Hello. Okay. I guess we start now. Huh? I guess so. Uh anyway so uh I
came down from the Navajo Nation to talk to malin Parker who told me at
the time that yes you has gotten a federal grant to do vista volunteer
training. And Mr volunteer is an off spin of the Peace Corps program. And
uh it's something that A. S. U. Was very proud to receive. And uh Mr
volunteers were volunteers that came to ASU for their training. And those
students were then assigned to an indian reservation and not necessarily
with any specific duties except to help the community right proposal, make
contacts for the local communities to outside businesses and write letters
, right resolutions and in many cases getting involved in school community
activities and all of that. But before they go out these Mr volunteers had
to be trained and become sensitive to indian desires and then wishes and
the kind of activities that they can get involved in. So during the
training program while they were on campus here at A. S. U.
We uh work with them and place them during the training as part of the
training process uh and put them out in indian communities. And my job was
to bring them together in the evenings and have lectures on what they
experienced during the day and they were trying to get themselves involved
and after ground with some of the projects that they were involved and
with local communities. And so that was my job was really to help the
volunteers And uh and it was done right here out of a S. U. And so I did
that for two years. Uh and I really enjoyed working with many, many
american indian leaders, not only here in the southwest and I had to take
these volunteers to the local tribal government. I also went and drove
across the country to places like north south Dakota. It was that the
indian tribes up there and some of the vista volunteers who were assigned
uh to those tribes into Minnesota ST paul Oklahoma.
And so I got to know many uh indian leaders at the time here in the
southwest. It was with the pueblos in new Mexico and then practically all
the tribe here in the state of Arizona. And so my job was just to visit
them out in the field and give them some encouragement and and then try to
correct some of those things that they ran into as a volunteer. And so
that was something that I really really cherished in doing it. I I think
I'll never ever get involved in that kind of uh services again where you
had nothing, you didn't have any money. Uh pay wise. Yes I was paid but it
was very little and I had to live like uh the volunteers and be able to
start projects with without anything. And it was just getting the
community residents involved in solving some of their local problems. And
so I I left that after two years. And I think this happened in Something
like 1967,
that's when I resigned. And Or maybe it was 1966. I resigned from here
from a shoe and then went to work for uh huh DNA people's legal services I
believe. I was the second or the third person employed by the legal
services program. There was a young man by the name of Theodore Mitchell.
And then the Navajo person Leo Haven. And I was the third one coming on
board. And our job was to meet every day and to plan the legal services
program on the Navajo reservation. And once we start started the Navajo
program, then we branched out into apaches uh White Mountain and out to
the Hopi reservation. And then we also took in other poor folks, all the
indigent people in the southwest. And so we established offices in tuba
City on the Hopi reservation. White Mountain Apache and then all the five
agencies on the Navajo then eventually branching out into a farming town
area and uh Flagstaff and those places where there were high population
density of the poor folks. And so we were at that time uh just
representing everyone.
And the money that we got came from O. E. O. Office of Economic
opportunity in Washington. And I remember it was right about at this point
that Hillary clinton, uh the senator from new york and now the
presidential candidate who was involved in the legal services program. And
she served on the legal services national board. There was appointed by a
democratic president. It may have been uh jimmy carter that appointed her.
And so I had to work with all at the National Legal Services Board to
keep the american indian legal program going. And DNA being the largest
legal services program in America, it had a lot of spunk, it had a lot of
good things that we were doing that attracted some excellent lawyers
through the program. And uh and my job was to recruit lawyers from across
the nation. I always started each year, let's say at Harvard or boston
University and came down to uh Yale Cornell, N. Y. U. In new york city and
john marshall in Chicago. And then here in the Southwest University of
Arizona, U. C. L. A. U. S. C. University of California stanford University.
