Able, Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome,
WelCom. INT's time now for our community connection right here on K one.
The one you trust is brought to you by Wesley and Kitney College called
Grass Motors and Arnold Moore and kne Camp Funeral Home on the telephone with us
that we have a newly re elected principal Chief of the cherry Key Nation truck
Landslide Hoskin Junior. Congratulations of the victory. Good to be with you,
sir ah Hey busy, busy busy Supreme Court ruling Wendy and the favor of
all Native Americans here recently. Can you tell us about that it did?
It was a very significant victory that you know, it really had consequences beyond
the law that was an issue. The law that was an issue of the
Indian Child Welfare Act. This is a law from nineteen seventy eight that gives
additional considerations to children in any kind of a placement proceedings safes and adoption temporary
foster situation. That's that's sort of a case special considerations given that they are
citizens of Indian nations, and of course a citizen of an Indian nation is
a particular status. It's a political status, just like you and I are
citizens of the state of Oklahoma, citizens in the United States. In this
country, some of us are citizens of Indian nations, and so that consideration
was part of that law. It gave an opportunity for tribes to place children
with tribal lands within extended tribal families or other members of the child's tribe.
It was an additional requirement imposed by federal laws since nineteen seventy eight. It
was challenged on a number of bases. One of the bases was the equal
protection clause, the opponents claiming this was a racial preference. There were some
other attacks on the law as well, but the Supreme Court upheld equal the
NHL Welfare Act by a vote of seventy two, which was surprising to me
in terms of the margin. I thought it would be a very close vote.
And that's important because that law tom really has worked. The century before
that law, we know that Native children were adopted away from tribal lands,
Tribal customs were ignored, tribal governments were ignored. In the status of these
little ones were as tribal citizens were ignored, and so that laws worked.
We're glad it's still in the books. Had that law been struck down,
though, Tom, it would have had repercussions for a lot of other laws
that are unique to Indian country, and that worried me. But my worries
are are are put aside for the time being. We know there'll be another
challenge around the corner. But that was a great victory for Indian country.
Indeed, I think I remember a year or two ago you went down to
h I think New Orleans when this is a federal court, and you what
you observed the proceedings there too, Yeah, And I really have just been
there the cheerleader along the way. We had this mad talented legal team of
the Cherokee lawyers and lawyers from other tribes. But I went down to the
Fifth Circuit in New Orleans a couple of years ago. That was that was
in the pre COVID days. Tim that and then as COVID was receding last
year, I went to Supreme ordens set in on those are oral arguments.
And coming out of that experience, I was a bit worried, guarded and
guardedly optimistic, I would say. And so now we have a great victory,
and we'll we'll move on to the next challenge. Now you have a
legal degree. Does does a legal degree have a pretty weckward? Is it
of worry and concern? It does? I think bil DNA, So that's
right, of course. Unfortunately they were much more talented lawyers doing the actual
argument. I'm just sitting back there with my fingers crossed and saying a prayer
to well, it's always good to know that you're thinking of anything and everything
when things are going through there. I meant that as a compliment, though
I don't know if it was taking that way. That's right, but I
understand the Cherokee Nation has purchased the Will Rogers birthplace and tell us a little
bit about that. Yeah, this is exciting and this is something that's a
long time in coming. So the Will Roger's birthplace is near Ulagab. This
is the birthplace. It's the great Will Rogers who of course it's known around
the world, and I'm always amazed on that he's still known around the world.
He has such staying parent in terms of what he meant for the popular
culture for political discourse in this country. In the early part of the twentieth
century, very important figure in history, but the Cherokee, and of course
his birthplace ranch was pre statehood and his family, of course was among the
Cherokees who came to this part of the world as a result of our being
displaced during the nineteenth century. And so that birthplace ranch is a beautiful property
owned by the state of Oklahoma through the Historical Society. We worked a few
years ago on acquiring that property. There's been been some delays, mostly surrounding
just the legalities of transferring something of that nature from the state to the tribe.
But we finalized it, you know, a couple of weeks ago,
beautiful ceremony on a beautiful day in Ooligah, and the properties now ours.
But this is a great partnership because the money that we're spending on this property,
which is around a million dollars, actually we'll all go back into a
local Will Rogers museum, and so we feel good about that investment. We're
going to upgrade this property and make it a real showcase, and I think
it's something everybody will enjoy to get to understand more about Will Rogers, understand
more about what was going on in this part of the world when he was
born and at the story of Cherokees trying to make a living off the land
and during the time in which there was no state of Oklahoma, but the
state of Oklahoma was on the horizon. So it's a really interesting way to
really talk about that part of history. We are talking with the principal chief
of Cherokee Nation, Chuck Hoskin Junior, and the chief. One of the
cool things I just crossed our news desk a couple of days ago as a
story that we've had on the air and on our website was that the Cherokee
Nation federal contractors are in a pretty nice little group according to the Bloomberg Financial
folks top two hundred something like that. Yeah. Yeah, this is a
great story because part of what we've tried to do with Cherocon Nation is diversis
fire business is what many people naturally think about when they think about the business
side of Cheroken Nation is our casinos and of course the Hard Rocks our flagship
and contusive. We have a number of casinos around the region and gaming is
good good to us in terms of revenue and jobs. But really one of
the best kept secrets is that we have this robust federal contracting arm called Cherokee
Federal, which is in all fifty states, about a dozen or more countries
around the world, but not just the geographic presence of Cherokey Nation businesses.
