TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Six tribal employees remained without placement the week the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma’s Tribal Council voted to suspend its Treasurer without pay.

The UKB Council voted 5-2 on July 15 to suspend the Band’s treasurer, Sonja Gourd, and cut off her access to the Band’s accounting records. Four were absent from the vote: UKB Assistant Chief Jeff Wacoche, Gourd herself, UKB Sequoyah Councilor Donald Adair and UKB Cooweescoowee Councilor Cliff Wofford.

The furloughs and the suspension trace to the same source. UKB Comptroller Meosha Rambo, hired April 13, told councilors the tribe is “grant rich” and “cash poor” — money owed on paper the tribe cannot yet convert to cash. For years, Rambo said, the UKB leaned on federal COVID relief funds to help cover payroll and other costs while awaiting separate federal grant payments. That relief money was never designed to last. When it ran out, the shortfall underneath it reached tribal paychecks.

Part of that shortfall is written into a federal calculation. The Band’s indirect cost rate — which allows it to recover money spent on office costs such as accounting and staffing — expired in 2023 and was extended into 2024. Since then it has operated at a fallback rate of 15%, according to Accounting Manager Jeff Stowers. Rambo said the Band cannot recover several million dollars it has already spent until a new rate is approved.

Rambo’s office also found roughly 10,000 accounting entries from the past three years that had never been properly recorded. As of the meeting, that number stood at 1,100.

Against that backdrop, Tribal Councilor Tishaleta Smith-Guevara, UKB Delaware District, filed Articles of Impeachment against Gourd on July 15. The Articles accuse her on five counts: misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, willful neglect of duty and corruption in office, each a term defined in the Band’s Impeachment and Removal Code. These are allegations. No hearing has occurred, and Gourd has not been found responsible for any of the five counts.

A hearing on the Articles is scheduled for Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. at the UKB Wellness Center in Tahlequah. Removing Gourd from office permanently requires a two-thirds vote of the full Council.

Wacoche has served as UKB Assistant Chief for the entirety of Gourd’s tenure as Treasurer. He did not say at the meeting why no action was taken against her sooner.

Gourd has not publicly commented.

There’s a line in the Star Wars series “Andor” that stopped me cold the first time I heard it. Luthen Rael, a man who’s given up everything, tells another rebel: “I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.” He’s not talking about a battle. He’s talking about a future he already knows he won’t get to stand in.

I’ve sat with that line for weeks now. Not because it’s good writing, though it is. Because it’s true, and I’ve lived a version of it.

Here’s my version: I burn my life, but I burn it so my kids can see it.

That’s the difference. Luthen builds a sunrise he’ll never see because there’s nobody left for him to hand it to. No kids. No family waiting on the other side of the fight. Just the cause, and the cost, and the dark.

I don’t have that excuse. I’ve got two boys. Every story I chase, every record I pull, every meeting I sit through in rooms that smells like old carpet and worse coffee, I’m doing it so they inherit something better than what got handed to me.

I want my boys to grow up Keetoowah Cherokee without ever having to be taught how to perform it.

That’s not a small thing to want. Cultures get extinguished. Governments have tried it here on purpose, through policy, through boarding schools, through blood quantum rules built to shrink a people down to nothing over enough generations. That history isn’t background. It’s the reason the sentence “I want my kids to have the culture” is a fight and not a given.

I told a friend yesterday what I actually want for my boys. Not the version anybody claps for. Not the PR slogans. Not the trinkets somebody hands out at an event so a camera can catch it and call it culture. I want the culture people can’t help but live every day, because that’s who they are, not something they perform when somebody’s watching.

My dad lived it that way. So did my grandparents. Their kids, my boys’s greaat- aunt and great-uncle live that way now. They didn’t need a card to tell them who they were. They didn’t wait on a government to hand it to them or bless it first. They just lived it, every day, because there wasn’t another way to be. They only dealt with the government when they had no choice, when the paperwork or the politics forced their hand, and then they went right back to living the way they’d always lived. That’s the model. Not the card. The life underneath it.

If our culture gets extinguished, it’s gone. There’s no other country where our people are still flourishing, still speaking the language, still doing the ceremonies, waiting for us to visit or move back. We’re not immigrants. We don’t have a homeland across an ocean carrying our culture forward while we build something new here. This is the only place it exists. When it’s gone here, it’s gone everywhere. That’s the mechanism working against every family trying to raise their kids inside it right now, mine included.

We shouldn’t have to build this alone. We should be able to trust our own governments and our own tribal leaders to help us build it, not just tolerate it or trot it out for a photo. That’s the whole job of a government that claims to represent a people. Not standing in the way. Standing behind it.

That’s the sunrise under all of this. Not a headline. Not a court filing. Two boys who grow up Keetoowah Cherokee without having to be taught to perform it.

Luthen’s sunrise is fiction. Mine has a date on it.

###

Troy Littledeer is a Member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma and a 2025 recipient of the Indigenous Journalists Association’s Tim Giago Free Press Award. He has covered sports, entertainment, tribal and regional affairs across Indian Country for more than 20 years. He writes commentary under the byline @kituwahpunk.

Here’s the question. If the person you need protection from is also the elected official who commands the tribal police, why would you file for a protective order in that same chain of command?

That question isn’t unique to the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. It applies to any government. Public confidence in a justice system depends on more than fairness. It depends on the appearance of justice.

The UKB Lighthorse DO the job. The job isn’t in question.

The office above them is.

Officers hold CLEET certification, the same training and licensing standard every municipal and county department in Oklahoma carries. They’re cross-deputized with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That standing came under public attack in late 2024, when Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., Cherokee Nation Attorney General Chad Harsha, and more than 30 Oklahoma law enforcement agencies called the department a “rogue” and “fake” police force with no legal authority. UKB pushed back with its certifications on the record. Whatever the outcome of that jurisdictional fight, it’s a separate argument from the one here.

The UKB Tribal Police Department Code puts the Chief at the top of law enforcement. Section 103 states the Chief “shall also be recognized as the Commander of the Lighthorse.” The Commander “shall keep informed as to the efficiency and conduct of the Lighthorse.” Section 105 states the Lighthorse Director’s first duty is “to obey the lawful orders of the Commander.” The Director runs the department day to day. The Commander sits above the Director by law, regardless of who holds either office at a given time.

The UKB Courts Act builds the Judicial Branch separately. It creates a District Court and a Supreme Court. Section 102 defines the Court Administrator as “the top administrative position at the Tribal Court, who is responsible for budgeting, personnel, facilities, and management of the Tribal Courts” — a judicial office, not an executive one.

The organizational chart adopted under Resolution 25-UKB-22, March 1, 2025, shows both structures on the same page. Tribal Council sits at the top. Chief connects down to Lighthorse Director. Supreme Court connects down to District Court, then to Courts Administration through a line that also touches the Tribal Administrator’s office. That Tribal Administrator’s office no longer exists by that title — Council eliminated the position January 3, 2026 — and no resolution in the public record shows the chart redrawn since.

None of this means UKB courts can’t hear a protective order case, or that Lighthorse officers can’t serve one. The Crimes and Punishment Act says plainly: “Domestic violence and family violence will not be tolerated.” Violating a protective order is a criminal offense under tribal law. But asking Lighthorse officers to serve papers on their own Commander, or enforce an order naming him, places the department in a position that could raise questions about impartiality through no fault of the officers.

This isn’t a question about which court has authority. It’s a question about institutional independence and public confidence.

