Happy Monday morning! Welcome to June. Several tribes in the United States refer to June as the Strawberry Month.
Here are some of the articles you may have missed this past weekend:
Tense Hearing on Uranium Drilling Tests New Language-translation Law Before Its Effective Date
A new state law requiring language translation services for some government proceedings — like a contentious recent hearing for a permit application to drill for uranium in the Black Hills — has had its first test drive, even though it doesn’t take effect until later this summer.
The law requires the decision-making office or board in an administrative contested case to hire an interpreter or translator when a witness or party needs it.
“Any proceeding that’s open to the public would receive or have those translation services available at no cost to the participants, so it would be covered by the state of South Dakota,” said Rep. Erik Muckey, D-Sioux Falls, the law’s sponsor.
Cherokee Nation’s Legacy Along Route 66
For generations of Americans, Route 66 represents freedom, adventure and the promise of the open road. It is woven into our national imagination through music, film, family road trips and stories passed from one generation to the next.
But long before workers paved the “Mother Road” in the 1920s, the pathways that would become Route 66 were already part of the Cherokee story. Long before Oklahoma statehood, Cherokee citizens traveled these corridors to connect communities, conduct commerce and rebuild lives following forced removal and resettlement in Indian Territory.
When Route 66 was officially designated, it cut directly through the heart of the Cherokee Nation Reservation. It came at a time when our people were still enduring the devastating impacts of allotment and federal policies designed to dismantle tribal governments and tribal landholdings. For Cherokee families, Route 66 was not simply a symbol of opportunity. In many ways, it was another change imposed upon our communities during a difficult chapter in our history.
Army Conducts Ninth Year of Disinterment and Return of Native American Children at Carlisle Barracks
The U.S. Army will continue its commitment to reunite Native American and Alaska Native families with their loved ones through its ninth year of disinterment operations at Carlisle Barracks, beginning Sept. 1, 2026.
The Army is actively working to help bring healing and closure to five Native American tribes and four Alaska Native families whose children died after being sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and who were buried there more than 100 years ago. On behalf of the Army, the Office of Army Cemeteries (OAC) is scheduled to begin the multi-phase disinterment program in September, with forensic archaeological and anthropological expertise from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The decedents who will be disinterred are: Alaska Natives Mabel Stock, Edward Angalook, Lucy Spaulding, and Tummassak (Tomicock); Peter Howe, Richard Morgan, and Christine Redstone from the Fort Peck Tribes; Frances Bones from the Comanche Nation, Fannie Gibson from the Absentee Shawnee Tribe; Della Atkins from the Shoshone Paiute Tribes; Susie King from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians; Margaret Davis from the Keewenaw Bay Indian Community.