the community needs to deal with, water safety, water is-sues, the oil and gas issue, safety, and water conserva-tion,” Tallbear said.

Nearing the end of the meeting, Tallbear shared a tidbit that was coincidental-ly brought up by her daugh-ter involving the disposal of water bottles.

“It’s something that someone never thinks about, there is water when you put the lid back on, water is trapped in that water bottle and I think it takes 20 years for plastic to decompose so that water is trapped for 20 years in that bottle, it’s just something that people never think of but it’s a good point so I just thought that was re-ally good that my daughter brought it up, she was really interested and just sharing information. That’s what we all need to do with the com-munity, tribal members and surrounding communities, it was a good turnout with the Fay residents to come and share their information, we share our information and that’s networking and that’s what we all need to do, share, talk and discuss,” Tallbear said.

For more information about EPA or about the next EOC meeting, call 405-422-7410.

ENVIRONMENTcontinued from pg. 7

Shelene Washington Whiteshirt died Jan. 26, 2020 following a vehi-cle crash that took place along U.S. 60 near Coun-ty Rd. 2480 in Major County, Oklahoma the report said.

Shelene Whiteshirt passed away Sunday at about 7:30 p.m. when 61 year old Wanda Brawner driving westbound in a Chevy Cruze, lost con-trol and drove passed the centerline, where she crashed head-on with Shelene’s Dodge headed eastbound.

Shelene was pronounced dead on the scene. Wanda Brawner, also passed away from her injuries.

Brandon Benton, a pas-senger in Shelene’s vehicle sustained serious injuries and was taken to Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City, where he is expected to re-cover.

The factors contributing

to the crash remains under investigation.

Shelene’s husband U.S. Marine Corp veteran Del-win Monroe Whiteshirt passed away 2 years ago almost to the day on Jan. 19, 2018.

Shelene, 47, was a cit-izen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and worked as the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ Head Start Center supervisor in Canton, Okla., for over 25 years.

Fatal accident takes the life of Shelene Washington- Whiteshirt


before working in the hair industry in Oklahoma City. McGee maintained this career until she suffered an injury last March that left her with torn liga-ments in her shoulder. She then decid-ed to look for a new career, eventually becoming an Uber driver in Oklahoma City. The experience gave her the idea to start her own ride service.

“It's a hand that fits the glove type of job,” she said.

With El Reno expanding, McGee said her service will fill a need in the community.

“I'm looking forward to expanding, too, even though I'm just starting.”

As someone who knows the ins and outs of El Reno, McGee said she can recommend restaurants, locations and fun places to her clients. With her knowledge of Oklahoma City and other

areas, she describes herself as a “tour guide” who can make sure people get where they need to go.

With the advent of transportation phone apps, it's never been easier to get a ride. Unfortunately, some drivers may not be reliable, and there have even been issues of violence or identity theft in some cases. McGee said with her service, customers can rest easy with someone safe, courteous and depend-able.

“Being a hands-on experience, it will feel better to customers than a phone app they're not sure of,” she said.

McGee's cab is a Scion XB with enough room for a wheelchair. She said its Native American markings will make it easily identifiable and it will soon be a familiar sight to all of El Reno.

The service will operate under a flat

rate. Credit cards are accepted. Rides to and from anywhere in El Reno city lim-its will cost $6, one-way rides to Okla-homa City will cost $23, and a one-way ride to Lucky Star Casino will cost $11. Each of these rates includes tax. It will cost an extra $2 for each additional per-son.

For other areas such as Yukon, Mus-tang, Minco or Chickasha, McGee said customers can call her service or send an email to discuss prices. The service will operate from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. Mon-day through Saturday. However, if any-one needs a ride in the mornings or on a Sunday, McGee said they can pre-ar-range rides through phone or email.

For questions or to pre-arrange a ride, call 405-623-0482 or send an email to [email protected].

TAXICABcontinued from pg. 1

February is Heart Healthy MonthTara Conway, MS, RD, LD, CDE &

Kayle Tyson, MS, PDC&A Diabetes Wellness Program

Heart disease doesn’t just happen to older adults. Younger adults and adolescents can be at

risk for heart disease as well. February is heart healthy month and the perfect time to learn about how to curve the risks of heart disease.

Risk factors for heart disease include high blood pres-sure, smoking, high blood cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, unhealthy eating patterns, and physical inactivity. All of these risk factors can be prevented or controlled through lifestyle changes.

First, try shaking the salt habit. Salt consumption should be limited to 2,000 mg per day. Don’t get discour-aged. Use herbs and spices to flavor foods, choose fresh fruits and vegetables, and when purchasing canned goods look for the “sodium-free” or “reduced sodium” options.

Next, aim for 150 minutes of physical activity a week. You can break this down into 10 minute increments to bet-

ter fit your schedule. Physical activity doesn’t need to be intense for your heart to benefit. It could be going on a walk, gardening, parking at the back of the parking lot and walking, even simple stretches will work! Lastly, smoking causes your arteries to tighten, which makes your heart work harder. Smoking also increases your blood pressure which increases your chance of a stroke.

Let’s curve heart disease together by decreasing salt in-take, increasing physical activity, and decreasing the use of smoking!

For a personalized weight management plan that meets your individual needs, consult a registered dietitian either at the Diabetes Wellness Center or the Clinton Service Unit.

For more information and tips on health and wellness call the Diabetes Wellness Program, Tara Conway at 405-422-7685 or Kaylee Tyson at 405-422-7656.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/features/heartmonth/in-dex.html

Stalking: to harass or persecute someone with un-wanted and obsessive atten-tion.

An estimated 6 to 7.5 mil-lion people are stalked in a one-year period in the Unit-ed States, according to statis-tics provided by the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC).

In its sixteenth year rec-ognizing and responding to crimes of stalking, the Na-tional Stalking Awareness month in January first began in 2004 when it was recog-nized by the National Center for Victims of Crime. With the growing epidemic, the topic of stalking has become a part of a nationwide effort to bring more awareness to those victims silently facing stalking.

Within the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Social Ser-vices Department, there are many actively working with clientele and others in the community who are victims of stalking.