We're doing well in federal contract and we have a capacity that's growing to take
on any number of challenges that the governing the United States might need us to
meet. And that creates jobs, It creates opportunities, and it also again
you know you don't want to call your ex in one baskets, will create
some diversity in our economic portfolio. That's good and to be recognized as really
a strong contractor, I think is something we're proud of. You guys are
into technology big time, and of course a big emphasis has been put on
restoring and can immersing people, more so in Cherokee Nation with the Cherokee language.
And you're going with a thing called an app for that, and they've
got apps for everything. Now we have an app for learning Cherokee language.
That's right, and that's the way we're going to say the language is to
make sure it's accessible to people. Of Course, these days people are accessing
technology and information via their phones an app and so We have an app that
will allow people in this case to access Cherokee hymns and the New Testament that
we partnered with a company called Memorize, and we've got twenty Cherokee language lessons
on Memorize. So we just want to try, basically in all of the
above strategy. So we have opportunity for little kids to be in an immersion
school. We've got an opportunity for adults to learn how to speak Cherokee and
go on to become teachers. But we want to make sure that the great
number of people across the country and around the world I want to access Cherokee
language can do that whether you're in Talent Law of Bartlesville or anywhere around the
world. And so these apps are a way to do that. And so
I think the future of language preservation is certainly tied to technology. We're just
trying to make sure we keep our foothold in it. And I think these
apps, which people can find more out more about on our website Cherokey dot
org. I think he's absolutely good. Well, we have a Cherokey worship
service here on ky one on Sunday, so I Sunday morning audience might want
to pop that on your phone and you can follow what's going on just a
little bit better. But but you know, it's really pretty good and the
host does explain a lot of things. But anyway, that's really kind of
cool getting into the technology aspect of it all. Going into your second term
here, Um, what do you what do you? What are you looking
for moving forward? Here? Are you going to build on what you've already
started or do you have maybe a new vision? Well, we've got some
projects, major projects that we need to see through the Deputy Chief and I
ground Warner, and the biggest ones are hospital and Talentquall. We need to
make sure that that is done and serves its purpose. And its purpose is
going to be I think transformational for healthcare for the chair people because it's going
to double the size of our hospital capacity, ad services and really helped round
out what is an amazing medical campus in Talentquall that includes a state of the
art in patient or outpatient facility, a medical school at Oklahoma State University.
The other aspect of healthcare though, that we've got to work on that.
We have a plan for a five year plan for is behavioral health focused on
drug addiction, and so we've got to build the drug treatment centers that we
have locked down about one hundred billion dollars to do, and we can do
that over the next few years. So those are some areas we've got to
work on. We've got to continue on language preservation and some of the things
that you and I talk about month in and month out, including housing and
taking care of elders. But there is there are some initiatives that we want
to start in the second term. One of them focuses on some grassroots efforts
for Cherokees to solve their own problems. And I think increasingly people don't want
to necessarily look to the government, no matter what the government is, to
solve their problems. They want the tools to solve their own problems and their
own communities. And I think in the coming year you'll hear tom more from
or more from us about how local Cherokees can be empowered to take on their
own local challenges. And so that's something to afford. Very good. Chief
Oskin Junior is Chuck, where can folks get ahold of your Where can they
find out everything that's happening in Cherokee Nation? You have a couple of really
good websites there where folks can really tap in and keep up to date.
So we do that. The hub of it is our main website, Cherokee
dot org. Cherokee dot org a website I like to plug because it's great
for people that want to experience Cherokee cultures. Visit Cherokee Nation dot com.
Whether you want to find out more about our new art gallery in Zanita,
or our museum and talent car or what's going on with Cherokee Holiday. Visit
Cheroke Nation dot com is a great site. People can keep up with me
on social medium at Principal Chief Chuck Hoskins Junior is me on Facebook, I'm
on Twitter. You know these days you got to be everywhere, tom So,
I try to be everywhere. Yes you do. And don't forget the
big Indian Cherokee Nation celebration. The big anniversary is coming up on Labor Day
weekend, right, that's right, Cherokee Holiday, Labor Day weekend. It's
the biggest event of the year for us and it keeps getting bigger and bigger.
So folks can go check that out. If they can do it in
person, great, If not, We'll still have some virtual content. And
I've got it on good authority that it might be warm that day, I
think, so drift, you know, drift this lightly, and make sure
that you consume plenty of nice beverage, because we'll have plenty for sale there.
Why for everything, And by godding, you might just get hungry,
so you might want to hit a food vendor or sit. You won't go
away hungry, but bring a few dollars. And yeah, bring a few
dollars. Walk around and you'll be burnard off, so it'll be calorie neutral.
Chief Chuck Hoskin Junior, thank you very much for being with us today.
All right, thank you my friends. All right,