2003 Sequoyah Research Center Symposium
Voices from the Past, Education for the Future
November 14-15, 2003

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Speakers, Moderators, and Discussion Leaders

Elizabeth Archuleta is of Yaqui/Chicana descent and grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She graduated from Penn State University and is now an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of New Mexico.  Her presentation grows out of her concern about the relative indifference about American Indian issues in Border or Borderland Studies and is her initial attempt at exploring issues in the field of study from an American Indian perspective.  She specializes in contemporary American and Indigenous literatures, and she is also interested in the relation of law and literature.  She is currently working on a book-length project in which she examines Pueblo cultural narratives and the way their storytelling traditions have been shaped by American laws. 
Paul Austin, a member of the Sequoyah Research Center Advisory Board, has been director of the American Indian Center of Arkansas, Inc. for more than twenty years.
Kimberly Blaeser, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, grew up on the White Earth Reservation. An associate professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and is a well-known poet and scholar. Her poetry, fiction, essays, and scholarly articles have been published in more than 35 anthologies and in numerous journals. Her books include a critical study, Gerald Vizenor: Writing in the Oral Tradition (1996) and two collections of poetry:  Trailing You (1994) and Absentee Indians and Other Poems (2002). She is also the editor of Stories Migrating Home (2000), a collection of Anishinaabe Prose.
Ginny Carney, Cherokee, is currently an English professor and Chair of Arts & Humanities at Leech Lake Tribal College in northern Minnesota.  She is a registered nurse, and also holds English degrees from Tennessee Temple University (B.A.), University of Alaska, Anchorage (M.A.), and University of Kentucky (Ph.D.).  Her publications include essays in several scholarly journals and anthologies, and her book, A Testament to Tenacity:  Cultural Persistence in the Letters and Speeches of Eastern Band Cherokee Women, is forthcoming from the University of Tennessee Press.
Ron Carpenter was born and raised in Southern California. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English degree from the University of California at Riverside (1991) and a Master of Arts in American Studies from the University of Utah in 1994, specializing in Native American Literature. His  Ph.D. study in British and American Literature, completed in May, 2003, explores the autobiographies of four Native American women living in the twentieth century.
Chelleye Crow, of Comanche, Choctaw, and Cherokee descent, is currently completing coursework on her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Native American Literature, at Baylor University. She is also an adjunct professor at McLennan Community College. She spent 10 years in ad valorem taxation work, receiving state certification as a Registered Tax Assessor/Collector before beginning college in 1992. After completing her bachelor’s and master’s in English and before beginning her doctoral studies, she worked in the Office of General Counsel for Baylor University.  She is an active member of, and office holder in, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, currently serving on the National Caucus Board.  She is the recipient of the Big 12 Bravo Award, Fall 1998, for her work as an academic support counselor with student athletes.
Paul DeMain, a member of the Wisconsin Oneida Nation, is a well-known newspaperman, CEO of Indian Country Communications, Inc., and managing editor of News From Indian Country, an award winning national newspaper with news about Native Americans published and sold throughout the United States, Canada, and 17 other countries.  In 2002 his fellow journalists presented him with the Wassaja Award, the highest award for journalism excellence given by the Native American Journalists Association.
John Luke Flyinghorse, Sr., is of Hunkpapa Lakota descent and lives on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota.  He began writing in 1995, then published a small book of poems and short stories in November of 2000 and Watehica, a larger book of poems and short stories in 2002. He has completed a one act play based on one of his poems, titled "Tuwa Oyake Nahan, or Someone Said." He has also completed a novel about his life on and off the Standing Rock Reservation.  John Luke says that he is most proud of his service to his country as a United States Marine during the Vietnam War, after which he returned to be an Enlisted Instructor at the Basic School, Quantico Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia.
Solo Greene, an enrolled member of the Nez Perce Tribe, is the Education Specialist for the Nez Perce Tribe’s Environmental Restoration & Waste Management Program located in Lapwai, Idaho. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Education and a minor in Psychology and has presented at the local, regional and national levels, including the National American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) Conference; the Region 10 Environmental Education Forum; the Northwest Indian Education Youth Conference; the Northwest Indian Education Summit; the Native Language and Cultures Regional Conference; Idaho Indian Education Youth Conference; First Nations Conference--“Indigenous Visions: Honoring Traditions/Creating Futures”; the Nez Perce Tribe’s 1st Annual Wellness & Spirituality Conference; and many others.
Sybil J. Hampton, Ed.D., is President of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas, which has in the past twenty-eight years provided more than $62 million in grants primarily to Arkansas-based non-profit and educational institutions.
Stuart Y. Hoahwah is a graduate student in creative writing at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.  He is a poet, having published his works in literary journals and anthologies.  His chapbook Split has gone through three editions.  He is an enrolled member of the Comanche Tribe of Oklahoma.
