Olympic Power Suite - Higher by John Neito

When Clayton Lorne Green convocates from the First Nations University of Canada on Friday, he'll be bringing home an armful of awards — but the accomplishments didn't come easily.

A residential school survivor and recipient of the coveted President's Medal for demonstrating strong leadership and academic excellence, the 54-year-old plans to dedicate his life to healing and reconciliation through social work.

This past weekend at West Point, New York, Shelby Lee Grant, a member of the Salish, Pend d'Oreille and Kootenai tribal confederacy, joined the hallowed — and not so hallowed — ranks of some major historical military leaders when he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy.

A few weeks ago I witnessed a beautiful group of young Haudenosaunees complete their rites of passage through Ohero:kon (o-ho-lo-go), where they emerged from "under the husk" as fully self-actualized, honorable young adults—a truly rare experience for this day and age.

It's a wonderful thing to watch aunties, uncles, clan mothers, chiefs, mama bears and younger siblings groom young people to become Onkehonwe: the real people—young indigenous thinkers who provide so much hope for our future generations.

Kyle Rhine’s first experience in construction was with Legos. He loved building houses, bridges and towns so much that his parents had to pull him away to sit at the dinner table. By 5 years old, he would build a coffee table, a doghouse and anything else he could think of with scraps of wood his dad would give him from project sites, where he worked rehabbing and flipping houses. Soon, Kyle would go with him to work.

Hopi tribal member Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi/Choctaw) was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This prestigious degree was presented to Lomahaftewa during the IAIA Commencement Ceremony for the Graduating Class of 2017 on Saturday, May 13.

Students from the Nespelem School participated in the Governor’s Summit on Career Connected Learning. This event was hosted at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, WA, on the Microsoft Campus. It was also simultaneously broadcast across Washington State for viewing at 26 remote sites.

To prepare for a presentation at the Governor’s Summit, this group of students met daily, in an afterschool setting. They have been working with EV 3 Lego Robots, learning coding, adding sensors and lessons with the Mars Space Challenge. There are anywhere from eight to thirteen students participating in this group on any given evening. This group has also explored rockets and electricity.

The indigenously treasured chokecherry tree spans the North American continent, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, and down into the northern half of the United States. The vitamin and mineral-rich fruit of the tree has been a staple among many Native American tribes for millennia, and according to one Native American student's recent science project, chokecherries wield medicinal properties that extend beyond prior knowledge—in fact, cancer-fighting properties.

High school student, Destany "Sky" Pete, of the Shoshone and Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Idaho and Nevada, developed interest in the medicinal properties of the chokecherry, which is still harvested and consumed in her community today. Traditionally, the Shoshone and Paiute prepared chokecherry pudding, known as toishabui, in the Paiute language.

Coconino County Supervisor Lena Fowler Receives CCC Distinguished Service Award

Coconino County Supervisor Lena Fowler has been selected as the 2017 recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Service Award at Coconino Community College.

Supervisor Fowler was selected for her outstanding contribution to the mission of CCC.

"It is a great honor to work with Coconino County Supervisor Lena Fowler and share in her vision," said CCC President Colleen A. Smith. "She doesn't just talk about issues; she gets things done.

Budding Native American Author Honored

An up and coming Native American author was recently honored at a National Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss birthday event in Texas for her book "Son of the Sea Wolf."

The book, by 15-year-old Daniela K. A. Lee, tells the story of a border collie named Joshua and a girl named Penny who are on a quest to save the ocean from an evil pirate captain.

Daniela, a descendant of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe and the Tarahumara, was chosen as this year's guest author after the vice principal of Harmony Elementary School in El Paso, Texas overheard students in a second-grade classroom reading Daniela's book aloud.

In an effort to make Native language resources as accessible as possible, Sealaska Heritage Institute has posted its Dictionary of Shm'algyack (Tsimshian) online free of charge. SHI especially wants these resources available to those students who are helping to revitalize the language and speaking it on the land.

The Dictionary of Shm'algyack can be found on Sealaska Heritage Institute's language resources page. The dictionary was compiled by Donna May Roberts with assistance from the Elders of Metlakatla, Alaska. "Sealaska Heritage Institute's Dictionary of Shmalgyack is the product of years of documentation of the Tsimshian language with assistance from fluent Elders," says the language resources page. "It's a must-have resource for language learners and for people who are interested in learning more about the Tlingit culture." The version available for free online is a searchable pdf.

Only five fluent Dakota language speakers remain, but Vanessa Goodthunder is working to improve that.

Growing up in the Lower Sioux Reservation, a small 10-mile-radius community, Goodthunder found a void of Dakota history in her childhood studies.

"I never saw my history in the books, I never saw my language being spoken outside of my community," she said.

Back then, she said there were 20 fluent speakers, but they were dwindling and aging — even now, the five fluent speakers are all 55 and older.

Dr. Joely Proudfit minces no words in describing her mission advocating for American Indians.

“My American Indian culture and identity is central to my being, work and research,” said Proudfit, Chair and Professor in the American Indian Studies Department and Director of the California Indian Culture & Sovereignty Center at Cal State San Marcos.

The 2017 Remember the Removal Bike Ride is among 21 national parks selected to receive a 2017 Active Trails grant from the National Park Foundation.

The $25,000 grant will help cover costs of the tribe's annual bicycle ride, which includes 13 Cherokee Nation cyclists riding 1,000 miles across seven states, retracing the northern route of the Trail of Tears that their ancestors were forced to make on foot more than 175 years ago.

Ten generations ago, Denise Low's Delaware ancestors began a forced journey from their eastern coastal homelands near modern-day Manhattan to escape encroachment and persecution from the amassing Europeans.

The diaspora of the Delaware people would spread them inland, a disaster for keeping the people together and whole.

"After several hundred years of resistance, from the 1500s to the mid-1700s, they were overwhelmed but not finally defeated," Low writes.

For many of the Native Hawaiian inmates at the the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, director Ciara Lacy visited for her new documentary, prison was the first time they were ever exposed to most Hawaiian traditions.

"To come to prison without those cultural connections and then to find something in terms of identity in prison, it was really powerful to see," Lacy told NBC News. "I speak Hawaiian, and I am a Native Hawaiian. These are men from my community."

He'd just filled a truck with dirt in front of Juneau's Gastineau Elementary School in June 2012 and was checking the hole before sending the truck away when something caught contractor Jim Mason's eye. It was round and smooth. Mason jumped out of the excavator for a closer look. As he approached, he recognized what it was.

It was a human skull.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63, will open "Life and Legacy: The Art of Jerome Tiger" on Aug. 25, with the exhibition running through May 13, 2018.

Born in Tahlequah, on July 8, 1941, Tiger was a Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole painter who lived in Eufaula and Muskogee. Leaving school at age 16, he joined the U.S. Navy, serving in the Reserves from 1958 to 1960.

Tiger found formal schooling unsatisfying, encouraging him to pursue his passion of drawing and painting.

When Tom Farris was a kid, his parents traveled to galleries the U.S. in search of paintings, jewelry, baskets, pottery, beadwork and sculptures. Though this Native artist and gallery coordinator says he was less than thrilled to be dragged along on these excursions, the exposure eventually led him to his calling as a Native artist that works to support other Native artists.

See the work of groundbreaking Haida artist Bill Reid at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in Vancouver

There aren't many artists whose work is preserved for posterity in a gallery bearing his or her name. But nearly two decades after Haida artist Bill Reid's death, the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art remains a compelling attraction for anyone visiting Vancouver.