“Stalking is defined as a course of conduct that would reasonably cause fear. If somebody is calling frequently and the phone calls could be like five or six times, an unreasonable amount of phone calls in a short amount of time, or it could also be they’re spying on you. I know you see that a lot in television and mov-ies, that’s like the classic stalking stereotype, but it’s just unwanted behavior and unwanted attention and if it makes the victim feel very uncomfortable or if they fear for their lives then yes that’s something that definitely needs to be addressed,” Sa-brina Noris, Domestic Vio-lence sexual assault coordi-

nator said. Noris said that for

stalking victims in Native communities, many don’t come forward for help as it is very difficult for them to do so.

“What I’ve experienced is victims will get a lot of mes-sages through social media such as like Facebook, and they’ll say he or she keeps sending me a lot of messag-es and sometimes they share them, a lot of times they will delete them, but if they share that information and we’ll see and scroll through and there’s just tons and tons of messages, whether the victim responds or not, so that’s been kind of one of the more current trends as far as stalking goes,” Noris said.

Collecting data and re-search from the National In-stitute of Justice, Noris said that in 2006 they did a study where 48 percent of Native American women have ex-perienced stalking in their lifetime and 11 percent have experienced it in the past year.

“That’s just for women, for men their percentages are 18.6 percent in their life-time, so you can definitely tell stalking goes both ways. We’ve had clients both male and female that will come in and report they’re following me, they’re harassing me, I keep getting text messag-es or phone calls, the social media is a huge one,” Noris said.

When a victim comes for-ward, Noris explained how the program helps and assists with stalking cases.

“We listen to their cases and a lot of times if we can determine through the mes-sages, especially if there’s

threatening messages or just an unreasonable amount, it’s really a case by case scenar-io and it’s really difficult to define but we go through and we gather and engage the se-verity, like the threats, and so what we will do is a lot of times if we deem it very serious we will take them to get a victims protective order and we walk them through that process. We get that pa-perwork started here in our office then we take them to tribal court … Canadian County is what we would use as well or if they’re in other counties in our jurisdiction, we’ll work with them on getting that and we provide referrals for legal services as well,” Noris said.

Noris said that a lot of times victims think they’re alone in the process and don’t realize that they’re not alone.

“There are resources out there available for them and it’s so important for them to come forward because a lot of times they feel trapped, like they have no where to turn to and so if they’re able to reach out, we have a ho-tline, we have a 24 hour crisis phone number, if they call us we can assist them in trying to figure out what their needs are, getting their needs met and they don’t have to live in fear,” Noris said.

With each case-by-case scenario that is looked at, Noris said that if stalking were to occur in other parts of the state outside the nine counties they currently serve, all requests for help would not be turned away.

“I would encourage them to reach out to us first and let us determine how we can help them because a lot of

times, even if we can’t help them we can locate them re-sources in their service area so that way they can get the help that they need,” Noris said.

With the Domestic Vio-lence program, Noris said that along with stalking, it all ties together with sexu-al assault and domestic vi-olence that are most often associated with the ongoing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Wom-en (MMIW).

“If a victim doesn’t re-port anything and if they feel like they’re going through it alone, nobody knows this is going on because a lot of times in Native communities people like to keep their stuff private, so everything that’s happening to them is pri-vate. But with stalking, there are those situations where they’re in extreme danger and so if it is stalking and if the stalker knows nothing is being done there’s that strong possibility that there could be a kidnapping or something worse. So yes that would tie into the missing and murdered Indigenous women because nobody knows what happened to the victim,” Noris said.

With more awareness months to come, Noris said the program would focus more on sharing ad cam-paigns, educating the com-munity and providing out-reach.

“If there’s anybody out there that needs help or would like to just even talk, we’re available, they can call our office and we can discuss that with them,” Noris said.

For the 24 hour crisis line contact, 405-620-6395 and 405-538-5590.

National Stalking Month: Promoting Awareness



OBITUARIESSahkona Moses Trout Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe American Legion

Post 401 BINGOSunday, Feb. 2, 2020 at the Clinton Community Center in

Clinton, Okla. Lunch 1-2 p.m. and Bingo from 2-7 p.m.$20 Bingo packages and four $100 games (must have pur-

chases a bingo packet to play in the $100 games).

Cheyenne District 1 Community Meetings6 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Woodward Convention & Visitor Bu-

reau, 1218 9th Street in Woodward, Okla. For more informa-tion call 405-501-1182.

Birthday Dance for Annie Collins and William E. Burns

Feb 8, 2020 at the Clinton Community Center in Clinton, Okla.

MC OT Sankey, HS Max ‘Hoodie’ Watan, HMD Creg Hart, HWD Carrie Lehi, HLG Mi’la Rose (2), HLB Kida Woftongue (r) and Kota Bear Littleman (5), Honored Chief Roy Dean Bullcoming, Honored Elder Harvey Monetatchi, Honored Veteran John Burns and AD Billy Youngbird.

Greenhouse Garden Project January-February Class Schedule

Gardening Class Project number one is a take home Mini Herb Garden. All classes will be held from 2 - 4 p.m.

Feb. 12 at the Canton Community Center, Feb. 19 at the Seiling Community Center and Feb. 26 at the Concho Com-munity Center.

For more information call 405-276-6053.

R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Program’s Elders Day Out11 a.m. Feb. 12, 2020 at the R.E.Sp.E.C.T. Gym in Con-

cho, Okla. Lunch and painting activity. To register for trans-portation or for more information all 405-422-7570, 405-422-7572 or 405-422-7585.

Memorial Dance Pfc. William ‘Bill’ Perry GouldFeb. 15, 2020 at the Clinton Community Center in Clin-

ton, Okla. Dance begins at 3 p.m. with feeding at 5 p.m.Belva Hicks and family invites everyone to attend. Head

Staff will be announced at a later date.Pfc. Gould was born Jan. 16, 1954 to Belva Hicks and Jay

Gould. He walked on from this life on Dec. 22, 2018. He is survived by his mother, seven siblings and numerous grand-children and great-grandchildren.

Foster Care Support Group6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Feb. 18, 2020 at the Rollin Haag Native

American Church building in Concho, Okla. Meal will be served. For more information contact Sara Whiteshield at 405-551-3208 or Susan Geary at 405-215-8820.

Jodi Marquette American Indian Wills ClinicFriday, Feb. 21, 2020 at the Roam Chief building in Paw-

nee, Okla., Friday March 27 at the BIA Courtroom in Anadar-ko, Okla., and Friday April 17 at the Canadian Valley Vo-Tech in El Reno, Okla.