So I had on my list maybe something like 20 or so uh Law school. And I
kept a record of all the students that are interviewed and at the end of
their third year upon graduation I just wrote them a letter and revisit
some of them and they came to work to DNA. And during the summer months of
course they came to him DNA and the Navajo and we place them out in the
agency field offices to get their work experience. And so that was one of
my responsibility for DNA. And as we were taken in cases
because it was a free legal services. We had all these indian people that
just came left and right and our offices was always full every morning
with people that came with legal problem whether it be a divorce problem
or employment uh problems that the indian people were facing
discrimination that they had experienced in the cities and land problem or
problem with their social Security or problem with them being fired by the
tribal government. Be a indian health service, maybe a malpractice case
out of indian health service. So we were involved in so many cases, an
assortment of cases. There was just no no limitation as to the kind of
problems that the people brought to us. And one of the things that was an
outstanding two outstanding feature of DNA people's legal services that I
really really like Who was # one. Uh huh. It instead of putting out all of
your workforce out into the agencies and they take any case day after day
after day which was endless. Uh in terms of accepting those cases, we
created what we call a law reform unit. That meant that you went out and
you got the most experienced lawyer and put it at your central office and
all they would worry about is looking for those law reform cases Where we
can pick a case one case go to court, win it and then that will allow all
the other cases to follow suit to follow the example and the decision that
that people derived at and it covered some of the cases that were pending
at those local offices. And so it ends up to reform and the laws, the laws
that were affecting the poor people here in the southwest. And so that was
an important and feature and we had some of the uh great lawyers with much
, much skills and we took from that law reform unit uh took many cases to
the United States Supreme Court and I'll just talk about one or two of
them. One of them was a Mcclanahan case. The Mcclanahan case was a case
where rosal mcclanahan was being taxed a personal income while she was
working uh and living on the neighborhood nation. And uh we handled that
case and took it all the way to the United States Supreme Court and the
court ruled in her favor and they said that she has her allegiance back to
the Navajo government and she uh does not have to pay the state income tax
because if that was the case, then she would be allowed the state to tax
her those tax money would be used off reservation to build roads and other
infrastructure in the Supreme Court. Saw where all that those monies were
needed back on the reservation. So that was a very, very important case
that DNA was involved in Another one was what they call a controversial
one. A trader case where we had traders on the Navajo nation and those
traders that were at the time doing business with the Navajo people, the
Navajo people would pawn, they're saddled their jewelry, uh, any belonging
that they have, they would pawn it with the traders, but in return, the
traders did not give them any kind of a receipt and the interest rate that
they would collect once the uh the uh neighborhood people would generate
enough money to get those upon articles back to them. And so there was no
way of keeping a record of that. And the traders were really taken
advantage in many cases with a non english speaking Navajo, the cost of
cigarettes would go way way up high below the above the market value and
many of the items that they were selling, their trader would essentially
be the same. But what we were concerned about was the Navajo poor folks
that we're dealing with the traders and how they, the traders would
intentionally uh lose much of their upon article and according according
to them, they would walk after premise and you'll never see it again. And
the poor never with people said upon my saddle here and upon my jewelry
here, How come it's not here. So that was kind of like an endless argument
that happened. So we brought in uh Federal Trade Commission two get after
the traders and the B. I. A and have some kind of pond ticket that they
can issue to make sure that the interest rate that they were charging was
reasonable. And then it was their ticket also to ensure that those upon
articles don't get lost and sold to tourists and other people. And so that
was also a famous case that we handled, it was mandated by the courts to
do that. Of course there was an education right about this time In 19 late
1960 68, 67. Uh huh. There were practically very very few uh public school
supported by the state financially and having those public schools located
on the Navajo nation. And I can think of schools like chin lee for example
and Rough rock. And when the Rock High School to achieve high school
Newcomb Crown point and Navajo Pine right at the sawmill there, those
kinds of schools, there were non existence and it was through a case that
DNA has been involved in, that we handled through the federal system where
the judge mandated that these local school districts also build schools on
the neighborhood nation as well as in their own county. And what really
moved the jets in those cases were how the neighborhood people wanted
their Children to get an education. They were very insistent. And uh and
then the other thing that really caught the eyes of the the church was
that many of these neighborhood kids when they get on the bus in the
morning, they had to be bus uh 60 70 mi, 80 miles away to go to a public
school off the reservation. And I remember a federal judge in Salt Lake
City making a comment when the day is steady. If they go out into the
street, go out into the highway at five a.m. 5 30 in the morning to catch
a bus and then by the time they get to their school and then they're
preoccupied with their class all day and then get back on At 3:30 and then
they don't get home until the sun goes down in the winter time, it might
be snowing and, and you let them off the bus at those highways and when
it's snowing, aren't you really jeopardizing the safety of those Children
? I remember judge making those comments. And so as a result, they were
all mandated to have schools on the reservation. And because of that, the
birth of public schools on the Navajo in the state of Utah. That was how
the Monument Valley High School was built. The White Horse High School.