A UKB member seeking a protective order against the Chief could reasonably prefer a court and law enforcement agency that do not report, directly or indirectly, to the respondent. That separation protects everyone involved. A state district judge and the officers who enforce that court’s orders do not report to the tribal chief. That separation protects the member. It also protects the Lighthorse from being asked to choose between an order and a chain of command — a choice that isn’t theirs to have to make. It protects the chief too. A process free of any tribal reporting line means no one can later claim the outcome, whatever it is, was shaped by who sits at the top of that chain.

The U.S. Supreme Court put it plainly seven decades ago in In re Murchison: “Justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.” That standard exists for every government that polices itself. Here, it exists for the officers who serve it, and for the official at the center of the question, too.

By Troy Littledeer. Littledeer is an award-winning Indigenous journalist, photographer and member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. He writes about tribal government, sovereignty, public accountability and rural communities. He is the recipient of the 2025 Tim Giago Free Press Award from the Indigenous Journalists Association.

SOURCES

UKB Tribal Police Department Code of 2022, Sections 103, 105.

UKB Courts Act of 2022, Section 102(e).

UKB Crimes and Punishment Act of 2022, Introduction — Domestic Violence, Legislative Findings.

Resolution 25-UKB-22, United Keetoowah Band Tribal Council, March 1, 2025.

A.G. Opinion No. 2026-01, Klint Cowan, January 9, 2026.

In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 136 (1955).

KTUL, FOX23, ICT News, FourStatesHomepage — Nov.-Dec. 2024 reporting on Cherokee Nation/UKB jurisdictional dispute and Lighthorse certification.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — A protective order petition has been filed in Cherokee County District Court following a reported confrontation at a July 13 meeting for United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma employees affected by recent furloughs.

UKB Councilman Donald Adair filed the petition Monday against UKB Chief Jeff Wacoche, according to the filed document and the Oklahoma State Courts Network docket. The case is numbered PO-2026-119, assigned to District Judge Jerry S. Moore. The petition requested an emergency ex parte order; the court did not grant one and instead set a hearing for July 23 at 9 a.m. at the Cherokee County Courthouse in Tahlequah.

Two witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation, said the meeting was called to address employees whose positions were funded through the American Rescue Plan Act. One witness estimated 30 to 31 employees were affected by the furloughs, with about eight still unassigned to new positions at the time of the meeting. This publication has not independently verified those figures.

Both witnesses said Adair told employees, “I’m sorry. The council failed you.”

According to both witnesses, Wacoche then directed profanity at Adair, challenged him to step outside, and continued the confrontation until Lighthorse officers intervened and escorted him from the room. Adair’s own account, contained in a sworn Petition for Protective Order dated July 13 and filed with the court, describes the same sequence.

“Right then, he stood up, started cussing me out, called me a m—–f—–, said he was going to beat the s— out of me, told me to come outside, and kept going,” Adair said.

One witness described the same sequence and said the confrontation cut the meeting short before employees got what they came for. “Lighthorse had to escort Jeff out,” the witness said. “It was sad. We were basically getting laid off and [Chief Wacoche] wanted to end the meeting. I didn’t get any answers or anything. He had to make it about him and council. He robbed us of an explanation for why we were in this situation.”

Both witnesses said the confrontation occurred in front of furloughed employees, tribal directors and other officials attending the meeting.

The category Adair checked on the petition — “Adult Victim of Other Crime” — identifies the parties as colleagues rather than family or household members under Oklahoma’s protective-order statute. The statute permits protective-order filings alleging qualifying crimes between people who are not family or household members. That’s also why no police report was required to file.

Also present at the meeting, according to witnesses, were UKB Secretary Caleb Grimmett-Smith, UKB Treasurer Sonja Gourd and District Representative Janelle Adair.

According to a message reviewed by this publication, at least one UKB Member has requested that a Council representative open a formal investigation into the July 13 meeting. Article IX of the UKB Constitution and By-Laws directs the Tribal Council to prescribe rules for investigating complaints of misconduct in office and for removing any Council member or officer. Removal requires a hearing before the Council and a two-thirds vote. Neither has occurred.

Adair said he enlisted in the Army at 18, while still in high school, and served from 1973 to 1975 — the statutory Vietnam era — according to Adair and his Facebook profile. He is a first-language Cherokee speaker and has been a Member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma his entire life.

“I just want to see our tribe moving forward. Right now it’s not prospering,” Adair said. “Right now we have [leadership] that wants the glory instead of wanting the glory for the people.”

This publication sent Wacoche a comment request at 2:22 p.m. Monday asking whether a verbal exchange with Adair occurred, whether profanity was directed at him, whether he challenged Adair to step outside, whether Lighthorse officers intervened, and whether an incident report was generated. The request set a response deadline of 5 p.m. CDT Tuesday, July 14. That deadline passed without a response.

Judge Moore will hear Adair’s petition at 9 a.m. July 23. The employees who came to that meeting still haven’t gotten the explanation they came for.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla., — A petition for a protective order has been filed in Cherokee County District Court following allegations of a confrontation during a July 13 meeting involving furloughed employees of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.

According to the Oklahoma State Courts Network docket, UKB Councilman Donald Lee Adair filed the petition Monday against UKB Chief Jeffrey Wacoche. The case, PO-2026-00119, has been assigned to District Judge Jerry S. Moore, with a hearing scheduled for July 23. We have requested a copy of the petition from the Cherokee County Court Clerk and have not yet reviewed its contents.

Earlier Monday, we reported that two witnesses who requested anonymity because they fear retaliation alleged Wacoche confronted Adair after Adair apologized to employees, telling them, “We, as council, have failed you.” The witnesses alleged Wacoche criticized Adair for having “been asleep,” directed profanity toward him, challenged him to step outside, and continued the exchange until Lighthorse officers intervened and escorted the chief from the meeting. Those allegations remain unverified.

We have requested comment from Wacoche regarding both the allegations and the protective order petition and have been unable to reach Adair for comment. We are also seeking Lighthorse records, the protective order petition, and additional witness accounts.

We don’t choose sides between elected officials. We choose the side of the people they serve because the people deserve to know what their government is doing. We’ll continue following the evidence wherever it leads and hold every public official to the same standard of accountability.

This is a developing story. We will update our reporting as additional records, witness accounts and official responses become available.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — We are investigating allegations of a confrontation between United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma Chief Jeff Wacoche and UKB Councilman Donald Adair during a meeting Monday morning, July 13, with employees affected by recent furloughs.

According to two attendees who requested anonymity because they fear retaliation, the meeting was held to discuss employees whose positions were funded through the American Rescue Plan Act and the Tribe’s efforts to place furloughed workers into other positions.

Both witnesses said Adair addressed employees and apologized, telling them, “We, as council, have failed you.”

According to both witnesses, Wacoche responded by criticizing Adair, saying, “You’ve been asleep the whole time. How would you know?” before the exchange escalated.

Both witnesses alleged Wacoche then directed profanity toward Adair, challenged him to step outside, and continued the exchange until Lighthorse officers intervened and escorted the Chief from the meeting.

The witnesses said the alleged confrontation occurred in the presence of furloughed employees, tribal directors, and other tribal officials attending the meeting.

One witness said the confrontation interrupted the meeting before employees received the explanation they expected regarding the furloughs. “It was sad,” the witness said.

DALLAS — Latricia Trammell was midway through an interview at the Chicago Sky’s shootaround Sunday when a fan named Walt Chisholm walked over to courtside and told her about his grandmother.

His granny had never been to a sporting event in her life, he said. Not basketball, not football, nothing. Then Trammell took over the Dallas Wings, and the old woman got off the couch to come see “Coach T.” She prays for her at church now.

“Tell her to keep praying for me,” Trammell said. “Tell her I appreciate that.”