Please call 405-208-5017 to schedule an appointment. For more information about your Indian land please contact the OST Beneficiary Call Center at 800-678-6836.

CalendarSahkona Moses Trout was

born Feb. 19, 1979 to Thom-as D. Trout and Juanita Joyce (Starr) Trout in Clinton, Okla., and passed away Jan. 7, 2020 in the Mercy Hospi-tal in Oklahoma City from complications of Diabetes. Sahkona was raised in Clin-ton and graduated from Clinton High School in 1997. While in high school he excelled in art and has continued with his art up to the present. He worked at the Elk City Pizza Hut as

long as his health permitted. He was a member of the Baptist Church, he loved art, playing softball, bas-ketball, playing pool; he loved watching Dallas Cow-boys, Oklahoma Universi-ty Football and watching the Clinton Red Tornadoes. He was preceded in death by his infant brother. He is survived by his daugh-ter McKinleigh Trout, two sons, Cameron Trout and Braydon Trout and their mother Candi Miles, all of

Clinton. His parents, Juani-ta Trout and Thomas Trout, sister Sheena Trout, broth-er Thomas Trout and Gina. He is also survived by niec-es and nephews, Christopher Borjas, Arianna Borjas, Abi-gail Trout, Ivan Trout, Jordan Trout, Adriana Trout, Jayden Trout and Eden Trout.

A traditional all night wake service was held Jan. 10 at the Clinton Community Center in Clinton, Okla.

Funeral services were held Jan. 11 at the same ven-

ue, officiated by Rev. Gerald Panana, followed by an In-terment at the Down Woman Cemetery in Clinton, Okla.

Christopher Charles Johnson

Christopher Charles John-son was born Aug. 26, 1961 to Theodore Clyde Johnson

Sr., and Nellie (Whiteskunk) Johnson in Clinton, Okla. He passed away early Tues-day, Jan. 14, 2020 at the age of 58 in his Hammon home. Christopher was raised in Hammon graduating from Hammon High School in 1979. He worked as a day laborer in the Ham-mon area. He was mar-ried to Terri Whiteman in 1982 in Hammon. He was preceded in death

by his parents, two sisters, Glenda Johnson and Leah Johnson and two broth-ers, Theodore Clyde John-son Jr. and Daryl Johnson. He is survived by daugh-ter Crystal Johnson, two sons, William Johnson and Christian Johnson and wife, Shandiin Jose Johnson, and the mother of his children Terri Johnson, all of Towa-oc, Colo., sister Eva Lou Johnson, of El Reno, Okla.,

and brother Wendell John-son of Hammon. He is also survived by seven grandchil-dren.

An all night wake service was held Jan. 17 at the Ham-mon Community Center in Hammon, Okla. Funeral services were held Jan. 18 at the Hammon High School Auditorium, followed by an Interment at the Hammon Cemetery.

Ethel Mae FranklinEthel Mae Franklin was

born May 8, 1946 in Clin-ton, Okla. She passed away Jan. 17, 2020 at the Integris Hospice House in Oklahoma City.

Ethel came to El Reno in 1997 and was a member of the Indian Baptist Church. She had various jobs during her life including working as a dry cleaner.

She is survived by daugh-

ters, Tiffany Franklin of the home in El Reno and Cheryl Flyingman, step-sons, Sam Franklin and Gary “Junior” Franklin, grandchildren, Matthew Franklin-West, Jayden Franklin-West, Taci-anna Franklin, Michelle Wil-liams, brothers, Robert Fly-ingman, Edwin Taylor and Manuel Saumpty, and sister Ruby Cole.

Her husband Gary Frank-

lin, father Grover Sioux, mother Dora Saumpty and daughter Dayna Rhae Frank-lin preceded her in death.

An all night wake ser-vice was held Jan. 21 at the El Reno Baptist Church in El Reno, Okla. Funeral ser-vices were held Jan. 22, at the same venue, officiated by Rev. George Akeen, fol-lowed by an Interment at the Concho Indian Cemetery.

Delores Oliver Hadley

Delores Oliver Hadley was born Sept. 7, 1940 in Canton, Okla., to Christo-pher and Maxine (Littleman) Oliver. She departed this life on Jan. 22, 2020 in Okeene, Okla., at the age of 79.

Delores grew up and at-tended school in Longdale,

Okla. She married Joseph Hadley in 1968. She enjoyed watching her grandchildren’s sporting events and cooking for her large family. Delores attended the Native Ameri-can Baptist Church.

Delores was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Joseph Hadley Sr., brothers Christopher Oliver Jr. and Tony Kemp, sisters Ramona Redhat and Carmel Turley and son-in-law, David Blood.

She is survived by six children Lane Scabbyhorse of Geary, Okla., Curtis Scab-byhorse and wife Shay, of Geary, Sarah Scabbyhorse

and husband Victor of Weath-erford, Okla., Maxine Ruiz of Okeene, Okla., Jodene Howerton and husband Col-by of Canton, and Wanda Blood and husband Michael also of Canton, one brother Helbert Remeriz of Lubbock, Texas, five sisters, Christi-na Larney of Canton, Violet Rutz of Watonga, Wanda Rauh of Longdale, Josephine Oliver of Clinton and Terri Kemp of Clinton, 20 grand-children, Santiago Ruiz, Jr., Clarissa LittleThunder, Curtis Scabbyhorse Jr., Jon-athan Big Medicine, Kristin Hulse, Katie Stevens, Kiana Ruiz, Julian Oliver, Andrew

Scabbyhorse, Mondy Cruz, Ana Cruz, Isabell Campos, Tony Campos, McKayla Howerton, Jayce Howerton, Easton Blood, Zach Blood, Anita Blood, Sammi Blood and Devin Blood and 22 great-grandchildren.

Wake services were held Jan. 26 at the Canton Com-munity Center in Canton, Okla.

Funeral services were held Jan. 27 at the Longdale Gymnasium with Rev. James Scott, Rev. Richard Kahoe and Rev. George Akeen of-ficiating, followed by an In-terment Canton Chiefs Cem-etery.

Lylith Faye Beaver LaniganLylith Faye Beaver Lan-

igan, daughter of Dale and Eva (Roman Nose) Beaver, was born Sept. 30, 1939 in Clinton, Okla. Lylith passed away on Jan. 21, 2020.

