I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
April 27, 1997
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
Billy Mills, the only American Olympian to ever win the 10,000 meter race, says the secret to life is to find the positive desires within oneself, to know oneself and to succeed.
"So what I'm saying is dream your dream, and pursue it," Mills said Thursday night to a crowd of 400 gathered for the 20th Annual Bemidji State University Indian Awards Banquet.
"My dad gave me the secret when I was 12 years old," he said. "If you follow the secret, one of you in this room will accomplish something no one else in the world has done. If every one of you follow the secret, you all will have the secret to the happiness of life."
Mills, born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, which is known to be one of the economically poorest communities in America, related his story of success to the 13 BSU American Indian graduates and several track athletes at the awards ceremony.
Speaking about perception's, Mills told the crowd that it was important for every person, and especially for the Indian graduates, to lead a spiritual, healthy and successful life so that the stereotypes of America's Indians could be broken.
"Perceptions of Indians are crippling," he said.
To illustrate his point, Mills told a story about sitting in a restaurant with his family in Barcelona, Spain, during the 1992 Olympics.
He had been invited to the Olympics to celebrate his achievement, and during a ceremony his face was flashed on a jumbo television screen immediately before the start of the 10,000 meter run that year. IN addition, more than one billion people had seen the broadcast of the ceremony on television.
Yet, that same night, in the restaurant with his family present, a table of journalists next to the Mills family started comparing that year's 10,000 meter race with the exciting race Mills had won in 1964.
One of the journalists asked what had happened to Mills in life after the race, and another journalist said he had become alcoholic and a drug addict because that is just how American Indian people are.
"It was like a knife going into my heart," Mills said. " There are perceptions people have of us. We have to meet and challenge the perceptions with dignity and with pride head on."
Mills got up and told the table of journalists what had happened to him -- that he had gone on to raise millions of dollars for charities, earn three honorary doctorates and still to this day has never drank alcohol or used drugs.
"My dad told me to live my life like a warrior," he said. "I challenge you graduates to live your life like warriors."
And to live like a warrior, one has to humble himself to all of creation and to learn the power of giving, he added.
Mills devotes 75 to 80 speaking engagements a year to corporations, associations, universities, schools and various Indian communities where he teaches how to accept defeat but not failure, and how to reach within the depths of one's capabilities to achieve their greatest potential.
He also spoke at BSU Campus Community Breakfast and participated in 5 kilometer run/walk with students Friday.
"If everyone of you follow the secret, you'll have the secret to the happiness of life," he said. "Your life is a gift to you from our Creator. What you do with your life is the gift back to the Creator."
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