Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It is time now to visit with Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. With the
Cherokee Nation. And good day, sir, how are you today? Well,
good day to you, Tom. It is great to be with you.
It is always really nice to be in studio. I haven't been here
for a number of years, but here I am. What a great time
that we've had this week in the great city of Bartlesville. Oh, yet
big event earlier today with the Big Conversation I call it the Big Conversation because
it was long overdue. Well, it was wonderful to be hosted by the
Kawanas Club here in Bartlesville. You know, nationwide Kwanas does great things.
They do great things locally here in Bartlesville. To share some time also with
Lieutenant Governor the State of Oklahoma, Matt Panel, that's special. He and
I are interested a great deal in cultural tourism, the film and TV industry.
That's some of the message that we shared with the group today. Also
just talking more broadly about the impact that shared makes here locally. We're proud
of it. It's measured in jobs, it's measured in millions and millions of
dollars in contributions and a lot of economic impact. And it feels good to
talk about it. Really, indeed it is. I understand the folks in
Dewey have really been getting the good benefit now having that nice building up there,
the Cultural Center in Dewey, and the folks have just been saying,
what a nice little resource that is. Actually it's a big resource. Last
they saw it. It's good size. It is a good size. You
know that. We really broke the news here on your program. It's been
more than a year when we acquired that building and then we remodeled it.
It's located and do it's a former church, but we've really turned it into
a showcase where the local community organization, Cherokee Cultural Community can host its meeting,
can bring in cultural classes and speakers. They've already been doing that.
The great thing that we did this week is expanded more services into Washington County.
Tom, I'm talking about career services, I'm talking about human services.
They are now located in that wonderful building in Dewey. That means Cherokees in
this part of the Cheroke Nation can have an easier time accessing those really important
services. I mean, you think about people that are trying to get on
track with their career, get job training, that's career services. You think
about people that are in a tough financial situation. The safety net programs that
our Human Services Department provides are really important and they'll be provided right out of
Dewey. This is an amazing thing. Every time we talk, good things
have been happening. You just signed into legislation a lot of good things of
the Goadoogi program. It was something that was brought up by John Weston just
yesterday. He's a Kawanian and also a vital member of a Cherokee nation.
This is something we talked about on an earlier episode. But you know,
you're pretty proud of this, proud of this. This is the Godougie core
and what the vision there is is to get behind grassroots efforts for Cherokees to
help Cherokee. So think about people that are in these community organizations, whether
it's Cherokee Cultural Community, the organization in Dewey or down the road at the
Washington County Cherokee Association which is located in Osha, Leda. These are places
where Cherokees can solve problems locally. It might be helping out kids with a
reading camp. It might be responding to natural disaster when Tom, you and
I both know you if a tornado hits, or there's flooding, or there's
a power outage or water outage, the first people on the scene is friends
and neighbors. And if you can help friends and neighbors do that kind of
work, that's great. In fact, we had the head of our Goddogie
Corps, who's a guy named Sean Critten, came to Washington County just last
week and he held kind of a workshop talking about this concept. We're really
excited about it. It's going to take a great deal of resources, but
it's the most important resource is going to be that human talent that desire to
volunteer. We're just starting this program. We'll have more to report down the
road. Oh, very very good. Other things you were talking about,
like a service, housing and just everything the Cherokee Nation takes care of for
its citizens. Elaborate on some of these because these are great stories. These
are great stories. I mean, one of the challenges that everyone living in
Northeast Oklahoma has is really a housing crisis. We all know people who might
be living on the margins, and it may be because of rent. Rent
goes up, Tom when housing stock does not keep up with demand. That's
what we're facing in Northeast Oklahoma. So what do we do about it?
Well, Cherokee Nation can't completely solve the problem, but we're doing I think
our part. We're in the midst of right now, TOM one hundred and
twenty million dollars in housing investment. It's a law called the Housing, Jobs
and Sustainable Communities Act. We're seeing the fruits of that legislation in lots of
places. I was in Muskogie last week with the Deputy Bryan Warner. We
saw great housing addition. Today I got a chance to stop by Oceanleda and
see the site where we're going to build three duplexes which will be for elders.
We'll expand beyond that, we're going to also build some additional units down
the calendar a bit on something called the one eighty four Skilled Workers Program.
That means that that property, which is next to the Cherokee Nation Health Center
in the little town of Oceanlada, will build some additional units that will be
made on an affordable basis available to people that are in the healthcare field,
among other fields. So we're trying to take care of elders, we're trying
to take care of working people. All of that, Tom, is to
say, we're doing our part to improve and increase housing stock in this area,
because if we don't do that, we're going to continue, Tom to
see the kind of problems that we see in lots of communities where people are
struggling to pay rent, they're struggling to find affordable housing. If they're struggling,
Tom, guess who else is struggling. Employers in the region who need
to hire people that make sure they have a good place to live. All
of this has a domino effect or ripple effect. We want to get those
dominoes and ripples going in the right direction. And so this investment, which
people can see in real terms in Washington County, I think is very impactful.
Education has always been a big one for you and for the tribe it
is. I mean, I can go back, and we won't go down
a history class too far today, Tom, but we could go back to
a subject that you and I have talked about before, which is after removal,
what did the Cherokee people do. We took seventy cents of every dollar
and we put it into education. So we're just following in the footsteps of
our ancestors when we do things like we did a couple of weeks ago,
which is we increased spending on higher education. Now, Tom, we already
spend in any given year about nineteen million dollars to send folks to college,
send Cherokees to college. We added some merit scholarships on top of that.