Two seasons ago Trammell ran the Wings from the home bench at College Park Center in Arlington, 20 miles from where she sat Sunday. In 2023, her first season as a WNBA head coach, Dallas won 22 games — its most since relocating from Tulsa — took its first playoff series since the move, and Trammell finished runner-up for Coach of the Year. A year later the roster collapsed under injuries, the Wings went 9-31, and Dallas let her go. It was one hard season in a career that had known almost nothing but winning: a 105-45 record across Oklahoma and Texas high schools, back-to-back NAIA national championships at Oklahoma City University in 2014 and 2015, NAIA Coach of the Year both seasons, an 85-10 record across her three years running the Stars. Sunday she was back in the market as an assistant on Tyler Marsh’s Sky staff, hours before facing the franchise that dismissed her, at American Airlines Center, a downtown showcase building that was never hers.

She is a Cherokee Nation Citizen, and the only Native American coach in the WNBA. “I’m part of the Cherokee Nation from my mother,” she said. Her mother, Edna Trammell, was raised by her great-grandparents near Tahlequah. Her great-grandfather was a medicine man. The family always went back. Her mother’s parents died young and are buried in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, just across the line from Cherokee country.

“I remember a lot of, I say, our people, Cherokee people, came and supported me here,” she said of her Dallas tenure.

The league’s Native history is short enough to hold in one paragraph. Ryneldi Becenti, Diné, became the first Native American to play in the WNBA with the Phoenix Mercury in 1997, the league’s first season. Angel Goodrich, Cherokee, ran the point at Sequoyah High School in Tahlequah and at Kansas before the Tulsa Shock drafted her in 2013 — at the time, the highest a Native player had ever been taken. Shoni Schimmel, of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, went eighth overall a year later and became a WNBA All-Star Game MVP as a rookie. Alissa Pili, Iñupiaq and Samoan, went eighth overall in 2024, the first Alaska Native player drafted into the league. All of them players.

Trammell is the coach.

The coaching came from Seminole, Oklahoma, where she grew up after her family moved from Claremore when she was one. Her brother Donnie coached the boys at Seminole High School while she was a student there. She watched film with him. Two of her three older brothers played college basketball. “I don’t ever remember a time that I did not want to coach,” she said. “It’s always been in my DNA.”

Asked what Native players and coaches trying to reach this level should know, she didn’t hesitate.

“We are a strong minded, strong bodied culture,” she said.

Thirty-three years later, somebody once asked whether she ever thought she’d coach professionally.

“You’re daggum right,” she told them.

Nine WNBA seasons in, she wants the count to keep meaning something past her own résumé.

“I hope that I can continue to inspire everyone, not only our culture,” she said. “I grew up in a small town, and here I am nine years in.”

TAHLEQUAH — A member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma urged tribal leaders Saturday to revise the tribe’s election ordinance, questioning whether recent amendments received approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Anile Locust raised the concerns during the public comment portion of the tribe’s monthly meeting, where she reviewed changes made to the election ordinance in 2022 and 2025 and outlined what she described as procedural concerns.

Locust said amendments adopted in 2022 added qualifications requiring candidates to be Exclusive Members for five years before seeking office, prohibited candidates from having served as elected officials of another federally recognized tribe and required candidates to possess a driver’s license and high school diploma.

“The problem is, no amendments were approved by the Department of the Interior, per the Constitution,” Locust said.

Locust also discussed changes included in the Election Ordinance of 2025, including the removal of a five-year accounting experience requirement for candidates seeking the office of treasurer, staggered terms for Election Board members and a provision prohibiting immediate family members from serving together on the Election Board.

She said Election Board members were unaware of that provision because updated copies of the ordinance had not been distributed before they were sworn into office.

“It was only then they found the rule, ‘No family members could serve on the Election Board,’” Locust said. “They had already been sworn in the previous month in April.”

Locust also said the Election Board lacked copies of the election ordinance, computers, office supplies and a budget when members assumed their duties. She said she provided board members with a copy of the ordinance and offered to help edit it.

During his monthly report, Chief Jeff Wacoche addressed the Department of the Interior’s withdrawal of M-Opinion M-37084, saying the action did not alter the tribe’s treaty-based rights.

“While the withdrawal is a setback, it is important to remember our treaty-based rights did not originate with that opinion and do not disappear with the withdrawal,” Wacoche said. “Our rights are grounded in treaties, federal law and historical records.”

Wacoche said the tribe will continue pursuing its gaming application before the Department of the Interior while defending what he described as the tribe’s treaty-based rights.

“We remain committed to ensuring the United Keetoowah Band’s voice is heard and our sovereignty is respected,” Wacoche said.

In other business, Tribal Secretary Caleb Grimmett-Smith reported the enrollment office received five new membership applications and one request for relinquishment. Treasurer Sonja Gourd asked to table the financial report until Comptroller Meosha Rambo arrived.

Tax Commission Chairwoman Joyce Hawk reported the tribal tag office generated $24,718 in June revenue, including $8,000 for the tribe and $1,627 designated for education.

Justin Fuson, interim executive director of the UKB Corporate Board following Woody Anderson’s departure, said the board has distributed $432,113 to the tribe this year, including $32,100 for the summer youth program. Fuson also announced Echota Health will host a community health fair Sept. 26 at Norris Park.

Oklahoma voters will decide State Question 844 on Aug. 25, a constitutional amendment that would change how the state repays schools, counties and other local governments for property tax revenue lost to Oklahoma’s five-year manufacturing exemption.

Article X, Section 6B of the Oklahoma Constitution exempts qualifying new or expanding manufacturing facilities from ad valorem taxes for five years. Voters created the exemption in 1985 through State Question 588. The section, as amended, requires the Legislature to reimburse common schools, county governments, cities and towns, emergency medical services districts, vocational-technical schools, junior colleges, county health departments and libraries for the revenue those entities lose to the exemption.

State Question 844 would remove that requirement from the Constitution and instead direct the Legislature to set reimbursement levels and methods by statute. The measure would also change how exempt property counts toward the debt limits of school districts and other political subdivisions, tying that calculation to the level of reimbursement.

The Legislature sent the question to the ballot through House Joint Resolution 1087, authored by House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, and Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle. The House passed it in March. The Senate passed it 38-7 on April 9.

The state paid $93 million in manufacturing exemption reimbursements in tax year 2024, according to the Oklahoma Tax Commission. The figure peaked at $161 million in tax year 2019.

Paxton called the exemption “very, very expensive” and said the change would give the Legislature more control over the amounts. Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman, voted against the measure, saying she could not make the numbers work. Dewey County Assessor Jennifer McCormick, an officer of the County Assessor Association of Oklahoma, said reimbursements are funded in part from state income tax collections, which the state is working to phase out.

The amendment does not itself cut reimbursement funding. If voters approve it, future funding levels would be set by future Legislatures rather than guaranteed by the Constitution. Every school district in Oklahoma, along with county governments, health departments, libraries and emergency services districts, receives ad valorem revenue subject to the current reimbursement requirement.

Candidate filing for tribal office opens Aug. 3 under a new election law passed by the Tribal Council of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.

The law is the 2025 Election Ordinance. Members will run for office, vote and serve under it. The Election Board did not write it. The Board’s job is to run the election under the law the Council passed. Responsibility for what the law says rests with the Council that voted for it.

The ordinance does not name filing dates. Section 503 sets a formula: candidates file in person with the Election Board starting at 9 a.m. on the first business day of August and ending at 6 p.m. on the 10th business day of August. This year, Aug. 1 falls on a Saturday. Under the formula, filing opens Monday, Aug. 3, and closes at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 14. The count assumes tribal offices stay open every weekday in that stretch. The Election Board’s official election notice will confirm the dates.

The questions below come from the text of the ordinance and from the Band’s governing documents. They are questions the Council should answer before filing opens.

