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Edward Velarde passionately and tirelessly served the Jicarilla Apache Nation in northern New Mexico for decades. He served as council member, vice president and began serving as president in 2019 until his death.

Velarde died at age 76 on May 12. Vice President Sonja Newton has resumed his duties as president.

Velarde served in the U.S. Air Force as an engine mechanic and was a Vietnam War veteran. Afterwards, he returned home to Dulce, New Mexico and worked as a housing director and maintenance director.

“During his tenure, President Velarde spearheaded several key initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life for the Jicarilla Apache people. His efforts in education, healthcare, and economic development have left an indelible mark on our community. He was also a strong proponent of preserving our cultural heritage and traditions, ensuring that the values and history of the Jicarilla Apache Nation remain vibrant and respected,” the Jicarilla Apache Nation said in a statement. READ MORE — Kalle Benallie, ICT

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Hundreds of Indigenous people in Alaska didn’t get their votes counted in the last election in part because of a shortage of U.S. Postal Service workers in rural communities, which are predominantly Alaska Native. That’s according to Michelle Sparck, who is Yup’ik, and director of Get Out the Native Vote, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Mail-in ballots have to be date stamped by a certain date and received in Juneau by the Alaska Division of Elections by a deadline. When postal workers only work a few days a week or call in sick, they often don’t get the ballots date-stamped or sent in on time.

Sparck said 1,194 rural votes weren’t counted in the June 2023 all-by-mail special primary, which is four times the state average. She told ICT the U.S. Postal Service needs to follow through in the hiring of postmasters and postmaster relief workers.

“In regard to the postal service and how that plays into being a possible systemic barrier, we don’t have a good recruitment effort for these rural post offices. When the post office published a list of vacancies, of the 77 (positions), I saw 75 were in rural, and what Get out the Native Vote considers to be tribal precincts. And if we have 75 locations that are vulnerable to closures because it’s not fully staffed, then that affects our economy, that affects our medical attention, and that affects our ability to vote.” READ MORE — Joaqlin Estus, ICT

At the University of South Dakota, the use of tribal affiliations in email communications is no longer permitted.

The South Dakota Board of Regents told two university faculty members they could potentially put their jobs at risk if they continue to use them in their signatures.

One University of South Dakota employee, John Little, Standing Rock Dakota, posted on social media on March 13 that he received a written warning that his email signature “Standing Rock Dakota – he.him.his” violates Policy 1.7.6, which the regents adopted last December.

“In this written warning, it was stated that if I did not take out my tribal affiliation and pronouns to comply with (policy) 1.7.6, I would face suspension from USD (with or without pay) and then there would be a decision made about termination,” wrote Little, who serves as director of Native Recruitment on campus. READ MORE — Renata Birkenbuel, ICT

It’s been nearly five years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision recognizing tribes’ treaty-based hunting rights, and two months since a lower federal court issued an order related to tribal elk hunting in the Bighorns. Still, many of the fundamental legal and policy questions about where, when and if certain Native Americans are bound by state hunting regulations remain far from resolution.

Meanwhile, the landscape of case law in which observers expected the lingering legal questions to be resolved has quietly, but meaningfully, shifted: Wyoming has dropped the charges in the partially remanded Herrera v. Wyoming case, meaning the case is dead and its unresolved elements will remain that way.

That has elevated the importance of a case that began when Thomas Ten Bear, a citizen of the Crow Tribe, was convicted of elk poaching in the Bighorns in 1989. Though completely separate from the more modern Herrera case, Ten Bear’s shares a number of key elements: both center around Crow Tribal members being prosecuted for killing elk in a national forest in Wyoming without a state-issued permit. READ MORE — Wyofile

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Various tribes are hosting a life skills program teaching women personal development, family parenting, mindfulness, healing and more. Cree citizen Ivanna Yellowback is the co-founder of this program. ICT’s Paris Wise has more on how Yellowback hopes to grow this work.

We turn now to the world of books where non-fiction author Anton Treuer has published his first work of fiction. Stewart Huntington caught up with the Bemidji State Indigenous Studies professor.

What does the future hold for Indigenous people? That was the question front and center for social justice organization Illuminative. ICT’s Shirley Sneve has more on the Native Futures survey with CEO Crystal Echo Hawk.

WATCH

A double stabbing that left one man dead and another hospitalized led to a rare extradition order to state custody from the Yankton Sioux Tribe.

Mackenzie Antelope, 18, of Lake Andes, is charged with alternate counts of first- and second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter in the death of 22-year-old Lake Andes resident Quinlan Ream.

Antelope is accused of stabbing Ream and 33-year-old Dylan Oulette of Lake Andes in a motel in that Charles Mix County town. He’s facing an aggravated assault charge for the Oulette stabbing.

Oulette stumbled into the Lake Andes Gus Stop on May 21 at 10:41 p.m. with multiple stab wounds and reported the stabbing, according to an affidavit signed Tuesday in Antelope’s criminal case file. He was soon taken to a hospital in Sioux Falls. READ MORE — South Dakota Searchlight

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