Harper Jones elected Round-Up Indian Director
PENDLETON – The Pendleton RoundUp Association at its annual Stockholders meeting reelected President Dave O’Neill to a second term to lead the iconic Oregon event into its 109th year. Harper Jones II, one of three new directors, will succeed Rob Collins as the new Round-Up Indian Director. Jones should be a familiar face to Native Americans at the weeklong event in September. Elected to the Happy Canyon Board of Directors in the fall of 2008, he has served the last three years as show director for the Night Show and Pageant. For two years he was the Indian Director for the Happy Canyon Board. Along with Jones, from Pendleton, the other two new directors are Pat Reay of Walla Walla and Kevin Jordan of Pendleton, who were elected to four year terms on the official board of directors. Livestock director Randy Bracher was elected vice-president, sponsors director Tiah DeGrofft was voted-in as secretary
Harper Jones, Pat Reay and Kevin Jordan were elected to four-year terms as new members of the board of directors for the Pendleton Round-Up Association.
and office/ticketing director, and Kevin Jordan, will serve as treasurer. Jones is a local dentist with a 30-year professional resume in the Round-Up
City. He is married to Kim and together they have three children – Harper, Jake and Sydney (2019 Round-Up Queen). Jones is active in his church and has
Ted Wright Continued from page 1A
around a lot. Why is that? Or it can be seen as he’s done a lot and that’s an advantage I think the Board of Trustees saw. And they saw it as strength, the ability to solve different kinds of problems,” Wright said in an interview a few days before he officially went to work in the West Wing of the Nixyaawii Governance Center. Wright said people that work for only one tribe know only one way to look at an issue. “And no matter how many national conferences you go to, it’s different when you work with people. It’s a completely different thing when you’re in it,” Wright said. “I feel like that may be one of the reasons they hired me, one of the main reasons, so we’ll see. I don’t think any problem is going to surprise me.” Wright has had success, he said, in “getting things turned around” in places. He was doing that at Haskell Indian Nations University in 2008 when a colleague asked him to help fix things. When he left Haskell a year later, some people called Wright a “whistleblower,” but he said that was exaggerated. However, Haskell has recently been in the news regarding the very issues Wright pointed out 10 years ago. He was getting things turned around at Lummi in 2011 when the Tribal Chair lost re-election by two votes. The new council didn’t want the executive director hired by the previous board. (Because there were no performance issues, the Lummi government bought out Wright’s contract. He isn’t working under a contract here.) The last two jobs, which lasted about a year between them, apparently weren’t good fits for Wright in one way or another. Seven months at Tolowa Dee-Nation (Smith River) in Northern California and it just wasn’t working for Wright, who was living and commuting from up the coast in Brookings, Oregon. “You have to feel comfortable for the long haul if you want to work some place several more years. In California, no matter what I was going to do it wouldn’t get better,” Wright said.
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served on local boards such as the Pendleton Air Museum, his kids’ local Boy Scout troop leader, as well as many other volunteer community activities. Jones started his Pendleton RoundUp volunteering in high school when he spent years as an usher in Section K of the South Grandstand. He spent two years as the Indian Director, three years as the Properties Director and also served concurrently as the Publicity Director for a year. His last three years were served as the Happy Canyon Show Director. At the same time Jones helped on the Round-Up side of the fence. He has stocked folding chairs by the hundreds for many years and helped wherever he could on the Round-Up workday. When not involved in physical labor, he and some friends have sung the National Anthem at the Round-Up for three years as well as over at the Professional Round-Up on page 21A
Ted Wright – At a glance He ran the administration for the Makah Tribe for about five months, leaving there to go to work for the CTUIR. He said he could have stayed there, but it’s so far from anything. It was a long drive and then a ferry ride through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. “You can see that my career path has been non-linear to say the least,” Wright said in an email he sent to the CUJ. “This is in part because of the nature of many executive positions in Indian Country, but also due to my frequent role as a troubleshooter.” Now about this job. Wright will be taking over a job that was run by Deb Croswell as deputy executive director and then as interim executive director from February to December 2017, Chuck Sams as interim ED from December 2017 to March 2018, and Eric Quaempts as interim ED from March to December 2018. In all cases, of course, the executive director is the only administrative