Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It's time now for our community connection in today we have Track Hoskin Junior,
your principal chief of Cherokee Nation. Long time, no see about a
week. How you been, Hey, Tom, I've been good and it
was good to see you last week. Well, well, you've got a
big to do up there in Dewey. That is a beautiful building you have
up there. It really is. I think it is something that's a great
asset for the community generally, but certainly a great asset for Cherokee Nation.
So of course, what we're talking about is the new cheroy You Nation Community
building, the newest Chery Nation community building. It's located at seven hundred East
Durham Road and Dewey, formerly a church. Very good building we put we
put a lot of resources in it to rehab it and it's really a showcase.
So it's a great venue for public events, for meetings. It's got
a great kitchen. We've upgraded. It's going to tom be a hub of
Cherokee life in that part of Washington County. We'll have cultural class us as
language classes, history classes. But it's also something that again the community can
use as a local community organization called Cherokee Cultural Community that's a nonprofit. They'll
rent that building out and of course you know spaces space is needed for all
sorts of family and public events, and so that community's got another one and
Cherke Nation is proud to be providing it. Well, dany what we had
a housefall, that's for sure. Set even was at a premium standing room
only after one hundred plus, yes, sir, was something else. Now
we had something a very big take place. Something was mentioned during the Cherokee
National Holiday and it was a very special week was so Cherokee National Holiday is
and you know, I've talked about this for years and I look forward to
it every year, Labor Day weekend, every year chero National Holiday. But
it really is something that kicks off as we get into the into the spring
in the summer months and so we are gearing out for it. We have
our traditional games are back and those games over the period of last ten twenty
years have been something that take root in the community. So marble stickball and
other games cornstock shoot, people locally will participate and they'll make their way to
the finals if you will. At the Cherokee National Holiday. So those parts
of Cherogy National Holiday are kicking off. The overarching theme this year though,
at the holiday is building our nation, strengthening our sovereignty, and so as
to get through the summer. Tom you'll see more from the Cherokee Nation in
terms of what that means, in terms of themes and terms of activities that
it all builds to that Labor Day weekend. People can find out more at
each Cherokee Holiday dot com. That's a good way to kick off just beautiful
springtime. But of course we're dealing with a lot of issues at the Cherokey
Nation, some very encouraging and some a bit discouraging. We're dealing with missinggan
merged Indigenous women. We're dealing though, with other things like college scholarship.
So it really runs the game at We've got to challenges ahead, but we're
taking them on. You know, until this was really brought to light a
couple of years ago, I did not realize the number of people who go
missing or murdered who just happened to be Indigenous people. That those numbers are
alarming. They are, and I admit this freely when I speak publicly about
it. I am among I would say a lot of public officials who just
didn't have this in my consciousness. And of course I'm obviously Native American.
I've obviously we've been in Cherokee leadership for a while. It was twenty nineteen
the first time that I ran across the TOM. I'm in Jay, Oklahoma
for another purpose, and there's a rally going on about missing and mur Indigenous
women, and that's when I came to learn about statistics about how disproportionately Native
women in this country are victims of violent crime or victims of domestic violence,
are victims of crimes that go unsolved, and in many cases it's it's that
they're missing and potentially victims of crimes. Part of it TOM is historic because
of where people live on tribal lands, what resources are in our most importantly
not available. Some of it's the jurisdictional overlaps, which in Oklahoma we've done
I think a good job collectively of addressing, but across the nation not as
good. Where you have gaps in law enforcement created again by some really strange
aspects of the federal law that leaves some gaps and sometimes tension between local police
departments and tribal police departments. All of that leaves the victim out in the
cold, sometimes literally out in the cold, sometimes dying sometimes did All those
statistics, though, and all those reasons have spurred us at Chern Nation to
action. So we've taken some action last week. We recognize Missing and Murdered
Indus People awareness, Monk, but we also recognize that we've made some progress.
And so you know, sometimes Tom, there's tension with the state of
Oklahoma not on this issue. Work with the legislature, and the governor signed
a bill two years ago to play an MMIW agent with the Oklahoma State Uer
of an investigation. So if a young Native woman goes missing, there's not
this chaos among law enforcement. There's in fact, coordination, and so that's
a sign that the state and the tribes work together to take this serious.
We put a great deal of effort into domestic violence programs, in the victim
services programs. We have our own Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person agent that helps
coordinate. So I see Tom, fortunately, people in leadership positions across different
governments working together, even though it took us too long to get here,
but we are here, and so I feel like we're making some progress,
but I think we just need to continue to put this in the consciousness of
the public. Make people understand that you're a Native woman in this country,
you are more likely to suffer from violent crime, domestic violence, and your
crime is going to go and solve more likely than not. We on a
better note, tires are being a little bit more positive here. We were
talking about college scholarship assistance and how is this coming along. Yeah, it's
coming along nicely. The Cherokee Nation today has about five thousand people on scholarships.