She was a homemaker and lived in California for many years before returning to Oklahoma in 1981. Her fa-vorite past time was going to

the casino.She is survived by five

children, Terry Capshaw of Norman, Okla., Robin Ro-man Nose, Victoria Herrera, William Lanigan and Juanita Black all of El Reno, Okla., 29 grandchildren and 34 great-grandchildren.

Her parents and two sons, David Williams and Robin

Beaver and a granddaughter Briana Mendoza Black and all of her siblings preceded her in death.

Wake services were held Jan. 24 at the Concho Com-munity Center in Concho, Okla. Funeral services were held Jan. 25 at the same ven-ue, followed by an Interment at the E.R. City Cemetery.

Robert Henry Sankey

Robert Henry Sankey was

born July 2, 1974 in Okeene, Okla., to Winslow and Tonita (Fingernail) Sankey Sr. He departed this life on Jan. 19, 2020 at his home in Canton, Okla.

Robert attended school in Canton and graduated high school in Hammon, Okla. He enjoyed singing with the drum group Native Eagle, going to powwows and the casino.

Robert was preceded in death by his parents, three brothers, Milton “Diego” Sankey, Crawford Sankey and William Kacey Sankey, two sisters, Lorenda Fay Sankey and Corliss Sankey.

He is survived by his brother Winslow “Chubby” Sankey Jr. of the home in Canton, Okla., sisters, Carol Phillips of Hammon, Okla., and Hattie White of Ethete,

Wyo., numerous cousins and other extended family.

A traditional wake service was held Jan. 23 at the Can-ton Native American Gym-nasium in Canton, Okla.

Funeral services were held Jan. 24 at the same ven-ue with Rev. George Akeen Jr. officiating, followed by an Interment at the Canton Cemetery.


by the Judicial Commission and has not been referred to the head of jurisdiction, it shall be set for a full hearing.

The Judicial Commission may hold hearing in relation to a complaint and that hear-ing may be held in public or private, as the Judicial Com-mission may determine.

The Judicial Commission has the power to give direc-tion preventing the public disclosure of evidence given at its hearings

Preliminary matters nec-essary prior to the com-mencement of a full hearing includes:

Interviewing the com-plainant and other potential witnesses, taking statements, gathering documents and other material and preparing a brief of evidence.

Where the Judicial Com-mission has determined by a majority vote that the matter justifies the denial or revocation of a license to practice law in the Courts of an attorney, or advocate complained about, then the Judicial Commission may issue a denial or revocation of a license to practice in the Courts, subject to appeal to the Chief Justice who shall make a final decision in writ-ing in accordance with the Constitution.

Where the Judicial Com-mission has determined by

a majority vote that the mat-ter justifies the removal of a Judge, or Justice, then the Ju-dicial Commission shall sub-mit their recommendations to the Legislature in accor-dance with the Constitution.

Where the Judicial Com-mission has determined by a majority vote that the matter justifies the discipline of an Associate Justice, Associate Judge, or Special Judge, then the Judicial Commission shall submit their recommen-dations to the Chief Justice in accordance with the Con-stitution.

Where the Judicial Com-mission has determined by a majority vote that the matter justifies the discipline or re-moval of any Court clerk, or other Court staff, then the Ju-dicial Commission shall sub-mit their recommendations to the Chief Justice in accor-dance with the Constitution.

Where the Judicial Com-mission has determined by majority vote that the matter justifies the discipline or re-moval of any Judicial Com-mission member, then the Judicial Commission shall submit their recommenda-tions to the Governor in ac-cordance with this Act and the Constitution.

A copy of the Report shall also be furnished to the com-plainant, and the respondent.

JUDICIAL COMPLAINTPROCESScontinued from pg. 4

(CONCHO, OK) The Constitution of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes requires the Legislature to con-vene in Concho for Regular Sessions. Article VI, Sec-tion 6, subsection (a) reads in part, “The Legislature shall convene in Concho for twelve Regular Sessions of up to two consecutive days beginning on the second Saturday of each month beginning at 9:00 am.”

In addition, Article VI, Section 5, subsection (a) of the Tribe’s Constitution reads in part, “The Legislature shall have the power to make laws and resolutions in accordance with the Constitution which are necessary and proper for the good of the Tribes.”

The Legislative Process requires, “All Bills shall be published in a Legislative Calendar for at least thirty days prior to action on the Bill. All Bills shall be made the subject of a public Legislative Hearing prior to ac-tion on the Bill,” Article VI, Section 7, sub-section (a) (ii).

The Deadline to introduce new bills/resolutions for

the regular session to be held on March 14, 2020 is 4 p.m., Feb. 10, 2020.

1. Legislative Action Request form filled out com-pletely and signed- off by the Executive/ Legal Coun-sel

Office, 2. An ORIGINAL hard copy of Resolution a.) ALL

Supporting Documents b.) Identify funding source and amount(s). 3. A digital copy emailed in Word format to jmor-

[email protected] due dates for submission/working session and

public hearings are established in the 2020 annual Legislative Calendar.

Any branch, district, department or program sub-mitting new bills/resolutions are requested by the leg-islators to be present at the working session and public hearings. Thank you for your attention and timely sub-missions.

March 2020 Call for New Bills/Resolutions

All descendants of Snake Woman please contact the Language & Culture Pro-gram, Arapaho Coordinator Fred Mosqueda by calling 405-422-7655 or by email-ing [email protected].

Snake Woman, her son Robert Poisel and her grand-son Willie Keith are buried near Banner, Okla. Their graves are outside of the fence of the Worthington Family Cemetery and are in ill repair.

After being approached by Snake Woman’s de-scendant, elder Eldridge Poisal about his concerns over the conditions of their gravesites and the active utility work/pipeline con-struction and the possibili-ty of their gravesites being disturbed, we would like to reinter Snake Woman, her son and her grandson to the Concho Indian Cemetery where they can be properly taken care of.

The story is told that four great-grandfathers ago, Worthington was the exec-utor of the Will of Snake Woman. The white people she had trusted swindled her out of her land. Now the fourth great-grandson of the Executor, a Wayne Worth-

ington, is willing to work with us to move the graves.

Snake Woman was the Arapaho wife of John Pois-al (Poisel) and the sister to Chief Left Hand (Niwothi) who was mortally wounded at the Sand Creek Massacre on Nov. 29, 1864. Snake Woman married John Pois-al who was a French trapper who met her at their winter campgrounds in the Boul-der City area of then Colo-rado Territory. John Poisal was the one who taught Chief Lefthand the English language. Upon the death of John Poisal at Cherry Creek in what is now Den-ver, Colo., she moved back to her brother’s camp. This is how she came to be at the Sand Creek Massacre.

