Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Tribal college and university students from across the country were honored Tuesday night in Albuquerque by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).
Students were awarded for their skills in knowledge, sports, and arts after three days of competition in various events at the consortium’s 2023 conference.
37 students traveled to New Mexico from Oglala Lakota College in South Dakota.
Dawn Tobacco Frank is president of Oglala Lakota College.
She says while students enhance their skills at the event, they learn valuable lessons back at school.
“The importance of tribal colleges and universities is to make that broader impact in the communities to really strengthen the culture, the language, to help produce students who graduate in whatever fields the tribal colleges offer in order for them to go back and work to fulfill their own individual goals. A majority of our students want to help return back to the reservation to help or to their homelands to help their people.”
Oglala Lakota College serves the Pine Ridge Reservation, and also has a satellite location in Rapid City, and on the Cheyenne River Reservation offering degrees in business, social work, nursing, and other fields.
Longtime leader of the Navajo Nation Peterson Zah passed away Tuesday in Arizona, the Navajo Times reports.
Zah was chairman of the Navajo council in the 1980s before becoming the first president of the Navajo Nation in 1990 when the tribe shifted its government system.
He’s being remembered for his lifelong advocacy for Navajo people including encouraging young people to finish school and pursue higher education.
Zah was living in Window Rock, AZ on the Navajo Nation with his family.
He reportedly was in the hospital due to complications with cancer.
Zah was 85 years old.
Pete Kaiser, 2019 Iditarod Champion at the Iditarod Race Re-start in Willow on Sunday. (Photo courtesy: Kaiser Racing Kennel)
Three Yup’ik mushers from Southwest Alaska are among some of the most experienced racers in this year’s Iditarod, the 1,000-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome.
KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, the race got underway on Sunday.
Former Iditarod champ Pete Kaiser from Bethel, fresh off his 7th win of the Kuskokwim 300, is one of the racers to watch, as well as two mushers who have had successful past finishes – Ritchie Diehl of Aniak and Michael Williams, Jr. from Akiak.
Williams has returned to the Iditarod after taking a break from the race.
Bev Hoffman, a Yup’ik musher and longtime Kusko 300 organizer, has spent decades working to bring Alaska Native mushers back into the sport. In the early years, the Iditarod had a crowded field of Native mushers, but they were later eclipsed by a well-financed group of career mushers who could afford to train year-round.
Hoffman says it’s rewarding to see three Native mushers, who she watched growing up, rise to the top of the sport.
“I think all their chances are great. Mike was downplaying his own race saying that he didn’t have a lot of training, but he’s done real well in the local races here. Pete and Richie, last year, they did real well — and they have tough dogs and the year Pete won, one was on this route.”
Kaiser won the Iditarod in 2019 and finished 5th last year.
Diehl has run the Iditarod ten times and finished right behind Kaiser last year in 6th place.
This is Mike Williams Jr.’s 8th running of the Iditarod. His best finish was 8th place in 2012. His father, Mike Williams Sr., ran the Iditarod many times to promote sobriety in rural Alaska.
This year’s race has the smallest number of contenders on record, which Hoffman believes improves their chances for success, given their experience in not just the Iditarod, but the Kuskokwim 300, a 300-mile race that follows an old mail trail on the frozen Kuskokwim River.
“Our training is so tough out here. You just get hit with everything, ice overflow and I think that all better prepare these teams from this area.”
Hoffman says many past Iditarod champs came to Bethel to compete to toughen up their teams.
Ryan Reddington (Inupiat) is the fourth competitor in this year’s race.
Their standings can be followed online at iditarod.com.
Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our newsletter today.