THE NAME OF THE LAW

1. Section 101 calls this law the “United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma Election Ordinance of 2022.” The Council passed it in 2025. How did a law passed in 2025 name itself a 2022 law? Who reviewed the final version before the vote?

WHO COUNTS AS A MEMBER

2. The UKB Constitution begins, “We, the members of the United Keetoowah Band.” The ordinance uses a different term. Section 104 defines an “Exclusive Member” as a Tribal Member who can prove one-quarter degree or more of Cherokee Indian blood and who is not enrolled in any other tribe. Why did the Council replace the Constitution’s term with a new one?

3. The same section then defines “Member” to mean only Exclusive Members. What constitutional authority allows an ordinance to narrow rights the Constitution gives to Members?

4. If that authority comes from the Enrollment Ordinance, why does the Election Ordinance not explain that connection?

THE RIGHT TO VOTE

5. Section 401 requires a voter to have been an Exclusive Member for at least six months before an election and to prove one-quarter degree or more of Cherokee blood, in addition to being 21 years of age. Does requiring proof of blood quantum to vote add a qualification beyond what the Constitution’s voting clause states?

6. Section 401(B)(1) bars anyone punished by banishment from voting, with no stated end date to that disqualification. Is the bar meant to be permanent, and on what authority?

7. Section 404(B)(5) directs the Tribal Secretary to prepare the final Voter List and certified Precinct Books “no later than June 31” of an election year. June has 30 days. What date does the Council intend the Secretary to meet, and has the error been corrected in the version currently in force?

8. Section 408 treats all voter information as confidential, then allows the Election Board to release Precinct Book copies to candidates who pay the fee set in Section 503(G). What prevents a candidate who receives that information from using it beyond the purposes the ordinance allows?

CANDIDATE QUALIFICATIONS BEYOND THE CONSTITUTION

9. Article XI of the Constitution sets candidate qualifications for Chief and Assistant Chief at not less than 35 years of age, a resident of the Old Cherokee Nation and a member of the Band. Section 501 of the ordinance adds four more requirements: five years as an Exclusive Member, no prior service as an elected official of another federally recognized tribe, a valid driver’s license, and a high school diploma or equivalent. What is the source of the Council’s authority to add candidate qualifications the Constitution does not list?

10. Section 501 requires every candidate, for every office, to hold a valid driver’s license. What does the driver’s license requirement establish about a candidate’s fitness for office that the Constitution’s qualifications do not already cover?

11. Section 501 requires a high school diploma or equivalent for every office, including District Representative. Does the Council have data on how many currently eligible voters lack a high school diploma or equivalent, and will it be published?

12. Section 501 permanently bars anyone who has served as an elected official of another federally recognized tribe, with no stated time limit. Is that bar meant to be lifelong, and if so, on what basis?

13. No governing document produced to date — not the Constitution, not the Election Ordinance — states when the five-year Exclusive Member clock begins for a candidate. Does it start at UKB enrollment, at relinquishment of enrollment in another tribe, or at some other event?

CAMPAIGNING AND THE UNNAMED NEWSPAPER

14. Section 103 states a purpose of the ordinance is to prevent campaigning on tribal property, excluding private residences and “the tribal newspaper.” Section 104(F) repeats the exemption in the same language. Neither section names the publication. Which publication does the ordinance mean, and why is it not named?

15. If the unnamed “tribal newspaper” is a specific, existing publication, does exempting it from the electioneering ban give it standing relative to other Member-run or independent coverage of the same election?

THE ELECTION BOARD’S OWN STATUS

16. Section 201 calls the Election Board “an independent and autonomous agency” of the Band. Article V, Section 1 of the Constitution states the Council is “the supreme governing body of the Band.” The Board is Council-funded and activated by Council resolution each election year. How does the Council reconcile those facts with the word “autonomous”?

17. Section 204 sets Election Board members to four-year terms, staggered so two of the five seats carry an initial two-year term. The ordinance does not say how those two seats were chosen. On what basis were they selected?

18. Section 203(B)(3) bars immediate family members from serving on the Election Board together. Were current Board members screened for that restriction before their appointments were finalized, or after they were sworn in?

PENALTIES, FEES AND ELECTION CONTESTS

19. Corporate Charter Section 3(q) caps penalties the Band may impose on Members at $100 for any one offense, or, in the alternative, expulsion from the Band or suspension of voting rights. Section 503(G)(5) of the ordinance imposes forfeiture of a $300 deposit plus an additional $300 fine for Precinct Book misuse, and Section 813(E)(1) separately imposes a civil fine of $300 per copy retained without Board approval. What is the source of authority for penalties three times the Charter’s stated cap?

20. Section 408(G) authorizes “punitive damages and attorney’s fees” against anyone who misuses voter information, with no dollar limit stated. Does the Council consider that provision subject to the Charter’s $100 cap?

21. Filing a petition to contest an election costs $1,000 for a Chief’s race, $800 for Assistant Chief, Secretary or Treasurer, and $500 for District Representative, under Section 902. What was the basis for setting the fee at that level?

22. Section 508 sets a separate fee to challenge a candidate’s eligibility, up to $500 for a Chief’s race, refundable only if the challenge succeeds. Does the non-refundable design of that fee discourage Members from raising eligibility questions?

23. Section 901 requires a contester to prove “with a mathematical certainty” that a violation affected the election’s outcome, with the full burden of proof on the contester. Has the Election Board or Council defined what evidence would satisfy that standard?

24. Members have separately raised concerns that the 2025 ordinance removed a prior accounting-experience requirement for candidates seeking the office of Treasurer. The 2022 ordinance’s exact language on this point has not been produced for review. Did the Council remove such a requirement, and if so, was the change explained to Members before the vote?

25. Section 905(A) allows any party to view ballots and election records at the Court Clerk’s office at no charge. Section 905(B) charges an additional fee, matching the original contest filing fee, for certified copies of the same materials. Does requiring a second full fee for certified copies limit a contester’s ability to build a case for appeal?

26. Why did the Council repeal the previous election law instead of amending only the sections that needed it?

27. Was the ordinance released to Members for review before it was adopted?

28. Did the Council explain the changes to Members before the vote?

29. Did the Election Board recommend any changes before passage? If so, which were accepted and which were rejected?

30. The final law contains drafting errors, inconsistent terms, duplicate subsection letters and internal contradictions. How did those errors remain in the version the Council approved?

TIMING

31. If the Council believes parts of the ordinance need correction after this election, when did it first learn corrections were needed?

32. If corrections are needed, why are Members being asked to file for office under rules that may change after the election?

33. Does the Council believe election rules should be settled before candidate filing opens?

34. The Constitution begins with the Members. The Charter’s first stated purpose is to define and safeguard their rights. How does the Council believe this ordinance meets those obligations?

Candidate filing opens at 9 a.m. Monday, Aug. 3. Once it does, Section 102 locks the ordinance in place until the election results are certified.

Sources: United Keetoowah Band Election Ordinance of 2025 Constitution and Bylaws of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma (1950) Corporate Charter of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma (1950) UKB Courts Act of 2022 UKB Appellate Procedure Act of 2022 UKB Justice Department Act of 2022

STILWELL, Okla. — A Stilwell resident is organizing volunteers to circulate an initiative petition asking voters to decide whether the city’s utility rate increases should stand.

Taylor Thomas announced the effort in a public post, stating she is compiling a list of volunteers willing to carry a petition in their neighborhoods and gather signatures once the petition is legally ready. Her post states no signatures are being collected yet and that petitions will circulate only in accordance with Oklahoma law once officially available.

Thomas limited eligibility to people who live inside Stilwell city limits and are registered to vote in Stilwell.