In other words, the top performers that are coming out of high school might
be Bartlesville High School on their way to Miama Mater, University of Oklahoma,
or Northeastern State University, or closer to home, Rogers State. Any college
that they want to attend, We're going to give them extra help to go
there, with about a ninety five thousand dollars annual investment on top of that
nineteen million. All of that is for this reason, Tom, we want
to get behind our people getting an education. We want them to come to
work for us. Now, Tom, we employ nationwide about eleven thousand plus
employees. That number grows all the time. We've got people working here in
this area. Tom, you and I are going to retire someday, surely,
and who's going to take our place. A lot of these kids coming
out of high school, we've got to get behind them. So we're working
on higher education. Public education, though, is really important to us.
And I'll tell you what, I'm proud of what we do year in and
year out for public education. Well you should be. That's a lot of
good work. You know. You talk about the true being a job provider.
You've got a lot of businesses and it's more than just a casino or
in the hospitality business. You're into Aaron Audis and a few other things.
We're into a really wide array of things. One thing that I like people
to understand is a couple of things have happened in the last six or seven
years. One is we've doubled the dividend coming out of our businesses paid to
the Cherokee Nation that we turn into those scholarships I just told you about that
we turn into jobs, we turn into housing. We've doubled that. So
in other words, that shows that our businesses are very profitable. But if
you look behind that top line number, where we've doubled the profits that come
to the Cherokee Nation. What you see is a business enterprise, Tom,
that is mostly not gaming. Now, when we go down the highway and
we see the hard rock, that's impressive. I'm impressed by it, and
it tells a story that that's a big part of Cherokee Nation businesses. But
if you look at the spreadsheets, Tom, what you find is that's actually
a minority anymore of our business portfolio. You mentioned what we're in. We're
in aeronautics, We're in IT security, we're in construction. We're in a
lot of things that serve the federal government in terms of contracting. We work
with the Department of Health and Human Services as they're dealing with housing people who
are displaced because of various international crises. We're in fifty states, We're in
more than a dozen countries around the world. All of that does this though,
Tom, and this is what I want listeners to understand. No matter
what we do, no matter where we go, every penny comes back home.
Where's our home Northeast Oklahoma. Our home is Bartlesville and all the other
communities that people call home here. And it ends up in the form Tom
of millions of dollars, lifting people up, individuals up that need help,
Individuals that need to go get an education, communities that need to say build
a road or supportive boys and girls club. You can go through this town,
Tom and you may not see Cherokee Nations name on it, but you
can feel it. All of those dollars in this multi billion dollar enterprise.
It's all coming back home. Very good, very good on you, as
they say, this is our community connection. And we're talking with Principal Chief
of Cherokee Nation, Chuck Hoskin Jr. So much to catch up on.
We see each other every now and then, but we don't see each other
in the studio. And it is one of these things that I just don't
want to leave anything behind because we have so much information what happened we covered
that we really need to put a spotlight. Well, there's a great deal
to cover. Let me circle back to education. Do that. Let me
circle back to education, because if you have a child in Bartsville Public School
or a public school in this area, or if you're somebody that believes in
public education, you should be excited about what we're going to do here in
about a month, because we're going to issue another set of checks to public
schools. We take our compact, our Vehicle Tribal Tag Compact with the State
of Oklahoma. We take the revenue we get from there, and we put
it into a lot of good things. Tom, thirty eight percent of what
we get selling car tags goes into everyone's public school that's listening to me right
now, and about one hundred and nine school districts total, that's millions of
dollars. Last year is about seven point five million in Washington County overall,
since the compact began, we've given about two point nine million that since two
thousand and two. We're going to give another set of checks to Washington County
public schools and all the public schools here in about a month. Here's what
I want people to understand. We do that because we've reached in a historic
agreement with the state of Oklahoma in two thousand and two. We've updated that
over the years. Right now, though, Tom, as you know,
we've been in a bit of a back and forth with the governor over compact.
I think it's not just us, it's multiple tribes. Our compact has
been extended for one year by the legislature. If at the end of this
year, we don't reach a renewed compact. What happens we keep selling car
tax, Tom, but the legal structure of the compact, which sends money
to police and fire and public schools and roads one point seven million dollars I
think to TSSA public schools every year that vanishes and we don't want to see
that. We want to keep this going. And so what you'll hear me
talk about over the course of the next few months is making sure we get
an extension on the compact. Be glad to come back here and talk about
that as it develops. All that though, goes to education. We got
to keep that going. Tom, very good. I'll just show we've got
a big thing in Dewey. What's the big announcement. Well, in Dewey,
we had such a great time with the local Cherokee organization at our community
building and we announced that Human Services and Career Services too, great program for
the Cherokey Nation will operate out of that wonderful facility in Dewey. That means
Tom, that if you're a Cherokee living in this area and you previously had
to drive to Talaqua or clam or any number of other places, you can
stay close to home. And I'm going to tell you if you're struggling and
you need human services, stay close to home is really important. If you're
struggling trying to get your career on track and you need career services, you
don't want to have to drive an hour away. Close to home. Dewey
is a great community right here next to great Bartlesville already, and we do
have our council woman here, Dorian Smith Batkowski, who's been a very good
advocate for our community up here, for Cherokee Nation and also for pretty much
anyone who has a U you're concerned. She really listens. Well. She's
a champion. You know. She sponsored the legislation that put all of those
new dollars into scholarships. I'd be remiss if I didn't, and she'd get
after me, Tom if I didn't tell you that right now, thanks to
her, you can go to Cherokeefoundation dot org. We'll put that up on
our website or in our social media and you can look at some of these
new scholarships. You can thank Counselor Patzkowski for that. She's always a blessing,
haven't you here