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Good money, good money, good
morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.

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It is at time now for our
community connection. That's brought to you

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by Arland more Nie cam Funeral Home, Tall Grass Motors and get Real Ministries.

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And right now we have a principal
Chief of Cherokee Nation, Chuck houstin

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Junior. Merry Christmas there, Merry
Christmas time to all of you. Hey,

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this is this has been a big
month for Cherokee Nation, a lot

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of good things going on. I'm
going to go a little out of order

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here because we had the big story
on this about the funding for the cancer

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treatment centers plural. That's a big
deal. Tell us about that. It's

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a big deal. And this is
one of those Cherokee Nation efforts that help

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everyone in the larger region. So
here's what we're up against at the state,

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whether you're Native America or not,
as we need to improve access to

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cancer treatment, no matter who you
are, your background, any of that,

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we need to improve it. And
in the region we've got two really

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important institutions that are making those efforts. So the University of Oklahoma is looking

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to build a cancer treatment center in
the Tulsa metro area. That's big for

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the region. They're an institution through
its Health Science Center that has a lot

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going on in terms of not only
cancer care, but cancer research over in

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Arkansas, at least based in Arkansas. Mercy Health System, which is really

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covering a large part of the United
States with its whole health system, is

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going to build a cancer treatment center
in Fort Smith Whereness Cherygonnation come in.

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Both of these institutions need to raise
capital to build these facilities. They can't

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do it alone. We can't do
it alone. We can contribute. We're

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going to contribute, though, Tom
if we can specifically improve access for our

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patients. We contract out a lot
of cancer care, as you can imagine.

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We'll have our own cancer treatment center, but we contract it out.

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Sometimes it means a great deal of
travel. Sometimes it needs maybe not working

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with these two institutions which are really
needing to scale up their capacity because they

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may just not have the capacity to
do it. So we will. The

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counsel the Cherager Nations authorizes authorize me
and the Deputy Chief of the CHAG Nation

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to negotiate with both these institutions separate
deals. We can increase access for Cherokee

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patients to get cancer treatment. But
here's the thing. When these things are

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built, it's a winner for everybody. It's a winner for everybody's health.

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Anyone who cares about this issue will
know that we're really stepping up together.

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So it's a good news. It's
good news. Not over yet. We've

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got to get tough a process of
negotiating, but we really fell optimistic,

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Tom, that we're going to help
cancer treatment in this region. Well,

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thank you for explaining the good news
there. That is really something else.

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Tell me about this thing I've been
hearing called Goodoogie Corps Gadugie Corps really special

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to me because I think it's what
we need at the cheragre nation and more

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important than what I think, it's
what I've gotten from our communities over the

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years since I've been chief. God
Doogie is a Cherokee word, Tom.

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Now I've talked to you before.
I'm not a Cherokee speaker. I know

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this is one I know, and
it's really special work. God Doogie needs

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working together. That's really a universal
concept that I think across humanity we can

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get behind. But it's this idea
that's rooted in Cherokee culture back to time

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immemorial. It's really why we're here. I mean, Cherokee people wouldn't be

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here if we didn't have each other's
back and look at the world as something

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that we share in in terms of
problems, opportunities, et cetera. So

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God Doogie Corps is comparable to what
you might think about when you think of

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America Corps or the Civilian Conservation Corps
from the New Deal era, where the

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government isn't doing command and control out
of some bureaucracy to solve problems. What

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we're helping empower people at the grassroots
to do it. So the concept of

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God Doog be core is let's put
up to three million dollars a year of

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our funds into a program that can
get behind volunteer efforts that's going on in

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communities. I think just the other
day, Tom I was noticing up in

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Washington County that a local Cherokee organization
and Toys for Tots, that wonderful program

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got together and just harnessed all the
goodwill in the community up there and got

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a lot of toys and got them
out to kids on all the time.