“This effort isn’t about attacking anyone,” Thomas wrote. She stated the goal is to give Stilwell voters the opportunity to decide the rate increases at the ballot.

Oklahoma Statutes Title 11, Section 11-15-101 reserves the powers of initiative and referendum to the people of every Oklahoma municipality. Sections 11-15-101 through 11-15-110 set the process: petition form and signatures, filing with the municipal clerk, a ballot title, presentation to the mayor and submission to voters.

The initiative route matters because the referendum route is likely closed. The Oklahoma Constitution, Article V, Section 2, reserves the referendum power to the people “except as to laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety.” Ordinance 309-I carried an emergency clause using that exact language. The clause that put the higher rates into effect March 1 is the same clause that stands between the ordinance and a repeal vote.

The Oklahoma Constitution also limits what an emergency may be. Article V, Section 58 states an emergency measure “shall include only such measures as are immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health, or safety.” Thomas asked the city in writing on May 26 and again on June 3 to identify the specific emergency behind Ordinance 309-I. No written answer identifying an emergency has been produced.

The petition’s target may be moving. The Stilwell City Council’s July 6 agenda listed adoption of Ordinance 309 I-A, repealing ordinances 309 through 309-I, with a new emergency clause and rate increases scheduled through 2029. Whether the council adopted 309 I-A on July 6 has not been confirmed by this publication.

An initiative petition in Stilwell requires signatures from registered voters inside city limits. In Adair County, where per capita income runs $23,710 against a national figure of $44,673 and 21.5% of residents live below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey five-year estimates, the signatures Thomas is organizing to collect belong to the households paying the disputed rates.

Thomas’s volunteer list remains open. The petition itself has not yet been filed with the Stilwell city clerk.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — A United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma district judge heard arguments July 6 on whether the tribe’s secretary must produce records tied to a Council resolution restructuring the tribe’s media operations, or certify under oath that no such records exist.

Judge Charles Tripp heard the motion to dismiss in Candy Mink Springs Media LLC v. Caleb Grimmett-Smith, filed March 4 in UKB District Court. Before the hearing, the petitioner filed an amended petition correcting a legal citation identifying the secretary’s recordkeeping duty, along with a response to the motion to dismiss and supplemental notices correcting factual and citation issues.

The amended petition asks the court to compel Grimmett-Smith, in his official capacity as tribal secretary, to produce certified copies of three categories of records from the Official Journal of Proceedings: the formal creation of a Department of Communications, the delegation of supervisory authority over publication functions, and any Council-approved appropriation funding those functions after April 25, 2025. If no such records exist, the petition asks the secretary to certify that fact under oath after diligent search. The petition seeks no other relief.

Resolution 25-UKB-42EV passed the Council on a 7-0 electronic vote April 25, 2025. The resolution states the restructuring will include the transition of the Media Department into the newly established Department of Communications. Littledeer’s sworn affidavit, filed with the original petition, states he requested the underlying records from the secretary Feb. 4, 2026, and that neither production nor certification followed.

Respondent’s counsel, Victoria Holland, filed a motion to dismiss June 17 arguing the petition is barred by sovereign immunity and, alternatively, fails to state a claim. The motion argues a suit against a tribal official in his official capacity is, in substance, a suit against the tribe, citing Lewis v. Clarke, 581 U.S. 155 (2017). The motion states no tribal enactment waives immunity for this type of mandamus action. It separately argues the petition does not adequately allege the elements required for mandamus — a nondiscretionary duty, a clear and indisputable right to relief, no other adequate remedy and circumstances justifying the writ — citing In re JPMorgan Chase & Co., 916 F.3d 494 (2019), and United States ex rel. International Contracting Co. v. Lamont, 155 U.S. 303 (1894).

Littledeer’s response argues the action seeks only to compel performance of a ministerial recordkeeping duty assigned to the tribal secretary under the UKB By-Laws. The response states the court need not decide whether the Department of Communications was lawfully created, whether Resolution 25-UKB-42EV was valid, or whether any party is entitled to damages. The response states the sole question is whether official records referenced by the resolution exist and can be identified, or whether the secretary must certify after diligent search that they cannot.

At the hearing, Holland argued Candy Mink Springs Media LLC, the named petitioner, is not itself a Member of the tribe and questioned its standing to bring the action on that basis. Littledeer is the LLC’s sole owner and is a Member of the United Keetoowah Band.

Holland’s motion also argues granting the writ would be against public policy, characterizing the petition as furthering what it calls Littledeer’s improper and illegal attempts to extract payments from the tribe. The motion cites invoices Littledeer sent the tribe in January 2026 seeking payment for use of the trademark Giduwa Cherokee News, which Littledeer registered with the Oklahoma Secretary of State on May 8, 2025. The motion calls the underlying trademark claim bogus and asks the court to reject what it describes as an attempted shakedown. The petition does not raise the trademark dispute or seek payment. Littledeer’s response argues the trademark materials are collateral because the requested relief is limited to identifying or certifying the existence of official records.

Littledeer filed a notice July 6 identifying three citation errors in Holland’s motion: Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez cited with an incorrect volume number, Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community cited with a digit omitted from its volume number, and Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia cited with the decision year given as 2024 rather than 2004. Holland characterized the errors as typographical during the hearing.

Tripp took the motion under advisement. He told the parties he expects to rule by the end of business July 31.

According to Keetoowah and Cherokee ceremonial tradition, the sacred fire never went out. It moved with the people.

What’s documented is narrower, and it’s the real story. The archaeological record. Federal trust documents. James Mooney’s ethnographic work, published in 1900. Resolutions from two federally recognized tribal governments. Together they trace a line of ceremonial continuity from a river bend in the Great Smoky Mountains to the stomp grounds of eastern Oklahoma.

The place is called ᎩᏚᏩ. The name comes from a root meaning to gather — the place where gathering happened. It’s one of the seven mother towns of the Cherokee people, sitting in what’s now Swain County, North Carolina, along the upper Tuckasegee River before it meets the Oconaluftee. Archaeologists date the earthwork mound there to roughly A.D. 1000, built by people of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture.

Mooney did his fieldwork among the Cherokee from 1887 to 1890. The Bureau of American Ethnology published it in 1900. He recorded how the mound was built: a circle of stones on the ground, a fire at the center, the bodies of prominent leaders placed near it with objects of spiritual significance. A priest conjured these against disease, protecting the town from any enemy who might destroy it. Women carried in earth by the basketful. At the center they fitted a hollow cedar trunk around the fire, tall enough to reach nearly to the surface once the mound was finished. The townhouse went up on top of that.

“One man, called the fire keeper, stayed always in the townhouse to feed and tend the fire,” Mooney wrote.

Just before the Green Corn dance, every fire in the settlement was put out. People came to the townhouse and carried home new fire lit from the sacred flame. Mooney called it atsi’la galunkw’ti’yu — the honored or sacred fire. “Some say this everlasting fire was only in the larger mounds at Nikwasi, Kitu’hwa, and a few other towns,” he wrote, “and that when the new fire was thus drawn up for the Green-corn dance it was distributed from them to the other settlements.”

Every hearth in the nation connected back to that one center.

Mooney recorded that Cherokee people, on ceremonial occasions, called themselves Ani-Kitu’hwagi — people of Kitu’hwa. He called Kituwah “apparently the original nucleus of the tribe.” The Ani-kitu-hwagi held the northern edge of Cherokee territory, standing between the heartland towns and Iroquois raiders from the north. The name outlasted the position. Keetoowah. Giduwa. Both trace back to that mound on the Tuckasegee.