That's a great investment. I mean that means Cherokees that go through college
are going to be in a position to have better earning power, have better
options with their careers, hopefully live in their communities, and help build those
communities up stronger economically. It also does something for a family to have a
college educated household, colleges and for everyone. That's why we put twenty nine
million dollars in the last few years into career tech. But for those who
want to pursue college, we're there for them. So right now to two
thousand dollars scholarship, We're going to bump that up to twenty five hundred over
the next two years. We're talking, though, Tom, about millions and
millions of dollars added to this program, and so it's not an insignificant number,
but it's a great investment. I think the real challenge for the Cherokey
Nation in the future is to make sure we do our part to build up
a workforce that's ready for the jobs at tomorrow, and so not only giving
more scholarship dollars tom, but making sure there's jobs at home and so all
of that, though, is a holistic approach, or it calls for a
holistic approach. Certainly, funding college scholarships isn't the only part of that,
but it's a big part of it. So college kids can expect more money
in their pockets than the years to come. What some people may or may
not know is that Charon Key Nation, your industries are more than just the
hospitality industry. You've got aeronautic, You've got just about everything going on their
construction. Yeah, he runs the gamut or really getting into it security,
which Tom is just something that if you're like me, you may not fully
understand it security, but we benefit from it every day or we're thankful that
it works with thankful net work, and when it doesn't work, we sure
know about it. But we're also talking about big systems for the government of
the United States, for other governments and corporations. So we're getting into that
aspect of it that calling upon us to need a generation of Cherokees that are
IT experts. We also need a generation of Cherokees that are medical experts.
We need a generation that are business leaders that can go into all facets of
the many, many business sectors that were in it. It's a great time.
I think about my great grandfather and my grandfather rather who was an ironworker,
full blood Cherokee iron worker, and he could never imagine I think that
we'd live in a world with Cherokee Nation would be commanding this much of the
economy and the different business sectors in terms of needing workers, needing trained people,
and really leading the way. So if people right now, whether the
Cherokee or not, want a job, I'd encourage them to check out our
website to go to Cherokee jobs dot org. There's a lot of jobs out
there, Tom and they're all over the country. And chief one thing that
you have that a lot of places in Oklahoma don't, but they wish is
a nice sound stage to produce video productions and also things for the computer as
well. Yeah, that is the way of the future. One of the
things we're looking at the Chery Nation is how can we get into things that
are really permanent industries in this country. There's a lot of industries historically that
are up and down. Multimedia creative content, those are really permanent industries.
Whether we're talking about Netflix or the movie industry, or a local commercial TV
production that's going to be here, why shouldn't it be in the Cherry Nation.
If you go down to a Losso which is not too far from where
you're sitting, you can see this state of the art studio where we've had
films produced. We've had you entry level content produced, high end content produced.
But it's really part of the future. And so people growing up as
Cherokees now that want to be storytellers can do so in a state of the
art facility. If they want to be filmmakers, they can do so close
to home. They want to work in any of the number of trade that
are created by the film and TV industry. The generation coming up tom is
going to have a better chance to do it than you and I could have
ever hoped to. And so that's exciting. No, indeed, indeed,
are you taking applications now for Summer Youth Work program? So schools, schools
out, Baby, it's time to go to work. It's time to get
to work, and it's fun to work for the Cherocky Nation or some of
our partner employers. What we do is we pay the wage of these young
people, and people can go to our website Cherokee dot org right now and
find out more information. But we pay the wages and they'll work either for
the Cherokey Nation or they might work out in the community and work out for
businesses. And for many of these young people, it's the first time they've
earned a paycheck and the pride that comes along with that. Tom, Tom,
I couldn't write a check big enough or create some you know, support
program big enough to cover the invaluable pride that a young person gets when they
go through a summer and have worked. And that pride is something we want
them to take through their entire lives. That we feel like if we make
the investment now, it's the best investment we can make, no matter what
they do in life. I think they're going to have a great summer with
the pride of work and earning a paycheck, and that is just priceless.
It is. We're talking with Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation, Chock Honskin Junior.
And you know, once again, if folks want to know a little
bit more about what's going on with the tribe, they've got a couple of
websites for you to take a look at. Yeah, I encourage everybody to
go to Cherokee dot org. That's the hub of everything, Cherokee dot org.
People can find me on social media and I provide a lot of content
a lot of these subjects we talk about. My Facebook page is Principal Chief
Chuck Hoskins Junior, a chege Nation Principal to Chuck Hoskins Junior. Lots of
content there. People can go though, if they're interested in the Cherokee National
Holiday to the Cherokee Holliday dot com and Tom you've seen it, you've been
there. A couple of hundred thousand people could descend on talent call this Labor
Day weekend. If people who are interested, get interested, now book your
room. It's a great time. It is it is I understand that the
elections are coming up. What is that first part of June. First part
of June, June, the third. We encourage people to get out and
vote. It's always healthy for democracy with more people vote, and I think
they'll be high turnout this year. At this point in the cycle, Tom,
people who are registered to vote, the deadlines pass, people who have
requested an absentee ballots, the deadlines pass, ballots are going out, but
people can go out to their polls. And again Cherokee's interested in go to
Cherokee dot org and find out just done, buy a spacing information about the
election. That's what it's all about. I tell you what, Cherokee Nation
is a robust democracy and we see it every day