Testimonies and family traditions state that she was buried at the location of the burial of her son, Robert Poi-sel, 3/4 of a mile SW of the current location of Banner, Oklahoma. Her son Robert Poisel and her grandson, Willie Keith (son of Ben and Mary Ellen (Poisal) Keith, are both buried just outside of the 100 by 100 foot fence that encloses the Worthing-ton Estate Cemetery.

Snake Woman is Arapa-ho, but there will be many

Cheyenne who will also be descendants through mar-riages. We are encouraging all descendants to make contact with Fred Mosqueda regarding the future reinter-ment of Snake Woman, her son and her grandson to the Concho Indian Cemetery. It

is hoped they can be relocat-ed in the Spring of 2020.

Again, asking all descen-dants of Snake Woman to please contact Fred Mosque-da by calling 405-422-7655 or by email, [email protected].

Seeking Descendants of Snake Woman


Nearly 2,000 people work across the state as casino dealers

Meredith Good Voice was a card deal-er for about a dozen years. She no lon-ger works at a casino but she is worried about her former colleagues.

“Dealers make less than minimum wage and depend on tips to support their families,” Good Voice said. “To work any other job, and have to rely on a pay-check every two weeks is worrisome.”

A lot of Oklahomans worry that the dispute between the governor of Oklaho-ma and the tribes could put these jobs at risk.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics, about 1,900 Okla-homans earn their living as Class III gaming dealers. Oklahoma’s gaming tribes recently sued the state to enforce existing gaming compacts. Gov. Kevin Stitt maintains that the compacts expired Jan. 1st.

Under the current compacts, tribes are expected to pay the state an exclusivi-ty fee, ranging from four to 10 percent. Those fees are due Jan. 20.

There are more than 130 casinos in Oklahoma after voters approved a gam-bling expansion in 2004.

Good Voice, Muscogee (Creek) Na-tion, worked for 13 years at the Hard Rock Casino, located in Tulsa, Oklaho-ma. For 11 years of that time, she worked as a dealer. The Cherokee Nation owns

the Hard Rock Casino.“All the table games, including craps

and roulette, are considered class III gaming,” Good Voice said.

She said that the process of becoming a dealer requires a significant investment in time and training as a career. “There’s a lot of training we’ve gone through to learn each game,” Good Voice said. “It would be a drastic change to work any other job besides dealing.”

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s ac-credited College of the Muscogee Nation even offers a Gaming Associates of Ap-plied Science.

Good Voice said that apart from the training and duties, table games dealers would have a hard time adjusting to the financial aspects that come with chang-ing jobs should anything happen to Class III gaming in Oklahoma.

There are only so many jobs available working in the resorts, adds Good Voice’s friend Aaron Hair, Cherokee Nation.

“At the Hard Rock, we have some-thing like table games 200 employees,” Hair said. “Some folks would be able to transfer, but not everyone.”

Hair has worked in gaming for 25 years and has seen a struggle between the state and gaming before.

“When we first got table games, back in 2003 or 2004, when we didn’t have a compact with the state, we got shut down,” Hair said.

Back then many of Hair’s colleagues had no choice but to leave Oklahoma to make a living.

“Table game dealers ended up leaving for places like Arizona or Florida,” he said.

Working as a dealer has been a good job for Hair. “I bought a house three years ago,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do if we had to go into other posi-tions where I didn’t have the opportunity to make as much.”

Hair said he felt like the tribes invested in gaming so that people like him, both tribal citizens and Oklahomans, could have careers and do well for themselves.

Now the divide between the state and tribes means an uncertain future.

“Would I try to move up into manage-ment,” Hair said. “Do I try to go back to school?”

“It’s got people thinking about their lives.”

Oklahoma’s gaming fight is about people’s lives By Angel Ellis, Indian Country Today

Meredith Good Voice was a dealer for over 12 years.

1. When is the elders trip to Denver March Pow-wow?

The buses will depart Oklahoma early Thursday morning, March 19 and re-turn late Sunday evening, March 22.

2. Where can I get an application?

You can pick up an appli-cation from the Department of Administration Office #143 at Concho, you can call (405) 422-7531 and have one mailed to you, you can visit the current website at www.cheyenneandarapaho-nsn.gov to fill one out and sub-mit online, or you can email [email protected] and request one to be emailed to you.

3. Can I drive my own vehicle?

Yes. You will be respon-sible for your own gas and travel costs, and also getting to and from our outings in Denver. No transportation costs or reimbursements will be provided to you by the Tribes.

4. Where can I board a bus?

Locations and departure/arrival times will be made available to you if you are se-lected to go. You are respon-sible for having your own transportation to be dropped off the morning we leave, as well as being picked up when your bus returns to Oklaho-ma.

5. How many elders are able to attend the 2020 elders trip?

The Tribes are taking 150 tribal member elders on the trip.

6. Can I bring my grandchildren, adult child who is not an elder, or my non-tribal member spouse with me?

No, only tribal member elders qualify for the expens-es paid on this trip. Other family members must pro-vide their own transporta-tion, hotel room, meals, and activities expenses if they would like to be with you during this trip.

7. Will the tribe pro-

vide spending money?No. Only transportation,

lodging, food, and planned group activities expens-es will be provided by the Tribes. We encourage elders to bring their own spending money.

8. Do out-of-state trib-al member elders qualify to go?

Yes, they can attend but are responsible for their own travel expenses to Denver, Colorado and back, if they choose not to board the bus at one of the stops in Okla-homa. No gas cards or reim-bursements will be provided.

9. If I live out-of-state, can I meet the group in Okla-homa and ride the bus to Denver?

Yes, you can meet the buses in Oklahoma. There will be designated pick-up spots in Oklahoma before we leave for Denver.

10. Can a relative who’s not been approved for the trip stay in the assigned room?

No. Only elders approved for the trip can be in the as-signed room. There will be 2 elders per room.

11. If I have a wheel chair or walker, can I attend?

All elders should be able to comfortably navigate their devices with no assistance from caretakers or chaper-ones; however, the buses are not equipped for wheel chairs or walkers. NEVER-THELESS, you can still join in the hotel, meal and outings if you are able to provide for your own transportation costs to get to Denver, and back, including all the activi-ties in between.