The British burned Kituwah in 1761, during the Anglo-Cherokee War. Survivors scattered west. By 1819 the Cherokee had lost the Kituwah area outright, ceded by treaty under federal pressure. Then came the 1830s, and federal troops removed most of the Cherokee people west on the Trail of Tears. Settlers took the land behind them. They farmed the mound for generations. By the time Cherokee ownership ended, the site sat inside a private tract called Ferguson’s Field. Archaeologists have confirmed the mound was plowed repeatedly.

Cherokee oral tradition, as Mooney recorded it, held something else was happening underneath: “The fire burns yet at the bottom of these great mounds, and when the Cherokee soldiers were camped near Kitu’hwa during the civil war they saw smoke still rising from the mound.”

Out west, in Indian Territory, Cherokee traditionalists who refused to let their culture dissolve formed the Keetoowah Society in 1858. The Keetoowah Society’s own published history says four firecarriers brought the sacred fire west with them when the people were forced off their land — and that no stomp ground can exist without that same fire, physically carried to it. Redbird Smith led a ceremonial revival in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He located the sacred wampum belts that recorded Cherokee and Keetoowah history and established stomp grounds across eastern Oklahoma, where the fire tradition kept going. Seven ceremonial grounds still operate there today within the Keetoowah tradition, according to the UKB John Hair Cultural Center and Keetoowah Museum in Tahlequah.

Back east, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians bought 309 acres on the Tuckasegee River in 1996, mound included. A year later, an archaeological survey turned up thousands of artifacts and identified a 65-acre village site, according to Western Carolina University professor Tom Belt. Surveyors also found 15 confirmed burials. The tribe’s own council resolution puts the real number, if fully excavated, as high as 1,000 or more graves. The Eastern Band left the site undeveloped.

On Oct. 18, 2021, Principal Chief Richard Sneed signed 307.03 acres of the Kituwah site into federal trust for the Eastern Band. The Bureau of Indian Affairs had cleared the way the month before.

“This is an historic day for all Cherokee,” Sneed said just before he signed.

He credited the 1996 purchase to Joyce Dugan, the Eastern Band’s first female principal chief, and said every Cherokee — “Eastern Band, Cherokee Nation, or United Keetoowah Band” — owes her a debt for it.

That same year, at a joint council meeting held at Kituwah, the Eastern Band and the United Keetoowah Band signed a resolution pledging to “forever be keepers of the Keetoowah tradition,” Smoky Mountain News reported. Runners had carried torches to the site, lit from the eternal flame at the Mountainside Theatre in Cherokee, North Carolina — a flame that was itself kindled 55 years earlier from coals carried out of Oklahoma’s ceremonial fire.

The Keetoowah Museum in Tahlequah calls the Keetoowah people the most traditional of the Cherokee, keepers of what it describes as the tribe’s original sacred name. All three federally recognized Cherokee tribes — the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band, and the United Keetoowah Band — name Kituwah as the place their people came from.

ᎩᏚᏩ. The place where they gathered. Still gathering.

SOURCES James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee, Bureau of American Ethnology, 19th Annual Report, Government Printing Office, 1902. https://archive.org/stream/mythsofcherokee00moon/mythsofcherokee00moon_djvu.txt Oklahoma Historical Society, “Redbird Smith” entry (RE015): https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=RE015 Keetoowah Society, “Factions”: http://keetoowahsociety.org/factions.htm The Cherokee One Feather, “Kituwah placed in trust for Tribe” (Oct. 20, 2021): https://theonefeather.com/2021/10/20/kituwah-placed-in-trust-for-tribe/ The Cherokee One Feather, “EBCI council designates Kituwah Mound ‘sacred site’” (Dec. 17, 2013): https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/news/ebci-council-designates-kituwah-mound-sacred-site/article_8e827efb-0bab-51a9-9913-c8b9201d4d3e.html Smoky Mountain News, “What is Kituwah?” (Feb. 10, 2010): https://smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/1073-what-is-kituwah Smoky Mountain News, “Anchored at Kituwah: After 138 years, Cherokee will reclaim its mother town as sovereign territory” (Jan. 12, 2022): https://smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/32585-anchored-at-kituwah-after-138-years-cherokee-will-reclaim-its-mother-town-as-sovereign-territory Wikipedia, Kituwa, citing EBCI archaeological surveys and National Register of Historic Places listing 31Sw2 (1973): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kituwa UKB John Hair Cultural Center and Keetoowah Museum, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. YouTube Talking Circle (Dec. 4, 2023):

The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma has a housing shortage. This grant will build two homes for tribal elders.

The $250,000 comes through the Native American Housing Initiatives Grants Program, administered by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka — a regional bank in Kansas — through Sovereign Bank, a community bank owned by the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. It’s not a federal housing appropriation. It’s not formula money. It’s a competitive grant from a voluntary program that FHLBank Topeka funds out of its annual income. The UKB applied, competed against tribes across four states, and won.

Richard Vann, with the tribe’s housing department, said what the grant means: “We desperately need it in our area, especially for our elders.” The two homes, combined with another elder and veteran housing project the tribe already has in motion, will help address the shortage.

The tribe applied for it, competed for it, and won it. Two homes for tribal elders.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Applications for the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma Back-to-School Assistance Program are now available through the UKB Education Department.

The program provides assistance to UKB member families with children enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade for the 2026-27 school year.

Applications will be available beginning June 23 at the UKB Education Center. Completed application packets must be received by close of business July 20. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.

Parents must submit an application for each eligible student. Each application must include a W-9 form, a copy of the child’s UKB membership card and enrollment verification from the student’s school for the 2026-27 school year.

After evaluations, including an assessment at Griffin Promise Autism Clinic in Broken Arrow, a suburb outside Tulsa, ᏍᏏᏉᏯ was not diagnosed with autism. He needed services anyway. Speech delay. Developmental delay. Sensory need. A child doesn’t need a label to deserve a real evaluation and the support that comes after it.

We found that support at Siloam Springs Pediatric Therapy, just across the state line in Arkansas. They were a godsend. They still work with my son today. He’s 7.

The therapies worked. ᏍᏏᏉᏯ found his voice.

The services the law already promised him were another fight. His individualized education program was set in a spring meeting. The services in it didn’t start until about 10 weeks into the next school year, and they ran only until state testing in March. Late. Partial. Gone by spring.

I asked the school why. I asked, and asked, and asked. The answers never came. I sat on that school’s board of education, and no one would answer me.

We pulled him out and enrolled him somewhere that worked with its students.

We had a researcher, a working car, insurance and the time to fight, and we still had to fight.

What happens to the family that has none of that?

Across Indian Country, plenty don’t. Some live hours from a specialist. Some lean on one overburdened public system because it’s the only one within reach. Some are working two jobs and caregiving in between. Some have never been told what their child is owed. Others know exactly what their child is owed and have no way to make anyone deliver it.

A father named Rob Gorski is asking that same question out loud. He writes as The Autism Dad, and last week he saw something that turned the question urgent.

On June 18, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion, written by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit. It argues that federal disability law never required states to serve disabled people in their own communities instead of institutions. It reinterprets Olmstead v. L.C., the 1999 Supreme Court decision behind what advocates call the integration mandate, the rule that says you serve a person in the most connected setting that fits them. The opinion admits its own reading is “out of step with the common understanding” of that decision in the federal courts. A government lawyer put that in writing.

Nothing has been repealed. No one is being put in an institution because of an opinion. Say that plainly, because it’s true.

Here’s what’s also true. Home and community services run on Medicaid. Oklahoma spent years climbing out of a developmental-disability waitlist that hit 13 years in 2022, with more than 5,000 people waiting, and got it down to about one. Then last July, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $911 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office found, and added work rules to keep coverage. When the federal share shrinks, states cut the optional benefits first, and home and community services are optional. The waitlist Oklahoma just cleared can grow back. Take away the federal rule that forces states to serve people in the community, and a shortfall stops being a problem a state has to fix. It becomes a reason.

