Harrison Dehiya, Navajo Broadcaster Receives International Recognition For Doing What Comes Naturally By Bonnie Kline When Harrison Dehiya was growing up in Coolidge, New Mexico, he never expected to receive national recognition. Although he played basketball and ran track and cross country, he never thought he would be featured in Sports Illustrated Magazine, especially for his voice and native tongue. He was just doing his job, in January of this year, when a reporter Sports Illustrated Magazine reporter approached and asked to interview him. She asked questions as he set up for coverage of a boys basketball game at Gallup High School. Later, the magazine's main office in Manhattan contacted him to obtain a photo and let him know the story would appear in the January 17 issue. Its focus was how he does play-by-play sports announcing in the Navajo language.
To do his job, Harrison gets up at 3:30 in the morning and hustles 30 miles between his home in Coolidge and the KGAK radio station in Gallup so he can be on the air at 5 a.m. For many of the station's listeners, Harrison's voice is the first one they hear each day. As “the morning guy” at KGAK, he brings the world to the Navajo Nation, announcing the national news and local happenings in the language he grew up with. He never guessed that doing what came so naturally would lead to his career. Was it fate that led him to it?
For many of the station's listeners, Harrison's voice is the first one they hear each day. As “the morning guy” at KGAK he brings the world to the Navajo Nation...
This is not the first time the Navajo language has come to the attention of the outside world. After World War II, the general public learned what a vital role Navajo had played in defeating the Japanese. The U.S. Military employed native speakers to devise a code undecipherable by the enemy. The success of the “code talkers” helped win World War II and the Navajo are justifiably proud of their language. But it is difficult to master, unless one grows up with it, as Harrison did.
For him, speaking Navajo just came naturally. He says he was surprised the magazine wanted to do a story about that, because Sports Illustrated goes all over the world. Harrison's first look at the story came when an elderly lady came into the radio station pointing at a copy of the new Sports Illustrated Magazine, saying “You're in here! Can I get your autograph?” Since the story appeared, Harrison has been contacted by other magazines, newspapers and TV stations from as far away as Florida. The Seminoles wanted to meet him at the Gathering of Nations for a TV interview. Harrison says it is pretty amazing how the news went “all over.” “I was just doing my daily job, being a radio announcer, making money for my bread and butter.” An Arts & Entertainment Publication
“I didn't go to school for it; I didn't study for it,” says Harrison. “When I came back from junior college back in the '70s, I was looking for a job and came to Gallup. During the summertime, all of a sudden, the clouds will get real big and it will start raining. As I was going to catch the bus back to Coolidge, it started pouring on me, so I started running and ducked into the next doorway and that was KGAK.”
It so happened that the station was just converting to a new format called “All Navajo – all the time,” and was ready to hire a Navajo newscaster. While waiting out the rain, Harrison filled out a job application and was surprised to be called the next day. Fortunately for him, the other applicant, who had a radio operator's license didn't show up and Harrison's career in radio began. Within a few days, he was on the air, nervously announcing community news in Navajo. The station reaches nearly all the 27,000 square miles of the Navajo Nation (size of West Virginia) and its 300,000 residents.
One of Harrison's first challenges was knowing Navajo names for communities, some very small and far away across the vast reservation. To learn them, he asked the name of each place from whomever he met as he traveled across the sprawling landscape. Over the last 14 years he has visited a good number of those communities as sportscaster for high school sports – basketball and football. Continue reading at page 42 - Harrison WOTN-The Magazine - 13