David Jones, Maori, is President of Te Ropu Whakahau (National Maori Librarians and Information Association of New Zealand) and serves as Kaitiaki Kohikohinga Maori (Maori Manuscripts Adviser) for the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington. 
Patricia A. Loew, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Life Science Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a producer for WHA-TV (PBS) and host of In Wisconsin, a weekly news and public affairs program that airs statewide on Wisconsin Public Television. She is the author of dozens of scholarly and general interest articles on Native topics and has produced several award-winning documentaries, including No Word for Goodbye, Spring of Discontent, Throwaway Future, and Nation Within a Nation, which have appeared on commercial and public television stations throughout the country.  Loew is an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and author of Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal and Native People of Wisconsin, a textbook for fourth-grade Wisconsin school children.
Joyce McBryde is a member of the Lytton First Nation in Lytton, British Columbia, and is associated with the N'l'aka'pamux Nation.  She is currently enrolled in the Native Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of British Columbia, in her fourth year. She holds a co-ordinated Family and Community Counseling Diploma from Langara Community College and a Teacher Assistant certificate from Caribou College. She has worked as a First Nations Support Worker for the Vancouver school board at both the elementary and high school levels for five years. She has done presentations regarding foster care/adoption and anti-racism/narrative therapy.  She is a poet, loves to volunteer at community events, and enjoys working with aboriginal youth. 
Billie Jane McIntosh, Muscogee (Creek), was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, and attended the University of Arizona.   She married in 1950 and began writing essays as a young mother but put writing aside as she raised four children. After seventeen years she returned to university studies and became a working single mother.  She earned a bachelor's degree in editorial journalism from the University of Tulsa, a master's degree in counseling and guidance at Northern Arizona University, and completed all doctoral degree studies in educational leadership at Arizona State University. She worked for the Indian Health Service before going to work at Mesa Community College.  After retirement she returned to writing.  Her book Ah-ko-kee, American Sovereign is about her father's ancestors at a turbulent time in Creek tribal history. Today she lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, and continues to write.
Jim Northrup, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, says of himself, "Born on the Rez, lives on the Rez, will probably die on the Rez; t'was a lot that happened in between but it was just details.
Gus Palmer, Jr. grew up in southwestern Oklahoma in a Kiowa- and English-speaking home and acquired both languages easily. He attended public, parochial, and Indian schools. He attended the University of Oklahoma, where he earned his Ph.D.  He is currently an assistant professor of anthropology at the university. His main interest is linguistic anthropology with an emphasis on Kiowa and the Kiowa-Tanoan languages.  He has published poems in numerous anthologies over the years and currently is writing fiction and transcribing traditional Kiowa stories. He has also begun writing poems in his native Kiowa.
Selene G. Phillips, Wabigonikewikwe, is a member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe Nation. She holds a Ph. D. from Purdue University in American Studies with emphasis in Native American studies, communication law and journalism.  For the past two summers, she has been a humanities scholar for the Great Plains Chautauqua Society with which she presented a first-person characterization of Sacagawea. Her chapter, "The Children¹s Literature of Sacagawea," will appear in, Exploring Culturally Diverse Literature for Children and Adolescence: Learning to Listen in New Ways (2003), by editors Jill P. May and Darwin L. Henderson. Her other research interests focus on Native American newspapers, First Amendment issues and communication law. Her research on the precursor for one of today’s premier Native American newspapers, News from Indian Country, appears in Papers of the Thirty-first Algonquian Conference. She has taught classes in communication law, popular culture and journalism at Purdue University and as a visiting professor in the School of Communication at the University of North Dakota. Since 1997 she has served on the Indiana Governor¹s Native American Council and the Indiana University School of Journalism Alumni Association Board. She is a contributing editor to the Lafayette, Indiana, Community Times. She co-founded Clean Air Now Lafayette, an environmental organization dedicated to fighting air and noise pollution, and works with the UNITY Journalists of Color, Inc. mentor program. She serves on the Lafayette YWCA board of directors and the American Native Press Archives National Advisory Board. Previously she has worked as a television news anchor, a radio and television news reporter and producer; a communications specialist for Purdue University's Affirmative Action Office; a business writer and publicist for Purdue University’s News Service; and a vocational counselor and job developer for the American Indian Business Association.
Richie Plass, Menominee/Stockbridge-Munsee, has been drummer with the renowned country group Wolf River Band for 30 years and an actor (and sometimes comedian!) with a long background in business and manufacturing as well as tribal politics and economic development. But his lectures and sessions on "Trails of the Menominee: A Discussion of Native American Diversity" are where his heart really lies. Plass lectures on education, culture, traditions, professional environment and social impact. His sessions deal with issues such as Menominee and general Native American history, past and present Native American issues such as logos and mascots, Native American lore and performing arts, as well as dealing with and living in a world of different cultures. His multi-faceted background includes an Associate Degree in Architecture, Director of Tribal Economic Development on the Menominee Reservation, diversity training, and sports editor for his school paper. Plass is also a published poet. He is currently an instructor in Native American Studies at Kent State University.