12. If I attended the 2019 elders trip, do I qualify this year?

Yes, but priority will be given to elders who have not participated in past years. If you have been before, we still encourage you to apply.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please call the Department of Ad-ministration at 405-422-7531 or email [email protected].

2020 Elders Denver March Powwow Trip FAQ


LEGALSSummons & Notice of Hearings

Happy 16th Birthday Ashleigh R. Charley

Feb. 7Love all your family and

friends

Happy 11th Birthday Isaiah Thunderbull!

Love, dad and grandma

Happy BirthdayJay N. Buffalomeat

Feb. 17Love your sister Christian, Myrcine, Seth, Goes North

Ray & family and mother of this Eastern herd, Nellie K. Buffalomeat and all the lil

Buffalomeats. We love you!

Happy Birthday to my Loves!

To my sweet little girl Mary Ella Mowatt.

Mommy loves you so much, I am so proud to be your mother. You light up my

world with your smile and laugh. To my love Ronnie Mowatt. Thank you for being a great father and

husband. Me and the kids are so lucky to have you. I love our life we’ve built together. Wishing you both many, many more birthdays to come! We

love you two with all our hearts. From mommy and

the kiddos.

Happy Birthday to the greatestmom and grandma!

Mom you are my superhero. Thank you for being there for me and your grandkids. We love our talks and spending

every minute with you. We love you mom!Love all your family

Happy belated 68th to the “fry bread queen!”

Your loving husband James of 10 years, friends and

many relatives.

Happy BirthdayAaron Littleman

We love you!mom, dad, Irene and Herb

Buckskin dancers at the 2020 Governor’s second annual powwow in Weatherford, Okla.

Brittany Denny, a teacher assistant at the Concho Head Start, is presented her Letter of Acceptance from Bacone College, Dr. Nicole Been, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Special Proj-ects.

The Dept. of Education is working with Bacone Col-lege to assist any interested individuals to obtain a de-gree in early education.

The early education pro-gram is offered on-line.

A recruitment event will be held in April for individ-uals to receive information about Bacone College.

This school year, Calumet Public Schools began an ini-tiative to develop a Native American Club with the guidance and assistance from STEP Education Specialist Deidra Flurry.

On Jan. 14 the Dept. of Education STEP Program in col-laboration with the Dept. of Business and the Dept. of Health-hosted the Calumet NA club for a Buffalo Tour in Concho..

On Friday, Jan. 17 the Concho Head Start hosted a “Donut with Dad,” giv-ing fathers the opportunity to share in some one on one time with their kids at school.

T Tribal idbits

Calumet Native American Club

Bacone College

Concho H

ead Start


VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENTSTo apply please submit a tribal application, resume, diploma(s), transcripts, valid copy of driver’s license and a copy of CDIB (if applica-

ble) to the Personnel Department, PO Box 38, Concho, OK 73022 or call 405-422-7498 or email [email protected]. Or download application by visiting http://cheyenneandarapaho-nsn.gov.

CLASSIFIEDSLEGALS

Summons & Notice of Hearings

Qualifications:Bachelor’s degree in ac-

counting or finance and a minimum of two years expe-rience with Tribal account-ing. Knowledge of generally accepted accounting princi-ples, skill with spreadsheet and word processing pro-grams. Experience with fund accounting software pack-ages, example MIP. Able to organize projects and ana-lyze information to complete assigned projects, possess good communication skills, both oral and written. Chey-enne-Arapaho preference. Driver’s license required.

SALARY: Negotiable

Staff AccountantDept. of Treasury

Closing Date: Until Filled

Qualifications:Minimum of two year’s

experience in specialized legal field preferred. Knowl-edge of general office prac-tices, property and supply and courtroom procedures. Knowledge of computer software, experience with database programs, phone and must have good commu-nication skills. Must possess a current and valid Okla-homa driver’s license and have reliable transportation. Demonstrate moral integri-ty and fairness in business, public and private life. No convictions of a felony. No misdemeanors within the last three years. All applicants will be subject to and must pass a background investi-gation and are subject to ran-dom drug testing.

SALARY: Negotiable

Deputy Court Clerk Judicial Branch


Qualifications:High school graduate or

G.E.D. certification required, with a minimum of one year work related experience or successful completion of one year vocational tech-nical certification. Possess computer skills, writing and communication skills with strict attention to details and accuracy. Must be familiar with Cheyenne and Arapaho service areas, and ability to relate to Indian and non-In-dian communities. Oklaho-ma driver’s license required. Cheyenne and Arapaho pref-erence.

SALARY: Negotiable

Environmental Specialist IIEPA


Qualifications:Prefer bachelor’s degree

in social work or related field or an equivalent com-bination of education and work experience. One year of experience in profes-sional related experience is required. Knowledge and understanding of the Indian Child Welfare Ace of 1978. Ability to work flexible hours. Basic knowledge of early childhood education, child welfare casework and child abuse and neglect indi-cators. Possess communica-tion skills, written and oral to relate to Indian and non-In-dian communities, agencies and the general public. OSBI and criminal background check required, must possess a valid Oklahoma driver’s license. Prefer knowledge of Cheyenne and Arapaho/Na-tive American cultures and values. Ability to work with difficult clientele. Must com-plete OKDHS Criminal His-tory Review and complete a Supplemental Application.

SALARY: Negotiable

Foster Care WorkerSocial Services Program


Qualifications:Bachelor’s degree with

a minimum of two years related experience in grant writing in tribal administra-tion. Excellent writing and computer skills, and demon-strates track record in secur-ing new funding opportuni-ties for tribal organizations. Ability to work other than normal work hours, and a valid Class C Oklahoma driver’s license required.

SALARY: Negotiable

Grant WriterPlanning & DevelopmentClosing Date: Until Filled

Qualifications:Certificate of completion

from an accredited secre-tarial school and/or clerical course/program receptionist work or equivalent desired, with a minimum of two years experience in field. High school diploma or G.E.D. certification required. Must be willing and able to attend various trainings and/or cer-tification programs as direct-ly related to job duties and responsibilities. Must pro-vide a Motor Vehicle Report from the Oklahoma Dept. of Public Safety and possess a current Oklahoma driver’s license. Must pass a pre-hire drug and alcohol screening.

