Issue 008 · June 28, 2026
Lew Boyd of the Menominee Nation was inducted into the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame in Green Bay on May 30, recognized for a remarkable amateur boxing career of 76 wins and 6 losses and for his subsequent work as a coach. The Potawatomi Traveling Times, which covered the induction, notes Boyd's dual legacy as competitor and mentor. This is the kind of ordinary-person story Patty's 'Native People Up Close' frame was built for: a Mamaceqtaw man excelling on his own terms, not as a symbol of anything larger.
Issue 008 · June 28, 2026
Native Sun News's reflection on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Greasy Grass sets the commemoration against the backdrop of the United States' own 250th birthday celebrations, and the juxtaposition is quietly devastating. The piece does what the best Native journalism does: it holds two calendars at once, refuses to let the dominant culture's anniversary swallow the other, and insists that what happened along the Greasy Grass was not a defeat but a moment of sovereign assertion that still resonates. Read alongside the ICT newscast coverage of the commemoration events and the Native Sun News profile of historian Donovin Sprague, this piece anchors a week in which tribal nations gathered on that ground to say, in the words of one elder quoted by ICT, 'We changed history.' The Seventh Generation lens is implicit throughout: these nations are not commemorating a past; they are teaching their children who they are.
Issue 007 · June 21, 2026
Lew Boyd of the Menominee Nation was inducted into the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame in Green Bay on May 30, recognized for a distinguished amateur boxing career (76-6) and decades of coaching work. The Potawatomi Traveling Times carried the item, a reminder that Indigenous athletic achievement in Wisconsin crosses tribal lines and that Green Bay remains a gathering point for inter-tribal recognition. Boyd's induction is the kind of specific, joyful story that belongs in the brief alongside the legal and policy news.
Issue 007 · June 21, 2026
The Department of Defense has reduced its list of recognized religion codes for military chaplains from more than 200 to just 31, folding Native American religion into a generic 'other' category. ICT broke this story, and the implications are direct: Native service members seeking ceremonial support, smudging, or traditional spiritual care from a chaplain now have no recognized category to anchor that request. For Patty, whose documentary 'Way of the Warrior' traced the spiritual dimensions of Native military service, this is not a bureaucratic footnote. It is a policy that touches the ogichidaa tradition she has spent a career honoring.
Issue 006 · June 14, 2026
The Department of Defense reduced its list of recognized religion codes used by military chaplains from more than 200 to just 31, eliminating Native American religion as a named category and folding it into a generic 'other' designation. ICT broke this story, and it deserves to be read by anyone who has watched a Native veteran try to access ceremony in a VA facility or on a military installation. For Patty, whose grandfather Edward DeNomie served in the 32nd Red Arrow Division and whose documentary Way of the Warrior traced the ogichidaa tradition across generations, this is not an abstraction. It is a policy decision that tells Native service members their spiritual practices are not worth naming.
Issue 005 · June 7, 2026
Abby Roque, Anishinaabe from Sault Ste. Marie, led the Montreal team to the Professional Women's Hockey League championship this week, facing off against another top Indigenous player in the finals. ICT covered the matchup as the story it is: two Indigenous women at the top of their sport, competing against each other at the highest level, in a league that didn't exist a few years ago. Roque is the kind of figure Patty's 'Native People Up Close' framework was built for: a person doing extraordinary things in an ordinary professional context, not a symbol.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
Native Sun News Today reports that Faith Spotted Eagle, one of the most respected culture carriers in the Oceti Sakowin and a longtime leader in the movement against the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from South Dakota State University at its 140th commencement. The recognition is overdue and meaningful. Spotted Eagle has spent decades doing the patient, unglamorous work of cultural transmission and political resistance that honorary degrees are supposed to honor.
Background
· 2020
· wikipedia
Apesanahkwat (born January 19, 1949) served as tribal chairman of the Menominee Indian Reservation eight times and is widely considered one of the foremost originators of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. A Vietnam Marine Corps veteran, he is also a champion northern traditional dancer and singer and has acted in Wind River, Northern Exposure, Stolen Women, and Babylon 5. He remains one of the most active orators on tribal sovereignty, education, and language revitalization.
Background
· 2014
· wisconsin-academy
Patty followed Indian Nations of Wisconsin with Native People of Wisconsin (2003), a social studies text for younger readers, and Seventh Generation Earth Ethics (2014), profiles of twelve Indigenous Wisconsin stewards including Joe Rose, Dot Davids, and Walter Bresette, which won the Midwest Book Award for Culture. Her PBS documentary Way of the Warrior aired nationally in 2007 and 2011, drawing on her grandfather Edward DeNomie's WWI service with the 32nd Red Arrow Division. The decade between INW editions produced the body of work the third edition now sits alongside.