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Athletic great Jim Thorpe has been awarded the Presidential Medal of freedom posthumously.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors.
WATCH the Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremony
James Francis Thorpe was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist – and a member of the Sac and Fox Nation.
Thorpe was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the U.S. in the Olympics.
He won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics and was also a professional football, baseball, and basketball player.
He died in 1953 at the age of 65.
Among the recipients were former Vice President Al Gore and Opal Lee, an educator and activist known for her efforts to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday.
The medals were presented by President Joe Biden at the White House last week.
The Board of Trustees with the Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), located in Juneau, Alaska, recently appointed a new member to help lead the nonprofit’s programs.
Tlingit clinical community psychologist Aandachjoon Alicia Marvin of Anchorage will fill the seat, which was recently vacated by longtime trustee Jeane Breinig.
Marvin said in a statement: “I will be using my training in community work and psychology to contribute to the important work of SHI. I am honored to serve on the board of trustees as I find deep meaning in community service.”
Marvin belongs to the Raven Moiety clan and the Whale House.
SHI President Rosita Worl said she looks forward to Marvin’s contributions and expressed gratitude for her service of Breinig, who is Haida and was recently elected to serve as president of the Kasaan village corporation Kavilco Inc.
SHI is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska.
Tlingit clan houses during the “Last Potlatch” in Sitka, Alaska in 1904. (Photo: E. W. Merrill)
The Sitka Tlingit Clan Houses in southeast Alaska was recently put on a list of the most endangered historic places in America.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation revealed this week its 2024 list, an annual ranking that spotlights significant sites of American history that are at risk of destruction or irreparable damage.
The list also includes the Hudson-Athens lighthouse in Athens, N.Y., Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, Calif., and the Cindy Walker House in Mexia, Texas.
In a statement, Carol Quillen, President and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said: “This year’s Most Endangered Historic Places list shows how our collective idea of American History has expanded in recent years, along with our ideas about which places are worth saving.”
The list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places debuted in 1988 and has proven to be a highly effective tool for shining a light on the issue.
Some tribal nations in the U.S. have long traditions of using wildland fire for a number of purposes, like subsistence, resource management, and ceremonial activities.
A new paper tries to quantify the scale of such cultural burning in the ancestral territory of a Northern California Tribe.
Researchers worked in close collaboration with members of the Karuk Tribe and their natural resources department.
On roughly 650,000 acre swath of the Karuk Ancestral territory, the authors found that nearly 7,000 fires burning some 15% of that acreage were set annually.
Co-author Christopher Dunn is a professor at Oregon State University.
“It really offers us a foundation of what could be, probably, a foundation of what should be, and at least realization that the world can be different and things can be done differently, and we can move in that direction.”
Among the many recommendations to address the wildfire crisis from a major federal commission’s report last year was to dramatically increase the amount of beneficial fire, including cultural burning.
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