For Native families, this isn’t a new fear. It’s an old one with a federal paper trail. The Interior Department’s boarding school investigation documented what happened when the government decided where Native children belonged. Children were separated from family, community and language in the name of their own good. That’s not a comparison I’m inventing. It’s a history the federal government documented itself.

Self-determination doesn’t stop at the tribal border. It applies to disabled people and their families too.

So the question isn’t whether disabled people get institutionalized tomorrow. They don’t, not from this. The question is who decides where a person belongs when the money runs short. The family, or the agency with the budget.

We could afford our answer. Most families can’t. The ones with no car, no second option, no time to burn are exactly the ones a weaker rule reaches first. That’s Gorski’s whole point, and he didn’t stop at making it. He wrote the scripts.

Call your senators, your representative, your governor. The ask is short. Oppose any move to rescind the integration mandate. Protect and fund the home and community services that keep disabled people out of institutions in the first place. Members of Congress can’t write or unwrite a legal opinion, but they can pressure the agencies, fund the services, and make weakening disability protections cost something at the ballot box.

The integration mandate is still on the books. No rescission has been filed. While that’s still the sentence, the Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.

According to South Dakota Searchlight, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in a video that the medals won’t be rescinded. He called Wounded Knee a “battle.” He said the soldiers earned the honor.

Garriott says the review never took up the question the descendants came with. Wizipan Little Elk Garriott, a Rosebud Sioux Tribe member who sat on the panel for the Interior Department, told Searchlight the Defense panelists went looking for individual war crimes. Whether a massacre of women and children disqualifies a medal on its own “was simply not part of the conversation,” he said.

Not whether the panel weighed the evidence and got it wrong. Whether the panel was ever handed the question in the first place.

Go back to the morning. Dec. 29, 1890. About 370 Lakota people were camped near Wounded Knee Creek, moving toward the Pine Ridge Reservation, looking for safety. Around 470 soldiers of the 7th Cavalry surrounded them. Twenty-two years earlier the government signed a treaty recognizing Lakota authority over western South Dakota. It broke the treaty in the 1870s when gold turned up in the Black Hills.

The soldiers moved to disarm the camp. A shot went off. Historian Jerome Greene wrote that the shooting turned into “purposeful yet indiscriminate killing.” As many as 200 Lakota died that day or later from their wounds, Greene writes, and likely more. Other accounts run higher. The Army left the bodies to freeze, then paid a contractor to bury many of them in one grave. A year later, about 20 soldiers got the Medal of Honor. According to Searchlight, the records behind some are incomplete or unclear, and one award was based on a brief note from a commanding officer.

Wendell Yellow Bull, an Oglala Sioux Tribe member whose great-grandfather lived through it, answered Hegseth’s description. “You don’t disarm people and then call it a battle,” he said. A descendant of the colonel who commanded the 7th Cavalry that day says the same thing. It was a massacre.

Now the mechanism. The review ran through a five-member panel, three named by Defense, two by Interior. It finished its report in October 2024. The Defense Department hasn’t published it. Hegseth held it up in a video and put it back down.

This week the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee moved to pry it loose. South Dakota Searchlight reported that the committee’s version of the defense bill for fiscal 2027 directs the secretary of defense to turn over the full review and the unredacted materials behind it, and to brief both Armed Services committees by Feb. 1. Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, listed it among his wins in the bill.

Those files are the test of Garriott’s claim. If the materials show the panel argued the massacre question at length, his criticism weakens. If they show the question never came up, it holds. The committee report won’t settle it alone. The documents that would are the ones behind it: the panel’s charter, its instructions, what it was tasked to decide, who voted how. Those say whether the panel reached the wrong answer or was never asked the right question.

Those are two different stories. The first is an argument. The second is a reporting question, and the answer sits in documents the public hasn’t seen.

Congress regretted Wounded Knee in 1990 and left the medals alone. The panel’s report has sat unpublished since October 2024. The Senate now wants it whole. What it says about the question Garriott raised has not been made public.

My grandparents never used the word Kituwah to describe themselves. They didn’t need it. Woodrow and Annie Littledeer raised 10 children — sometimes 11 — under one roof, on very limited income, without perfect English, against cultural barriers most people can’t imagine. They kept everyone fed, cared for, and together. That spirit wasn’t something they practiced or performed. It was their every way of life. And that way of life — the daily, unspoken work of carrying each other — is the true culture we’re losing.

Everything I do traces back to that house.

They never measured success in money, and they never held an office. Their wealth was people. My dad, my aunt, my uncle never sat me down and lectured me on how to live — they lived, and let me watch. My mother and her sisters aren’t just stories of resilience; they’re entire books. Kids don’t learn grit from speeches. They learn it from watching how you respond when things get hard. They follow your examples, not your advice.

So let me say plainly who I fight for: the people. All of them.

Not one tribe. Not one affiliation. Not one enrollment card. Cherokee Nation citizens, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma members, Eastern Band — and every family beyond Indian Country that depends on being able to question the government that claims to serve it. We stand up for our communities, Native or not. My home is made of both nations. My family is composed of both. We are the same people, and what affects one of us affects all of us.

You may know that I was fired for factual reporting after speaking up about a federal funding freeze that hit all of Indian Country. That violated my rights as a journalist and the UKB Constitution and By-laws. But that’s three lines of this story, and that’s all it deserves — because the loss was never mine. When power silences the press, the people lose their voice. I just lost a paycheck.

Free press isn’t a luxury. It’s bedrock. Scratch out the word “press” and write in “sovereignty,” because they live or die together. If people can’t question their government, what they have isn’t sovereignty — it’s a slogan dressed up for the next press release.

And sovereignty belongs to the people, not those who temporarily sit in power.

Read it again. Sovereignty belongs to the people, not those who temporarily sit in power.

It survives only on hard terms. Sovereignty dies first in the minds of its people — forget your laws, your language, your power to decide, and it’s already gone. Constitutions and treaties mean nothing without the will to enforce them. Participation is the price: sovereignty isn’t bestowed by leaders, it’s upheld by the people, and the sidelines are surrender.

So let’s retire gadugi as a PR slogan and do the real thing. My grandparents lived it without naming it. Too many officials name it without living it. Working together doesn’t check enrollment first. It doesn’t stop at a council chamber door or a nation’s border. Divided, outsiders write our rules. Together — Cherokee Nation, UKB, Eastern Band, every nation, every neighbor — we write our own.

People over government. Understand the politics, but never forget the people. And anyone who stands up for government over people should make you think hard about who they’re really serving.

My sons, ᏌᏪᎩ and ᏍᏏᏉᏯ, are too young to fully understand all this. But they’re watching, and they’re trying — and that’s all I can ask. Over the weekend I shared a lesson with my son, paraphrasing Jesus: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” He understood it immediately. The Lord always provides.

We fight for the people. We speak up for the people. No matter the affiliation. No matter the roll number. For Woodrow and Annie. For ᏌᏪᎩ and ᏍᏏᏉᏯ. For your grandparents and your children. For those who came before us and those who will come after us — all of us.

This isn’t the end. Not by far. Wado.

#icandothisallday

The election law of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma still says the final voter list is due June 31. June has thirty days.

The same document calls itself the Election Ordinance of 2025 on page three and the Election Ordinance of 2022 four lines down. Section 408 opens at subsection (F), the first five letters gone. Section 906(A), the rule for election appeals, says “may appeal” twice before it reaches the period. Section 1001 says nothing shall be “constructed” to limit Council authority. The word is “construed.”