Kimberly Roppolo, of Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek descent, received her Ph.D. specializing in Native American Literature from Baylor University. She is a full-time instructor at McLennan Community College, Waco, Texas.  She is the Associate National Director of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers and has also published reviews, poems, and articles in publications as varied as Studies in American Indian Literatures, a special Native American issue of Paradoxa, a special Native Women's issue of Frontiers:  A Journal of Women's Studies, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Native Realities, Talking Stick Arts Newsletter, the Dictionary of American Literary Characters, and News from Indian Country.  She has been anthologized in Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating's This Bridge We Call Home. In 2002 she received the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writer's and Storytellers Award for Academic Research Paper of the Year and in 2001 the Wordcrafter of the Year Award.  She resides in Hewitt, Texas, with her husband and three children. Her works in progress include an anthology of poetry she is editing, Gadugi; a collection of her own poetry, Breeds and Outlaws:  Poetry, Prose, Family History; a play, Story-Child; and a book- length work of tribal-based critical theory, Collating Divergent Discourses:  Positing the Critic as Culture-Broker in Reading Native American Texts.
Loriene Roy is a professor in the School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin.  An internationally known scholar in Indigenous information services, she is author of scores of scholarly works and is project director for “If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything,” a national reading club for Native children.  She is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe,
John Sanchez, Yaqui/Chiricahua, is an associate professor of News Media Ethics in the Department of Journalism, College of Communications, Penn State University.  His research examines American Indian identity in the twenty-first century as it is affected by the American news media and American public schools.
Sammy Still, Cherokee, is a photographer who worked for many years as a photojournalist for the Cherokee Phoenix and Advocate, the newspaper of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.  He currently works in the language and cultural preservation efforts of the Cherokee Nation.
Mary Jo Watson, Seminole, holds a B.F.A. in Art History, an M.L.S. in Seminole Aesthetics and Art Forms, and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary-Native American Art History from the University of Oklahoma. She developed the Native American Art History program at the University of Oklahoma, which now includes seven classes. She is the Curator of Native American Art for the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma and has overseen a variety of exhibitions, including topics on Inuit Art (Spring 2001) and Oklahoma Indian Art (Fall 2000), and one on Doc Tate Nevaquaya (Summer 1999). She has also served as a curator, juror, and lecturer for numerous art exhibits around the state of Oklahoma. She holds faculty positions in other departments at the University of Oklahoma, including the Native American Studies program, the Women's Studies program, the College of Liberal Studies, and the International Studies program.  Her research interests include the development of theory and aesthetic understanding of Native American art. She promotes understanding of the older as well as more contemporary work of the Native artists of the Americas.
WILLIAM WELGEWilliam Welge is head of the Archives and Manuscripts Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society, one of the nation’s most prestigious repositories of American Indian historical research collections.  He holds a Master’s Degree in History from Central Oklahoma state University and has more than twenty years of experience in the archiving and management of records relating to American Indians.  In 1989 he became the first Certified Archivist in Oklahoma and was recertified in 1997.  In addition to his duties at the Oklahoma Historical Society, he served on the Alfred P. Murrah Bombing Memorial Committee during its tenure, 1995-2000.
Frederick White is a member of the Haida Nation, Massett Band. His research concerns Haida cultural and linguistic issues. The pressing issues currently affecting Haidas concerns the lack of fluent Haida speakers and the lack of Haida language learning, despite language instruction. A tenure track position at Slippery Rock University allows him to teach courses he loves, including composition, literature, and English grammar. It also allows him free time to pursue his interest in creative writing.
J. W. Wiggins is a member of the Emeritus faculty at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  He was formerly a member of the chemistry faculty and dean of the College of Science and Mathematics.  For the past twenty-five years, he has been a collector of contemporary Native American art, with a primary interest in the Fine Arts Movement in contemporary Native art. He is a member of the Native American Art Studies Association..
Greg Young-Ing  is a member of Opasquiak Cree Nation in The Pas, Manitoba and has a Master of Arts degree from the Institute of Canadian Studies, Carleton University, and a Master of Publishing degree from Simon Fraser University.  He has worked for the Assembly of First Nations, the former Native Council of Canada, and the Native Women’s Association of Canada.  His literary works have been published in Canada, the U. S. and Australia, and he is the editor of Gatherings journal and a former instructor at the En’owkin International School of Writing.  He is the Managing Editor of Theytus Books, the first Aboriginal publishing house in Canada.

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