position answerable to the Board of Trustees. Wright said he will be honest with the nine people he calls boss. “As I told the Board, I work for them. I will let them know what I think … I’ll do what they tell me to do, but that doesn’t mean I won’t work as hard as I can to convince them that there might be a better way of looking at this,” Wright said. He also said he would tell them: “If you don’t want to follow my recommendations, I understand. I won’t take it personally.” The Board, Wright said, hasn’t talked about any particular problems. “I think my assumption is that there are growing pains,” he said in the interview at Great Pacific in Pendleton. “I don’t anticipate all kinds of problems, but there has been 10 years of major growth in the budget and the number of employees … Considering that much growth in that amount of time it’s impressive how you’ve kept it together.” Wright said he told the Board that within three to six months he’ll have a work plan based on his observations and discussions with the 16 department directors in tribal government. “It will take me three to six months
to make sense of the organization,” he said. There will be alliterations of the plan, Wright said, noting that outcomes often change after an election and new strategic planning sessions by new leaders. Wright’s plan will surely “manage to mission,” he said. That means “strengthening sovereignty and treaty rights and improving the lives of tribal citizens through all kinds of programs and services without having them become dependent on them,” Wright said. “It’s a touchy balance between providing services and not having people grow dependent on them so that they lose their motivation to improve their own lives. Wright said he’s very progressive when it comes to politics. “I believe in helping people, but I also believe you can’t nurture overdependence.” Wright was in Europe when he learned of his interview for his new job. He changed his flight home from Spain to touchdown in Portland instead of Seattle so he could get to Pendleton quicker. Usually, he said, he spends two or three days preparing to meet his potential employers. As it was, he was hired after an hour phone interview with the Board’s ED Search Team and a two-hour interview in person with the BOT. He likes Pendleton, calling it a “small quaint town.” He said the area is “different from the coast in a good way.” Perhaps, he said, he’d like to finish out his career here. Because life is short. “You get to be my age and you better understand life is short,” he said. “Life is way too short to be in a bad situation or to be angry or upset or bitter or any of those negative emotions. I don’t waste my time on it. I get over things very quickly … whether it’s a job that wasn’t a good fit or somebody who didn’t like me. I don’t waste a lot of energy or emotions.” Having said that, Wright wants to settle down. “At this point in my career,” he said
Confederated Umatilla Journal
EDUCATION Graduated from Sitka High School in 1974 Attended Central Washington University one year to play basketball for a semester and the rest of the year studying in Spain Transferring to Southern Oregon University in 1976 and early Bachelor’s degree in secondary education/English in 1979 Received fellowship to attend Penn State University through the American Indian Leadership Program and graduated with Master’s degree in Educational Administration in 1980 and the next year began doctoral studies through second fellowship Graduated with Ph.D. in education Theory and Policy with focus and dissertation on tribal economies as tied to political dynamics in 1989 EMPLOYMENT Worked at a pulp mill in Sitka to pay for college Sitka Summer Youth Employment Program coordinator and interim Social Services Director in 1978 Taught high school English and coached basketball at Mt. Edgecumbe High School from 1982-84 Elected to Sitka Tribal Council and served from 1982-84 Consultant work in the mid-1980s before and after returning to finish his doctorate in 1989 General Manager for Sitka Tribe of Alaska 1992-95 Year before and year after returned to Penn State as director of the American Indian Leadership Program From 1997-2004 continued consulting through a company – Tribal Resource Management Planning, which he founded in the late-1980s Faculty and administration at Antioch University in Seattle in 2004 Spent a year as Vice President of University Services at Haskell Indian Nations University in 2008 General Manager of the Lummi Nation in Bellingham, Washington, in 2009 After change in political power at Lummi, moved back to Sitka in 2011 Executive Director for Stillaquamish Tribe of Indians in Arlington, Washington, from 2013-17 Executive Director of Tolowa Dee-Ni Nation in northern California from November 2017 to May 2018 Executive Director of Makah Tribes at Neah Bay on the peninsula of the Straight of Juan de Fuca in Washington from May 2018 to December 2018 Executive Director for Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation December 2018
in that email, “I’m happy to settle in this one, beautiful place and finish my working years helping continue what has been a remarkable journey of progress for the CTUIR.”
December 2018