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Career conference gives Native American students inspiration, experience

By Ivana Rabago, Cristina Vance and Angela Howe

05.08.02

About 80 high school students, their mentors and advisers made the trek to the top of the Crazy Horse Memorial during the third annual Native American Newspaper Career Conference.

CUSTER, S.D. — Many Native American students may not consider journalism as a career. But faculty members of the Native American Newspaper Career Conference believe that being involved in journalism is key if Native Americans are to have a voice on the issues affecting them.

The third annual conference, sponsored by the Freedom Forum, the South Dakota Newspaper Association and the journalism programs at South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota, brought Native American journalists, students and other journalists to the Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer April 23-25. Students attended lectures and panel discussions about the media and wrote stories and took photos that will appear in a conference publication.

Ray Chavez, chair of the journalism department at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, said he hoped the conference would inspire Native Americans to consider journalism as a career.

Native Americans are currently underrepresented in the media, said Reginald Stuart, a Knight Ridder recruiter. The annual American Society of Newspaper Editors employment survey released in April showed that 307 Native Americans work at mainstream daily newspapers. Stuart said he liked the conference idea because it is good for Native Americans to work in the press both off and on the reservation.

The career conference attracted 80 students and 20 advisers from 17 high schools in Nebraska, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Planning for the conference took almost a year. Dave Bordewyk, South Dakota Newspaper Association general manager, said the 2002 conference made use of a new Communication and Orientation Center at the memorial. The conference is funded by the Freedom Forum Neuharth Center at the University of South Dakota.

Eight new participants joined the faculty, bringing the total to 19 news professionals. The professionals donate their time because they say it is important to inspire young Native American students to become journalists.

Chavez, who has worked with the project for the past two years, said he loved interacting with the youths. "The quality of students (at the conference) gets better and better," he said. "We are getting more students who are interested in journalism."

Ruth Ziolkowski, president and CEO of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation and host of the conference, said it was important for the event to be held at the memorial. Ziolkowski told the students she believed they could achieve their goals, whatever they might be. "I hope the conference itself interests you in journalism," she said.

Students worked for 1½ days learning about reporting and writing skills and the basics of photography and graphic design. Here a student interviews Jack Marsh, a conference organizer and director of Allen H. Neuharth Center for Excellence in Journalism at University of South Dakota.

A group of news professionals organized the conference because they felt Native Americans were underrepresented in journalism. A conference founder, Jack Marsh, director of the Neuharth Center, said there is a large population of Native Americans in South Dakota whose voices are not being heard because too few Native Americans work in the mainstream news media. He said he hoped high school and college students would get involved in journalism after attending the conference.

Marvin Dawes, adviser and student at Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Mont., has attended the conference each of the three years. The students have fun and learn a lot about journalism and go home to tell others, he said.

Dawes, who is interested in photography, says he gets a lot out the conference each year because it provides an opportunity to learn about journalism. He would like more students to attend.

One of the students attending the conference, Mae Lawrence from Timber Lake High School in South Dakota, said, "I came here hoping to have a good experience and get inspired for journalism, and that is exactly what I got out of it."

Another student, Linn White Shield from Little Big Horn College, said she hoped the conference would challenge her and help her learn more about journalism. After joining a photography group at the conference, she said she was having fun and hoped she could take home the photographs she took.

Students received a certificate after completing the conference.

"I think that Native Americans should aggressively pursue educational goals," said Lael Spang, who attends Little Big Horn College. "I wanted to find out what kind of approach a writer would use to write a story for a newspaper, and (to) meet other potential writers and journalists from other tribes. I was hoping to acquire a voice for Native American views."

Spang said he learned a lot from the conference. "I found out that there are a lot of opportunities for Native American writers and journalists on and off the reservation."

A copy of the conference publication is available from the South Dakota Newspaper Association.

Rabago, Vance and Howe took part in the conference. Rabago is a student at Northeast High School, and Vance is a student at Lincoln High School, both in Lincoln, Neb. Howe attends Little Big Horn College in Montana.