SALARY: Negotiable

Administrative AssistantTransportation Safety


Qualifications:High school diploma or

G.E.D. certification required. Two years secretarial expe-rience with computer skills preferred. Good grammar and communication skills both verbally and written. Willing to work odd hours during busy seasons. Will-ing to learn the legislative process and be ready for un-expected events. Willing to travel for meetings and com-munity events. Cheyenne and Arapaho preference.

SALARY: Negotiable

Administrative AssistantCheyenne District 1

Legislative OfficeClosing Date: Until Filled

Members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Veteran’s Board are

requesting Tribal Veterans who are interested in serving on the Veteran’s Board to please submit your name, contact information and brief bio to Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Gov. Reggie Wassana’s office for

consideration.

Applicants for Cheyenne and Arapaho Veteran’s

Board Needed

Qualifications:Bachelor’s degree in

business, research, com-munications, social work, psychology, law, criminal justice, public administra-tion or Native American leadership. Minimum three years of experience in rel-evant field of work. Must have ability to work with and facilitate meetings with various levels of manage-ment, community members, outside entities and maintain a level of respect and con-fidence. Must have knowl-edge of Microsoft Office products including how to develop and deliver Power-Point presentations. Ability to work flexible house work-ing weekends, evenings and holidays as needed. Must have skills in research and data, possess excellent com-munication skills, both oral and written and maintain a high level of confidentiality on all matters. Three current letters of references required. Criminal background check required, must have Oklaho-ma driver’s license. Knowl-edge of Cheyenne and Arap-aho culture and values and must obtain a Motor Vehicle Report within one week of employment. Cheyenne and Arapaho preference.

SALARY: Negotiable

Project ManagerJudicial Branch


Calling on descendants of any Cheyenne and Arapaho Ft. Marion

prisoners to contact Norene Starr at 405-422-7734 or by email at nstarr@

cheyenneandarapaho-nsn.gov to schedule an interview.

Attempts are currently being made to document family stories of any prisoners of war held at Ft. Marion

prison in Florida. Interviews will take place up to Feb. 28.

Descendants of Ft. Marion Prisoners

Cheyenne and Arapaho

Tribes

(405) 262-0345 / (800) 247-4612

P.O.Box 38Concho, OK

73022

cheyenneand-arapaho-nsn.gov

Change Your Thoughts and You Change The World.

Norman Vincent Peale


Calm and collected, with gleaming hopeful eyes, high school junior Bobbi Botone, 17, has ambitions of making it to state as part of the El Reno Lady Indians Basket-ball team.

Being the third oldest among her siblings, Botone began playing basketball in the second grade because her parents thought it would be good for her.

“Well my dad was real-ly good at basketball and he played for Calumet and my mom wanted me to start young so I started in sec-ond grade playing, just like leagues and everything and then I finally got more into it around the fifth grade,” Bot-one said.

And since pursing basket-ball at a young age, Botone said she loves the family that basketball has brought her.

“I like the family feeling of it, like everyone’s close and when you’re close you have good chemistry on the court, it makes it fun,” Bot-one said.

In the previous basketball season for the El Reno Lady Indians, Botone said they made it to the championship round at state before getting beat out. Botone hopes to see her team make a comeback this year.

“My biggest accomplish-ment was making it to state, then making it to the playoffs and making it to the cham-pionship game … the first year we went to state we got beat in the first round and then last year we went to the championship,” Botone said.

Botone said that with her

goal of making it to state for the 2019-2020 season, she hopes to see her team realize their potential.

“We just need to realize that we’re actually good in-stead of like getting down on ourselves before we play,” Botone said.

While getting through a minor injury outside of the court, Botone has been trying her best to motivate herself.

“I have a stress fracture on the top of my foot and it’s been like this since August, I just got to put it in a boot but I can still play,” Botone said.

In working through her own personal challenges, Botone said that when she’s on the court, she’s thinking of all the ways she can be of help to her team.

“I just think about what I need to do to help the team basically and do as much as I can to contribute for the time that I’m in and everything,” Botone said.

As a former Darlington Elementary School student, Botone described how it was transitioning from Dar-lington basketball to High School basketball.

“Well Darlington’s more like run and gun and every-thing, it’s fast pace because everyone has been play-ing since they were little so when you go to high school it has more structure to it, more organized and more plays and everything, so like having to learn to remem-ber everything and be where you’re supposed to be,” Bot-one said.

Botone described the bond between her and her

coach, Jennifer Douglas. “The best advice is my

coach when she talks about like when you make a mis-take or something, just to let it go and not dwell on the past because it’s just going to make things harder for you to keep going,” Botone said.

“We have a good bond,” Botone said.

“Like off the court too, and she’s always there for us, like with anything, she knows when we’re going through stuff and when we need to talk, she’s basical-ly like another mother, she treats us like she’s our mom and we’re her kids, she’s al-ways taking care of us with anything,” Botone said.

Since having her injury, Botone said that it has been tough when playing on the court.

“Sometimes in practice I can’t go as fast as I need to or what I can do, I can push myself a little bit but not too much and then my coach sometimes she gets mad and be like, Bobbi you got to get this, you got to be a little bit early and I’m just like okay well I’m kind of hurting so it’s fine but sometimes she forgets about it and she’ll be like well if you’re not going to sprint to this then you can sit down and I’m like well I’m still hurting and she’s like okay but it’s just the fact that I can’t go as much as I need to go or I want to go,” Botone said.

“I know she counts on me to be as fast as I can and for me to get where I need to go,” Botone said.

While working through her goals, Botone said the person who has had the big-gest impact in her life is her grandmother.

“I would say my grandma, she takes care of like every-body and she’s always, even if she doesn’t have much she’s still tries to give back and everything and she’s al-ways there for me and I can count on her and she gives me what I need and what I want so yeah, she’s basical-ly raised me this whole time and made me who I am,” Bo-tone said.

Botone also plays league basketball for R.E.Sp.E.C.T., and in her free time she en-joys spending time with friends. Botone said that basketball keeps her busy and keeps her out of trouble. With a GPA of 3.8, Botone said that she hopes to attend college following graduation in 2021.

Botone has a shooting av-erage of 45.9% and scoring average of 72.7% from the free throw line.

El Reno Lady Indians Basketball Head Coach Douglas said that off the court, Bobbi is a fun and loving teenager, who enjoys spending time with her fam-ily.