And now the Navajo Mountain High School, it was really by a, a mandate by
that, by the federal judge and they're still carrying out the spirit of
that Jet's decision or federal courts decision. And so basically that's a
, that's the kind of cases DNA was involved in. And uh, and DNA was very,
very controversial needless to say because of what we were getting
ourselves involved in and it wasn't really DNA employees sitting down and
scheming and conniving as to what we should do. We were pushed by our
clients. The Navajo people were really, really pushing us. and the last
one I just mentioned is a case against the Navajo tribal council where the
issue of reapportionment was raised by a a neighborhood client from
Shiprock New Mexico. And his question was very, very simple. Where he said
, if you look at the Navajo council seats, there is a council delegate
from from The Western Agency that represents 200 constituents
And he goes to one Chapter House. His his constituency is 200. I have a
console delicate that represents Shiprock and we have several 1000
neighborhood people that is represented by that council council delegate.
But when they both of them get into an office, they vote on issues. And
my counsel delicate is carrying the weight of several 1000 people while on
the other hand, the other delegate is only representing uh 200 Where's
equality? Where is fairness? Uh What does the law say? And they wanted us
to to handle that case and we had to handle the case. And so we went into
the tribal court and handled the case and the decision came down by a
tribal judge. That neighborhood nation just has to reapportion its voting
district to reflect equal representation among the Navajo people. Equal
representation by the council delegates. And that really turned tribal
council and what they do in their responsibility and the controversy that
generated?
Turn the tribal government upside down. And as a result, people were
raising questions about what DNA was doing and why we were handling those
cases. But people didn't understand that the Navajo also had a law called
equal representation and the Navajo Bill of Rights states that so it was
our own Navajo law that dictated that there's going to be fairness and
equal representation on the federal side. There was the United States uh
huh Civil Rights Act that mandated the same thing. And so in our case, we
were backed up by a federal law and tribal law and that was very very
controversial.
And as a result, the United States Senate. Mhm. And other representative
congressional representatives also started raising an issue on DNA
people's legal service. And I could remember a book that somebody wrote
call all the President's men. There is a page or two that mentions and
talks about uh uh DNA people's legal services. And as I remember uh
President Nixon got on the plane from Washington and I think he was on his
way to California. And he gave Barry Goldwater a ride uh to phoenix On Air
Force one And one or 2 other congressional delegation from Arizona also
hopped on the plane. And one of the things that the reporter wrote that
Barry Goldwater was concerned about that. He wanted to talk to the
president was how do you eliminate the in their people's legal services on
the Navajo and they're they're getting involved in a lot of these uh
situations and that they should not be involved in and uh that they wanted
, he wanted to do something legislatively to limit DNA is ability to some
extent. And uh and so that it got to that level. And ultimately
we also had to fight for our survival and manage to do that all the way
from the Never one nation local
government agencies all the way into the United States Senate. And it was
it was one of those things where you know, that, you know, that fair
fairness could only be rendered by local people to people that they
represent. And here we were constantly
uh suing the B. I. A. Indian health service, the state government. We were
winning cases when those folks. But there were a lot of other people who
said, hey, how come you guys are always after us? What about your own
tribal government? They're just as unfair as as as we are and you should
also go after them. And so that was uh something that people that we were
always fighting with raisin on the service, the kind of services that D. N.
A. Uh was providing. And uh and as I said, the end result was Washington
having to make that decision to keep us going. And so basically that was
my work for uh or DNA. And the second features that I really, really like
it was was we did not have one single neighborhood lawyer at the time and
we brought in a lot of non indian lawyers when those schools that I name.
And
we wanted to,
we wanted to see if there is a way that DNA can generate enough interest
among the young people at the local high school level to see if we can
have enough young people get interested in becoming lawyers.
And at that time,
uh, it was considered probably
not the right time to raise those kinds of issues. But we said that well,
we can't be in the controversial then than what we have done the less
previous years. Why don't we just go into the high school and talk to the
seniors and juniors and sophomores? Uh huh. Every major high school on the
reservation, we should go in there and explain to them what DNA is
confronted with and we don't have any Navajo lawyers. And so that was a
systematic way. Uh huh. Going after solving a problem that was
institutionalized by the Navajo government and the Navajo people and to
change
a big huge government and the attitude. Uh huh Like the attitude never one
nation possess.