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But if we can do something at
the chairgre nation to get behind that kind

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of effort or elsewhere there might be
an effort to help kids in some of

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our rural areas, rural communities where
maybe the education attainment is too low because

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of maybe you look at reading schools
and you say they're too low. Let's

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do a reading camp with people in
the community that can do it, who

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are Cherokee, get together and do
what God do you Core could empower them

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as National service participants. Maybe it's
a college kid or volunteers, maybe it's

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a retiree. The idea is,
let's get behind really good efforts at the

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local level. Because I really believe
this time chair Conation is growing. As

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a government, I think we do
a lot well. But I've seen governments

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and you've seen them to lose their
way they get big. You've seen companies

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lose their way, they get big. We don't want to get out of

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touch at the chair Core nation.
We want to sort of get back to

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the basics. And that is the
idea that it all starts at the community.

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If there's community volunteer efforts going on, we don't want to step on

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them, but we want to get
behind them. Tom So that's the idea.

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We're looking forward to seeing that program
develop and we should roll some more

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details out later in the spring.
All right, we're looking forward to that.

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By the way, you touched on
something that a councilwoman, Doris Paskowski

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did up there in Dewey with the
Toys for Tots. I hadn't seen anything

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that big in a long time.
That that was really something else, getting

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together with the Marine Corps and doing
that. Yeah, she's a great leader,

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and there's an example of Cherokee who
brought several different entities together and knew

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something really good and it was good
for everybody, and it's something we all

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ought to reflect on from time to
time. Now you've got a legal background,

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do you not? She that's true? Okay, because the next one

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we're going to go into here,
I want to ask you about this Criminal

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Justice Task Force. Is this something
new or is this something existing that's looking

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to gain a little bit more more
size. This is new and it reflects

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I hope that Cherokee Nation is being
very thoughtful when it comes to seizing these

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opportunities under the McGirt case and everything
that has come after that. There's plenty

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of headlines and plenty of issues that
could reflect tension here or there or political

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disagreement. What this task force is
focus on is, let's look at where

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we are at the Cherokee nation in
really three important areas. One is our

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sentencing, our approached to sentencing criminal
defendants who've been convicted. What's our approach

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or we're giving our judges the opportunity
to craft sentences that are in everybody's best

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interest. And we all have an
interest, certainly in punishing criminals. Then

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they need to be held accountable.
We have an interest certainly in making sure

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that they pay the price. We
protect victims and give justice to victims through

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sentencing, but we also want to
be smart about sentencing. We want to

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make sure that we understand that if
a Cherokee is imprisoned by is it her

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own government, that they're not forgotten
that if we determine is there a path

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to coming back? Is there a
path to restoration? We all want that

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and so sentencing reform is one part
of this task force. We now have

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a few years under our belt.
Since McGirt, we've filed ten three hundred

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nineteen selony or misdemeanor cases. We've
got a body of work. We can

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look at what we've done. The
second thing is re entry program. Tom.

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We've had a re entry program for
some time, but here's and it's

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related to the first concept. When
someone leaves incarceration, they leave detention,

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and they come back into society.
Their success or failure all is in all

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of our interest, and I think
we want them to be successful people.

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We want them to be personally responsible
for their own actions and recovery if there's

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a recovery involved, and no matter
how that takes shape, recovering from their

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past misdeeds. But we also know
that if they fail, there's a high

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chance of recidivism, there's a high
chance that we'll have to pay in some

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way to care for them. We
want them to go if their able body,

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to be employed, get housing,
all that sort of thing. So

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program has helped many of those people, but now we have a much larger

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body of people that are coming out
of a system and we have to,

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I think look at scaling up that
re entry program that we've had for close

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to a decade. Now. Finally, Tom, the third piece, and

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this is a challenging piece that is
going to be with Cherokee Nation leaders for

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the time going forward, but long
beyond my time in office, and that

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is detention facilities. Right now,
Tom, people should get an understanding of

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this. We don't operate a prison
directly. We don't operate a jail directly.

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We have I think sixteen contracts with
different facilities. Almost all of those

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are counties, so fourteen counties.
We have agreements with local jails, and

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then we have a prison contract and
we have a juvenile contract. That is

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what we have to do in the
near term, Tom, in order to

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meet our obligation to prosecute people and
send them behind bars. But that's what

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a government has to do. Long
term, though, Tom, we have

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to evaluate do we need to operate
our own prison, our own jails.

