Mark Johnson is a native of Sanger, California, and descendant of the Vieux and Johnson families. His Potawatomi name is Wisk Mtek, meaning, “Strong as a Tree.” He has served as the legislator for District 7 since August 2010. Louis Vieux was his great-great-grandfather, and Jacob Johnson his great-grandfather, who was married to Sophia (Vieux) Johnson. Both men at various …
Born in San Jose, California, Gene Lambert is a descendant of the Navarre and Melot families. Her Potawatomi name is Memegwe, meaning “Butterfly Woman” or “One Who Sees Good in Others.” She now resides in Arizona after four years residency in North Dakota. Lambert has served as the legislator for District 5 since June 2008, the first elected representative for …
Born on the Kansas River Reservation, Stephen Negahnquet quickly rose to become a community fixture in Kansas. After the Treaty of 1867, he removed with his family to Indian Territory and was allotted several sections of land. He is listed on the 1872 Citizen Potawatomi allotment census as well as recorded first on the 1887 Dawes allotment census. On the …
The son of a U.S. government employee, Rande Payne was born in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, Canada, while his father was on deployment. Sioux Lookout is an Ojibwe First Nation community that derived its name from a hill overlooking the English River where Ojibwe warriors would watch for Sioux canoes. When invaders were spotted, women and children were alerted to run …
In February of 1996, Citizen Potawatomi members from across the United States cast their vote during a special secretarial election to officially change the tribe’s name from “The Citizen Band Potawatomi Tribe of Oklahoma” to “The Citizen Potawatomi Nation” to reflect its status as a sovereign nation. The U.S. Secretary of the Interior authorized the special election, which differed from …
Rural Water District 3, which serves 60 percent of the Pottawatomie County’s geographic area, including the municipalities of Asher, Wanette and Dale, is the only Tribal-owned enterprise that is a public utility. It began serving the region in 1997, however, the district was in dire economic straights when the Tribe took over in October 2007. Since then, the district’s water …
Paul Schmidlkofer is a native of Shawnee, Oklahoma and descendant of the Tescier and Greemore families on his grandmother’s side. He has served as the legislator for District 12 since June 2008, following the 2007 CPN constitution ratification to include representation for the entire United States. As a military child, Schmidlkofer was born at Altus Air Force Base in Altus, …
One of the eldest representatives on the Citizen Potawatomi Legislature, Kansas City, Missouri’s Roy Slavin saw the vast changes Native Americans have gone through in the 20 and 21st centuries. He was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, to Roy and Irene Slavin in 1933. He began representing Citizen Potawatomi Nation District 1 in August 2007 CPN constitutional revision, which created …
As Indian nations utilized the resources made available through the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) to restructure their governments, opponents to Indian self-determination pushed back in the wake of the Second World War. With the 1946 departure of John Collier and Harold Ickes from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and as Secretary of the Interior respectively, both staunch supporters of …
An EF-4 tornado struck the Little Axe and Shawnee Twin Lakes area on May 19, 2013, damaging hundreds of homes and leaving many families without a place to live. Pottawatomie County residents and those from surrounding areas flooded local aid relief agencies to pitch in on recovery. The F-5 tornado that wiped out parts of south Oklahoma City and Moore …