That's that's really, really hard. And so we spent a lot of time educating
the young people and within the next 3-5 years propped up a lot of Navajo
youngsters that we're interested in in law school. And I just remember and
I just well named several of them to indicate the interest that was there.
One of them was Claudine Bates author item Shiprock area and she
ultimately became a director of litigation that DNA. Then she uh also
became the 1st 1st attorney general for the neighborhood nation. And then
she also became the chief justice of the neighborhood nation. And she was
one of those individuals that that we work with it at early stage to get
her interested in law because he was so bright. And so she ultimately
became uh and almost like an institution on the neighborhood with uh that
generations of Navajo people. The other one was a young man by the name of
Herbert, Yossi, K. Maro Kayenta and who also became the attorney general
and now is the chief justice of the Never one Nation. I remember Herbie
Ozzy because he went to school both Claudine and her beyonc went to school
here at the issue. It was one of the first students at the law school. And
then uh the other one was Lewis did not soc who is now the attorney
general for the Navajo nation. So these were kind of a representative of
never heard people at the time that grew out of that concern for uh
getting more novel people interested in law. And I like that. I like that
feature of D. N. A. And D. N. A. Going out promoting that. Now, there was
no rules or regulation within the legal services program telling us to do
that. We just did it on our own. And because we knew it was needed. And I
remember legal services official in Washington D. C. Asking questions
about how come we were, what were we doing in school? Talking to their
kids about DNA and and talking about all of these things and we just
explained to them how to something like that was of necessity. And it was
something that uh we got together connive and scheme on it and decided
that's what we should do. That's what people demand. They said, how come
we have all these non indian lawyers here, why couldn't we have our own
neighborhood people become lawyers and that you guys should get involved
in that kind of education and produce never or lawyers. And so, uh, you
know, within a short period of about 10-15 years, we were able to get 30
35 Navajo indian lawyers. And I think that's that's a progress, a big huge
progress. Probably more important than many, many of the cases that we
ever handle. And so that that was something that that was close to my
heart at at the N. A. And so that was kind of like the end of my work with
these, the different agencies on the Navajo. And then came 1983
when I decided to run for the, Excuse me, I should say 1982. Then came
1982 when I decided to run for the tribal chairman because I was pressured
into doing it. I really I really didn't plan it. I never ever thought that
in my younger days that I would ever become a tribal chairman. But it was
one of those things that you don't work at. But people notice and people
will hear you people, we'll see how you have certain abilities perhaps
that you ought to try some of those things that I keep on doing from the
Navajo government level. And so I ran in 1982 and one. And And then served
for three years when 19 I mean four years 1983 2, 1987.
And that was my involvement with never a nation government. And since
since we're talking about education, there were many things that we did
during those years. And I'll mention, I'll mention three or 4 important
things that I think we did different The year 1983,
one of them was the establishment of the Justice Department for the Navajo
nation. Uh huh. It it was just barely getting off the ground when I took
office. Uh my
people were telling me that we need to make it larger and bigger and
really get serious about a bigger establishment of the Justice Department
because up to that point it was only two or 3 office people that commanded
the the desk at the neighborhood legal counsel. So we made it into a
Justice department that never where people can be proud. And again, my
choice was Claudine Bates author and that's how she became the attorney
general. And so we established that and got all these cases back from non
indians that were representing the neighborhood nation. We had lawyers in
Salt Lake City, we had lawyers in the phoenix and Washington D. C. And
they were handling Navajo cases and we decided to take all those cases
back to the Navajo in the window and uh and literally drove a truck around
to haul all these cases back. And because we had established a big huge
Justice department so that was one success
in terms of what we were doing, The other one is the establishment of the
Supreme Court neighborhood nation. Supreme Court was born during the first
four years. And because there was a huge demand for for that and then
people wanted to appeal their cases and they wanted uh Supreme Court that
would be uh huh staff with some knowledgeable people in law. And then the
panel, the panel on the Supreme Court would be judges that came from the
old Navajo uh judges that had a lot of sense of native justice and they
would bring that kind of school into the bench in the Supreme Court and
then the other one would be a recent law graduates, a person who's
licensed in the state to, to practice law. And he would bring in the
modern idea, the new justice than the new sense of fairness from, from the
anglo world, but that person being a never at the same time. And, and then
in the middle would be a person who would be appointed as the chief
justice, working with these two justices that will have the ability to
speak Navajo and english very well. That can look at both the traditional
tribal charges point point of view and the modern young college and law
school graduate. And so we created that Supreme Court and to the state as
a result of as a result of establishing the Supreme Court, It has blossom
into something that is highly respected by all the non indian communities
nationwide. The Supreme Court of the Navajo nation comes to these law
schools like ASU Harvard stanford all of these major law schools and they
hold their cases there. And the Jets, the Jets is, they were here recently
at a shoe. The judges use both their Navajo knowledge about custom and
usage in, in settled in tribal dispute as well as the modern law governing
some of those uh, controversies or disagreements. And so it was something
that it was something that we saw back then.
