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.
June 6, 1997
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
After 10 years of planning and a false start in 1994, the outlook for building a new American Indian Center at Bemidji State University is optimistic, according to Minority Student Services Director Don Day.
The state Legislature re-authorized in the 1997 higher education funding bill up to $1.1 million in matching funds to be used toward building a new Indian center, meaning any money raised by BSU will be matched dollar for dollar by the state.
However, according to Vice President for University Advancement Dave Tiffany, BSU must raise at least $500,000 from sources other than state money, and the matching funds must be used by 2001. Should the matching funds not be used by then, it will be lost.
Tiffany, who sits on the committee overseeing the project, said a consultant who will help procure the extra funding will be hired this summer, and further plans will be developed thereafter. No date for construction has been set yet, and probably will not be until certain factors -- such as how much money will be raised and when it will be available -- are known.
The new center would be built near the old Anishinabe house, which sat in the southwest corner of BSU's Bangsberg parking lot.
"The (Indian center) group has just reorganized at BSU, and they seem to be right back on track," Day said. "The BSU administration has done a really good job of keeping this alive. They could have set the project aside, but they have a commitment to cultural diversity. Everybody seems pretty optimistic about the project getting accomplished."
BSU's Indian students have been without a center since April when the former Anishinabe house, used as a gathering place for Indian students, was torn down.
The 90-year-old house had become a fire hazard and would have cost too much to fix, according to Day.
However, the history of the Indian center committee goes back 10 years. The push for a new Indian center began in 1987 when a group of the former Indian Student Services employees met to discuss the dilapidated Anishinabe house.
In response, the president of the university organized a committee of community members, which devised two sets of plans for the center -- a small structure with a moderate price tag, and a larger structure should enough money be raised.
Even though the committee had only raised about $50,000 for the project by 1994, BSU broke ground for the smaller structure anyway, thinking it might be easier to finish the project once it was officially started, Day said.
But fate would intervene that day as four key state legislators -- Sen. Roger Moe, DFL-Erskine, former state Sen. Skip Finn, former state Rep. Bob Johnson and Rep. Tony Kinkel, DFL-Park Rapids -- who attended the ground breaking told BSU officials a better and bigger center could be built.
About a month later, the state Legislature appropriated $1.1 million in matching funds for the project, provided BSU could raise $ 1 million. In 1996, a consultant hired by the university determined it could not raise the needed $1 million, and therefore would lose the money.
This spring, a delegation of BSU officials asked the Legislature if it would authorize a true, dollar-for-dollar matching program so that the project could be built. The Legislature agreed, with the stipulations that BSU must raise a minimum of $500,000 and the money must be used by 2001.
"We've got a little over four years to complete this project now," Day said. "So, one way or the other, in four years, this will be over. It'll be built, or it won't."
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