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Do we need cooperated with other governments, perhaps other tribes. So I'm wanting

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our task force to look at that
issue. Three really important issues among many

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when it comes to criminal justice.
But I just want the people to know

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whether they're cherokey or not. But
the chir Coy nation takes this serious.

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We were thoughtful about it and we've
got some really great experts on this task

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force. Now let's see if we
can't lighten this up a little bit.

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We had a very special thing happened
earlier this month it was a doll made

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in the likeness of Wilma Mankiller notes
any doll, it was a Barbie doll,

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it was a Barbiedell Tom, and
it was something that caught a lot

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of public attention. And overall,
this is such a wonderful thing. Wilma

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Mankiller as someone who as time goes
by, she starts to inspire more and

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more people. And what I really
love about Wima Mankiller's legacy in herself is

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that she's impacting in a positive way
people, whether they're Cherokee or not.

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People who read her story find it
so compelling. A young woman who went

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out and fought for social justice in
the Civil rights era, a young woman

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who raised as a single mom two
wonderful daughters, one of whom has passed

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away together is still with this wonderful
lady named Felicia Elijah her the only living

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daughter. But Wilma raises these girls, comes back home to Cherokee Nation,

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becomes a community organizer. That idea
of God Doogie Tom that you and I

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were talking about at the top of
our discussion, she embraced that and really

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inspired a lot of people all before
she became Chief Tom. She becomes chief,

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and she becomes a pioneer in terms
of being the first woman chief,

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very progressive chief. She got so
much done. She's passed away, of

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course, and has left the legacy. But for Mattel to say, this

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is an iconic woman that the world
needs to know about, that kids need

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to know about, and I think
that's something special. There was a little

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bit of a rough patch in terms
of the rollout. We weren't involved at

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Chery Nation in terms of the design
or we weren't consulted. There's a whole

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separate legal reasons for that. There's
an a state that's involved in the man

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Killer doll. Mattel is a private
company. But I think overall it was

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something worthy of celebration. We had
a great celebration Tom December the fifth,

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and it was really like a memorial
to Wilma Mankiller. But it was very

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powerful, and I'm very proud of
the fact that more people know about Wilma

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Mankiller around the globe now than they
did before. Well, a lot of

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folks were saying that Wilma didn't have
that big ego, and I heard her

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relatives speaking on our own airways saying, you know that it's nice the doll's

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nice. Man. I think she
probably would have shied away from it a

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little bit just because of her personally
interesting idea. And I think that's true

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from people who knew her and knew
of her, that she would not have

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put herself out there. But I
did hear a couple of really I think

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very insightful and thought comments from people
that were very close to her. What

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they said was, we think that
she would look at this as on the

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balance, if it helps inspire a
young person or helps with progress in Indian

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country, that she would lend herself
to something like this, even though it

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wouldn't be top of her mind.
Mean, she never wanted to put herself

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out there at a celebrity, but
my impression is that she appreciated the fact

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that her celebrity, her notoriety could
be used for good. And if this

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does something good, if some little
girl out there is inspired that she can

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be a leader of a nation or
do something else, great. I think

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woman say, hey, you know, I'm not the person to put my

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face on a on a Barbie doll, but maybe it was. Maybe it

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was for the greater good. So
who knows that that's that's something we'll never

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know, but I do know that
will my man kill was great. She's

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also appeared on Money, hasn't she. She yeh, she's on the quarter,

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and a couple of years ago the
mint issue to coord her. And

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to this day I keep some orders
around and if I see a Cherokee kid,

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particularly a little girl, I tell
him about Wilma's story and I say,

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look, I may not end up
on a Chucky Cheese token, but

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this lady's on a quarter and she's
somebody worth an emulator. Oh man,

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I tell you, it is always
great spending time with you. Chief Chuck

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Hoskin Jr. By Principal Chief of
Cherokee Nation. Merry Christmas. Hope you

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got great plans for the family,
and I hope you get to spend a

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lot of time together. You too, my friend, talk to you later,

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Okay, very well,