This is the document that decides who votes, who runs for office, how challenges get heard, and how appeals get filed.

The typos are the part you catch fast. They aren’t the part that matters most.

Here’s the part that matters most.

The Constitution of the United Keetoowah Band, Article VII, says it plain. “All members of the Band, twenty-one (21) years of age and over, shall be eligible to vote in any election.”

All members.

The ordinance says something narrower. To vote, Section 401 says you have to be an “Exclusive Member.” Section 104 defines that as a member who can prove one-quarter Cherokee blood and isn’t enrolled in any other Tribe or Band. Then it adds six months of exclusive membership before the election on top.

The Constitution’s voting clause names none of that. It says all members, 21 and over.

The ordinance points back to “the Constitution and By-laws” for its definition. That’s where this gets settled: whether one-quarter blood and no dual enrollment are what membership already means, or conditions the ordinance lays on the vote that the Constitution’s voting clause never wrote down. The Constitution says all members. Section 104 says prove a quarter. Both are sitting in writing.

It keeps going.

The Constitution calls the Council the “supreme governing body” of the Band, and says election rules are “prescribed by the Council.” The ordinance builds an Election Board it calls “independent and autonomous,” and in Section 211 lets that Board decide procedure on its own whenever the ordinance goes silent.

The Corporate Charter says the government exists “to define and safeguard the rights and powers of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma and its members.” Safeguard. That same government passed an election law that can’t hold June to thirty days.

The Constitution protects “freedom of worship, conscience, speech, press, assembly and association,” without hindrance. The ordinance, Section 104, makes campaigning “unlawful on tribally owned property,” carving out only private homes and the tribal newspaper.

You don’t have to be a Member to follow this. If a constitution said every member could vote, and a rule passed underneath it added a blood test and a paperwork test the constitution never mentioned, people would have questions. They should.

In an address to the Council marking the 75th anniversary of the Constitution and Corporate Charter’s signing, Chief Jeff Wacoche walked through their federal approval, their October 1950 ratification, and the government’s trust and treaty responsibility that flows from them. The election law built under that same foundation still says June has thirty-one days.

The ordinance expects exact compliance from Members. Miss the address deadline by one minute and the ballot waits until after the election. The government that wrote the ordinance holds itself to a date that doesn’t exist.

The Constitution says all members. Section 401 says prove a quarter. The final voter list is due June 31.

SOURCES: Constitutional and Charter language drawn from the Constitution and By-laws of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma (Article IV membership; Article V governing body; Article VII elections and voting; bill-of-rights provision) and the UKB Corporate Charter, Section 1(a). Ordinance language drawn from the 2025 Election Ordinance, Sections 101, 104(F)-(I), 201, 211, 401, 408, 906(A), and 1001, confirmed against two independent scans of the enacted document. Enacted by the UKB Council on December 6, 2025, under Resolution 25-UKB-132, per the document’s own cover page. Chief Jeff Wacoche’s remarks drawn from his June 7, 2025 address to the UKB Council, confirmed against the transcript. Whether the ordinance’s “Exclusive Member” voting requirement narrows the constitutional franchise or restates existing membership law turns on the UKB By-laws and Enrollment Ordinance, which remain to be reviewed against this text.

It is fourteen hours of driving to see his own kids.

Troy W. Green and his wife make the trip to Texas, where both of their adult children live in group homes. Seven hours to pick them up. Seven hours to take them back. The children have Williams syndrome, a genetic condition that brings lifelong medical needs and developmental disability, the kind that takes daily support and trained caregivers to manage. Oklahoma didn’t have what they needed. So the Greens cross a state line to be a family, and they have built their weeks around the highway.

“No parent should have to send their child to another state simply because their own state lacks the resources to care for them,” Green said.

Anybody in Adair County can do that arithmetic without a calculator. The gas. The lost day of pay. The specialist who is always three counties over. When Green talks about rural families getting left behind, he is not reading from a binder. He is telling you about his Saturday.

Raised in Oklahoma’s foster system. Out of high school and sleeping under bridges and train trestles at 17. And then, decades later, in his fifties, he walked into a college classroom for the first time. He started at Murray State College in January 2020 and came out in spring 2023 with an associate degree, magna cum laude. He and his wife sold what they had in Ardmore, the pawn shop and the family martial arts school, and moved to Norman so he could keep going. Oklahoma City University, May 2025, a history degree, summa cum laude, with a senior capstone on the Tulsa Race Massacre. He is at the University of Oklahoma now, working toward a master’s in criminal justice, due to finish in August 2027.

“It’s never too late to reinvent yourself,” he said. Coming from most candidates that is a bumper sticker. Coming from a man who learned to read a syllabus at 50, it is a fact about his life.

Before the classrooms came roughly thirty years in public safety, across law enforcement, corrections, juvenile detention, investigations and private security. Green says he carried CLEET certification through his law enforcement career, the license Oklahoma requires to work as a peace officer, and still holds it. Somewhere in there he founded Safe Haven Oklahoma, a nonprofit aimed at human trafficking and child exploitation, and he paid the freight himself. The lawyer, the filings, all of it out of his own pocket. “It was created because I saw a need, not because someone handed me a check,” he said.

Then he did something candidates almost never do. He told the truth about how small it still is. Asked what Safe Haven has accomplished, Green said growth has been slower than he wanted, squeezed between his investigation agency, grad school and a statewide campaign. “I won’t exaggerate our accomplishments,” he said. In a business built on exaggeration, a man who refuses to pad his own résumé tells you something.

Here is the part that matters most on this side of the state. We asked Green where he stands on McGirt, the 2020 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed much of eastern Oklahoma is still tribal reservation land, the case that decides who holds legal authority over what happens on it.

“The Supreme Court did not create new treaties in McGirt; it recognized treaties and obligations that already existed,” Green said. “Tribal nations are sovereign governments, not special interest groups. They deserve a seat at the table when decisions affecting their people, lands, and treaty rights are being made.”

He said he would stand against any move in Congress to narrow McGirt or chip at treaty rights without real consultation with the tribes it touches. “Honor the Constitution, honor the treaties, and work together to solve the practical challenges that follow.” Among the answers the five Democratic candidates have put on the public record, none states the position in writing as plainly. He said it without a tribal voting bloc waiting to reward him for it.

He does not pretend to be a party man. “I don’t believe my job is to vote with my party 100% of the time,” he said. “If my own party is wrong, I’ll say so.” Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tribal leaders, he said he’ll work with any of them. “I wasn’t sent to Washington to be a party mascot.”

On the Epstein files, the federal records tied to the late financier and his trafficking of minors, he would not guess at evidence he hasn’t seen. Then he set his jaw. “I don’t care how wealthy they are. I don’t care what party they belong to. I don’t care how powerful their friends are. If they harmed children or helped protect the people who did, they should be exposed and prosecuted.”

Ask him for one bill he would carry with Republican Sen. James Lankford in year one and he goes straight to foster care, back to where his own story started. “Children don’t care whether help comes from a Democrat or a Republican. They just need someone willing to help.”

These answers came in writing, in response to questions submitted by email, on deadline. The dates and degrees in them can be checked against the record. Where Green declined to expand, the gaps are his own.

The primary is June 16. If nobody clears half the vote, the top two go to a runoff on Aug. 25.

About the author: Troy Littledeer is a journalist, photographer and researcher from Candy Mink Springs in Adair County, Oklahoma. He is a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and has spent more than two decades covering tribal governments, education, rural communities and Indigenous affairs across Oklahoma and Indian Country. His reporting has appeared through outlets including Cherokee Phoenix, Osage News, NDNSports.com and Giduwa Cherokee News. In 2025, he received the Tim Giago Free Press Award for defending tribal press independence and government accountability.