And
because of that we created that the Supreme Court. Yeah. And
I don't know what people know that I really agonize
agonize through who I should appoint to the Supreme Court. And uh and
these were all the things that were on my mind and I had it a vision in my
head that we can't have that be completely dominated by the recent law
graduates because we'll lose will lose the the other part the Navajos
sense of justice. So we've got to bring those older elderly people and
their sense of what is fair and what is just into the Supreme Court and
then we've got to have somebody that appreciates both the both worlds. And
so I agonize over that and I I'm very happy with people that we appointed
uh to the Supreme Court. And there's a huge success and I guess the third
one is uh huh The 3rd 1 is the trust one.
Uh I was very very lucky, extremely lucky to be put in office with council
delegates that were highly dedicated, their integrity was beyond reproach.
Uh They were very visionary in terms of things that they looked at. I was
I was I just happened to be elected at the same time that the neighborhood
people elected them. So I give much credit to that Tribal Council that
came into the office with me at the time in 1983. And one of the things
that happen was that when we passed the Never one Nation tax law when we
said we're going to begin taxing the uh companies that work on the
reservation and at that time we had one or 2 taxes that had just been
passed by the, by the council before I got into office. And then we wanted
to make it, make it bigger more fair and uh, and have more companies pay
taxes. And so we put all of that together and had a big tax and
legislation that passed were passed by the council immediately there after
we got sued in a lawsuit called Kerr McGee versus the number one nation.
And uh, where the companies did not want to pay taxes. And, and I remember
calling a meeting of all that. The companies that work on the Navajo
nation that we're doing business. Remember calling a meeting and having
them come to the council chambers and where I had really talked to them.
These are the Ceos, the head of the company's and pleading with them
saying, uh, let's work together and we want you to do business with us.
And, but they were, they were so angry and they were so angry that the
Navajo nation solve it to pass a tax and legislation so that they had to
begin paying taxes. And my point to them was that listen everywhere you go
, you have to pay taxes and why don't you want never one nation to do
likewise. The company that you have, you have business in Virginia, You
have business in Appalachia back east, you all have to pay taxes. And what
do you make you believe that you can come to the Navajo nation, expect not
to pay taxes. We're hungry. We're short on revenues and there are people
need jobs out there and our people need services. It's badly needed. So we
need to generate revenues and but uh they went ahead and filed a lawsuit
anyway. Well That suit was won by the Navajo Nation in my in my 4th year.
And and I told the companies that they could pay the tax that they're
supposed to pay to the neighborhood nation into escrow account. And so
that escrow during that four year period, uh Had generated something like
217 million Or $214 million dollars uh during the, during the time between
the time they filed the lawsuit and when the case was decided in the
Supreme Court, it generated that much uh
revenues for the neighborhood nations. So my point to the company was okay
since you sued us, you've got to continue paying in escrow into an escrow
account at the bank. So that when the case is decided, if you, when you
take your money back, if we win as a neighborhood nation, then we take
everything. And so mm, The 214 million
was then given to the Navajo Nation when we went when we won the case and
the tax case. And the question was, what do we not do with that? 214
million and uh, there were a lot of needs. The needs back then were the
same as the needs now. And, but the council were very insistent
if we used all of this money now, it won't really generate a whole lot of
meaningful answers to our problems. Why don't we put it into some kind of
uh huh savings account and where we can generate interest of those savings
? So by having more discussions with money managers and people, members of
the budget and finance committee at the time we decided that we should put
these monies into trust. So we establish something like seven, seven trust
accounts. Excuse me. Yeah, seven trusts funds for the neighborhood nation.