“Bobbi has such a big

heart that she helps her grandma around the house a lot, and even helps with her newborn baby brother. She is also the type of girl who loves making her friends laugh. Bobbi has so many stories and everyone loves listening,” Douglas said.

And on the court, Doug-las said that Botone’s spirit is contagious.

“If Bobbi is loud, ener-getic, and dialed in the girls will follow. She really cares about making sure her team-mates have fun and enjoy basketball to the fullest,” Douglas said.

As for the remaining bas-ketball season, Douglas said that Botone has done well stepping into any role she

was asked to fulfill for the year.

“Bobbi has done a great job stepping into any role I have asked her to fill this year. She is usually our spark off the bench, but when asked to start a few games, she was up for the challenge. Bobbi is great at running out in transition; she is usual-ly the first one up the floor. Whether Bobbi believes it or not, she has the best outside shot on our team. By the end of the year, I would love to see her shooting the 3 with confidence,” Douglas said.

Bobbi’s parents are Lisa Botone and Keith Botone. She has nine siblings and is adopted by her grandmother Jessie Botone.

Bobbi Botone: El Reno High SchoolLatoya Lonelodge, Staff Reporter


Paige Primeaux is a 5’10 center and sophomore bas-ketball player at El Reno High School in El Reno, Okla. The team’s record is 8-6 and are in Class 5A.

“I live in El Reno, Okla., and I am a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes,” said Paige. “I live with my mother Kerrin who is also Cheyenne Arapaho and Chickasaw and my step dad Randy. My father Pat-rick also lives in El Reno. He is Cheyenne, Ponca, Prai-rie Band Pottawatomi and Osage.”

“Growing up I learned from my elders that educa-tion is key to be successful in today’s world,” said Paige. “Hopefully using basketball as a way out. If that doesn’t work out, I will still attend using grants and applying for financial scholarships. My crrent GPA is 3.67. One thing my mother and stepdad stress to us is to keep our grades up. That will always be our way to a better life and more op-portunities. So even after our long practices and games I am usually in my room fin-ishing my homework while listening to music. My fam-ily is very important to me. If I’m not at school or basket-ball, I am at home or at my aunt’s house. I have my life goals and have always put them first in my life,”

“I have always tried to not be selfish and be thank-ful,” said Paige. “If I see a person in need I can feel that in my heart and that makes me want to help that person even it it’s in a small way. I

know my parents work hard to give us a life they didn’t have growing up so if I see one of my friends needing help I will.”

“Someone who influ-enced me as an athlete would be my big brother Logan, my coaches Parry Romannose and Jennifer Doulas,” said Paige. “With my brother I’ve learned almost everything from him. He would always make me play against him and I always hated it because he would never go easy on me. But now I understand why.”

“Coach Parry has also influenced me,” said Paige. “He was always there for me. Last year I lost my grandfa-ther and I was having a tough time dealing with it all. I felt alone. That week or the week after he passed there was the Best in the West Indian Tournament in Lawrence, Kansas. My mother asked if I wanted to go but obviously I didn’t. I believe my mother could see that I didn’t want to play basketball anymore so she talked to Coach Par-ry. Later that day I got a call from Coach Parry. That call really meant a lot to me. It is also one of the main reasons I still play. If it wasn’t for him being there for me, I proba-bly wouldn’t even be playing basketball right now.”

“Coach Douglas helped me transition from playing with just Indians my whole life to playing with other rac-es,” said Paige. “She encour-aged me last year to play on an AAU team in Oklahoma City called Swarm. Because

of her and that encourage-ment it has given me a lot of confidence now in myself and my abilities.

Coach Jennifer Douglas addressed the roles of her starting center: “This is year number two for Paige in my program. She has made great strides and improved so much in the last year. This year, as a sophomore, I just expected her to come off the bench and give us good min-utes along with post defense and a few rebounds. But she has given us so much more. You can tell Paige wanted a bigger role on the team by the way she practices.”

“Paige is one of our hard-est workers in practice. She has improved on her foot-work, speed, passing, drib-bling, and soft touch around the rim. When we go through drills she is going 100% all the time. When we condition she tries her best to keep up with the guards. With this

work ethic she became more confident in games and her minutes continued to in-crease,” said Coach Jennifer.

“Now we are in the 2nd half of our season, she is starter and one of our most consistent players,” said Coach Jennifer. “We know what we are going to get from Paige every game. Paige knows what her role is for our team to be successful. Defend the opponents best post player, get rebounds, and finish in the paint. Paige is shooting 49 percent from the floor, and averages 6.9 points per game, along with 5.8 rebounds.”

“As of recently, Paige has been taking on a leadership role. I constantly see her up-lifting her teammates, cheer-ing them on, and communi-cating more on the floor. She is such a competitor and will-ing to do whatever it takes to help her team win. Not only has Paige been working hard

on the floor. She is such a competitor and willing to do whatever it takes to help her team win. Not only has Paige been working hard on the floor but she is a leader inside the classroom, as well. Paige is ranked 66 out of 237 students in her sophomore class and her current GPA is a 3.7,” added Coach Jennifer.

“Paige has so much po-tential. I am excited to see her growth over the next few years, as a basketball play-er and a young lady,” said Coach Jennifer.

“Our team this year is something special which in-cludes nine Cheyenne-Arap-aho girls,” said Paige. “We play school ball and Native tournaments (NABI, DEN-VER) and AAU in Okla-homa City together during summers. We all came from Darlington Public School, a K-8 grade school. We have been playing together since I was in the third grade.”

“My greatest accomplish-ment was becoming a varsity starter this year,” said Paige. “Last year I barely had any playing time on varsity. Coming from Darlington I was always a starter, but transitioning to high school it was a whole different story. At Darlington I was always the tallest girl on the team but when I got here I seen we had two 6’0 senior girls that were more aggressive and stronger than me. They are the first and only girls to ever intimidate me. Playing under them was very hard at first but I adjusted and played my role on the bench, cheering them on. I knew I would get my time in the future.”

“My advice would be to stay in school and get an ed-ucation,” said Paige. “Keep-ing going no matter how hard it gets because it will all be worth it in the end. Be confident and don’t doubt yourself.”

Paige Primeaux, Cheyenne-Arapaho: Using Basketball As A Way to College

By Dan Ninham (Oneida), NDN Sports.com

Paige Primeaux is a sophomore 5’10 center for the El Reno High School girl’s basketball team. (Photo by Glen Miller)