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.
Sept. 8, 1999
By Devlyn Brooks
The Red Lake and Leech Lake tribal councils will meet today for the first time in probably more than 20 years, according to Red Lake Tribal Chairman Bobby Whitefeather.
All 11 Red Lake council members, the five Leech Lake council members and chairmen Whitefeather and Eli Hunt from Leech Lake are scheduled to attend a one-day meeting in Red Lake.
The gathering will begin with a 9:30 a.m. ceremony on the southern shore of Lower Red Lake and almost directly north of the Red Lake Tribal headquarters.
Chairman Whitefeather said, "It was just time" to schedule a meeting between the two tribes to "establish between the two tribes to establish better communication and coordination."
He said the two tribes will have an opportunity to compare notes as to what is happening -- good or bad -- on each reservation.
Whitefeather said some possible discussion topics are jurisdictional, self governance and off-reservation gaming issues.
Both tribes recently embarked on including the expansion of a Red Lake-owned casino in Thief River Falls and Leech Lake's voters approving the building of a new Northern Lights Casino in Walker.
Whitefeather said today's meeting is also a step in the direction of coordinating all the American Indian tribes in Minnesota.
"I'm trying to get (the) tribes to coalesce to a greater degree to create a bigger influence for all the tribes," he said. "I'm trying to be a coalition builder."
After the 9:30 a.m. lakeside ceremony, the council members will return to the Red Lake headquarters for an open discussion scheduled to last a couple hours. Red Lake will host a lunch at noon, and Whitefeather said the meeting should not last much longer.
The meeting comes just weeks after a historic meeting between the Leech Lake Tribal Council and the Cass County Board, something that hadn't happened in more than 25 years.
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