And there was a trust fund for the elderly, trust fund for Navajo prep
school. There was Trust one for students who want to go to vocational
education. There was trust funds for the scholarship funds. There was
Scholars one was depleted at the time and we had to replenish that. We
established a trust fund for all the chapters. Chapter houses is called
the nation building fund. And we had a trust fund for the elderly folks
because up to that time, uh, the federal government had decided that
they're not going to fund the senior citizens program anymore to buy them
glasses, wheelchairs. These kinds of basic basic needs of the elderly
people have. And so we decided that we should put some monies into trust
for those folks. And so we have an elderly trust one. And then the last
one was the handicap. Next to the last one was a handicap trust fund for
the handicapped people. And the last one was the permament fund. And there
was the biggest one And the Parliament fund, we put it, we put $26 million
dollars into trust
and decided that the council each year should invest
12% of the total tribal revenue for that year into the Parliament fund.
And then the turned up the Parliament fund. The interest that it earns
would go back into the fund. So you had to money's coming into the
Parliament fund, one from the council and then the interest that it earned.
And I never ever thought that someday we would be talking about having
the trust fund reach a billion. And as of last week,
I was told by the money managers That we are now at 958 million. And that
during either dis quartered and or june or the next quarter. And then in
september That we would reach one billion And $1 billion dollars is a lot
of money. And the council and I agree that we would leave this money alone
for 20 years and we'll see how much money it generates. By all accounts,
the money managers and people who do this for living. They were saying
that you will probably have 300 some odd million dollars. And then here we
are at a year 207, it's at 958 and it's going to generate over a billion
sometimes this summer. Now. I also talked to some money managers that
handle these, these kinds of accounts that say If the novel people decide
to leave that $1 billion dollars in trust, leave it alone, then you don't
have to wait For another 20 years to generate another billion. They said
that it's going to be shorter. It may look something like maybe 16 years
uh that it can generate all that amount of money within that period of
time. And then if you want to leave the money in there after that and try
to reach a three billion. Then it's not going to take 16, 15 years, it's
going to be shorter. So as the years go by that uh, money that it's going
to earn the fun, the fun income the number of years it could generate a
billion is going to get shorter and shorter. And so it's, it's something
that we're very proud of, Something that I'm very proud of. But I keep on
going back to the council, uh if I was not put into office with the kind
of console that we had back then we wouldn't, we wouldn't be talking about
a trust fund that big. No, I was extremely lucky. Uh and I consider myself
lucky to and the honor of serving the, With that council that was elected
in 1982 And took office in 1983. And so it was really because of them that
we have generated this much money for the neighborhood nation. Uh, it's
really done to ensure the future of the naval people and it's going to be
up to the young people as how they may want to use this. So that's kind of
like a highlight of my first year, first term in office. And then the
second term, we also did some outstanding work in terms of buying more
land, adding more land to the neighborhood nation. And the reason why we
did that is, is uh,
the Navajo population will keep on growing, but our reservation going to
remain the same. It's going to be the same size size wise and we need to,
we need to continue wearing about increasing the landholding of the Navajo
people. And so during my second term, that was our major, major goal. It
was something that we really, really wanted to do and to do that, we had
put some money into a trust for what we call a land acquisition fund. And
about a week, two weeks ago, I was told that that is all the way up to 47
, million. So we have that much money to buy an additional land adjacent
to the neighborhood nation. And that's in keeping with what we were doing
in the first term. So it's something that uh, we're very proud of. And uh
, there were also many other things that happened during that second term
in my office. But since we're on education, let me just tell you also what
happened. And this may lead into now our discussion on education. In my
first term.
In my first term we decided with the education Committee that what we
really really need is
Navajo education policy
because we did not have any instrument document law policy
that indicates to
the people on the reservation as well as the people surrounding the
reservation, including Washington. What is our goal? Where are we going?
Where do we want to go in education for the Navajo people? People were
continuing to ask questions about how important is the language. What
about culture? Aren't we really losing the neighborhood language? And if
you think we are then what is being done to enhance the land? Which.
Mhm. So there were many, many questions that that were raised by the
public, not only on the Navajo but state officers, State Department of
Education's and uh and what that did is it brought on this whole idea that
we should have a statement of purpose and that's the birth of neville
education policy. And I can working with that Tribal council committee on
Education headed by David Soc. Uh it did the job that that we needed to do
which was to establish and to have an act of a neighborhood nation council
clearly indicated that education was important and that how we wanted to
enhance education and that was that the purpose of the neighborhood
education policy.
Uh huh.