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Tim Giago
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Tim Giago is a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. He was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota on July 12, 1934.

Giago attended elementary and high school at the Holy Rosary Indian Mission. He enlisted in the United States Navy during the Korean Conflict in 1951 and was honorably discharged in 1958.

He attended college at San Jose Junior College in San Jose, California in 1960 under the G.I. Bill and transferred to the University of Nevada at Reno. He majored in business with a minor in journalism. He was awarded the prestigious Nieman Fellowship in Journalism to Harvard University for the years 1990-1991.

Giago was the founder of the Lakota Times in 1981. The newspaper withstood firebombs, had its windows shot out with shotguns on three separate occasions and Giago received many death threats including one attempt on his life while building the newspaper successfully on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The paper was re-named Indian Country Today in 1992. He served as editor and publisher for 18 years building it into the largest independent Indian newspaper in America before selling the paper in 1998. He started the Lakota Journal in 2000 and served as its editor and publisher until his retirement in July of 2004. Indian Country Today, The Lakota Journal and the Dakota Journal are still viable weekly newspapers that were all founded by Mr. Giago. The Lakota Country Times at Kyle, SD and the Teton Times in McLaughlin, SD, are both weekly newspapers started by former editors Amanda War Bonnet and Avis Little Eagle, who were both trained by Giago at his newspapers. A former Lakota Times employee, Kevin Peniska, started Wellness Magazine.

He was the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association in 1984. In 1983 he sent letters to every Indian newspaper he could find asking them if they would be interested in forming a Native American Press Association. He then worked with Journalism Professor Bill Dulaney of Penn State to raise the money to hold the first meeting of Indian journalists at Penn State. He was elected as the first President of the association when it was formally assembled on the Choctaw Nation the next year. He was the recipient of the H.L. Mencken Award for Editorial Writing from the Baltimore Sun in 1985. He holds Honorary Doctoral Degrees from Bacone College in Oklahoma and from the Nebraska Indian Community College at Winnebago, NE.

Giago was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1994.

Giago has received many professional awards including the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism in 1991, The South Dakota Education Association/National Education Human and Civil Rights Award in 1988, the Golden Quill Award for Outstanding Editorial Writing by the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors in 1997, and Best Local Column by the South Dakota Newspaper Association for the years 1985 and 2003 and the Great Spirits Award from the Navajo Institute of Social Justice in September of 2004. The Harvard Foundation honored him in 1991 for his contributions to the growth of American Indian newspapers and Indian journalism.

In 1976 his weekly television show, The First Americans, made its debut on KEVN in Rapid City, SD. It became the first weekly television show hosted and produced by an American Indian on a commercial television station.

His books include The Aboriginal Sin and Notes from Indian Country Volumes I and II. Giago also edited and helped write The American Indian and the Media. His new book, Children Left Behind was published in August of 2006 by Clear Light Book Publishing, Inc., Santa Fe, NM.

He has served on many boards including three years on the Freedom Forum Board of Advisors with Allen Neuharth, founder of USA Today, and on the Running Strong for America Board with Billy Mills, the winner of the 10,000 meter Gold Medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

A column by Giago challenging Republican Governor George Mickelson of South Dakota to proclaim 1990 a Year of Reconciliation to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee was accepted by the Governor and 1990 was proclaimed The Year of Reconciliation between Indians and whites.

That same year an editorial by Giago was read on the floor of the Sate Legislature by Lynn Hart, a half Lakota, half African American. The editorial called for the state to change Columbus Day to Native American Day. The legislators voted in favor of it and South Dakota became the only state in the union to celebrate Native American Day as a state holiday.

He has appeared on national television on shows such as Nightline and the Oprah Winfrey Show. He has also been featured in many magazines such as Newsweek and People Magazines. His weekly column, Notes from Indian Country, appears nationally and also appears in many South Dakota newspapers as well as in many Indian newspapers and on the websites of indianz.com, nativetimes.com and huffingtonpost.com.

Giago has lectured on Indian issues at many colleges and universities including Harvard, MIT, UCLA, University of Illinois, Boise State, Chadron State, Bacone College, Nebraska Indian Community College, Florida A&M, University of Colorado, Navajo Community College at Shiprock, NM, and Miami of Ohio University to name a few.

His weekly column is distributed by McClatchey News Service (formerly Knight Ridder) in Washington, DC.

He can be reached at 605-430-8217, najournalists@rushmore.com, or by writing him at Tim Giago, P.O. Box 9244, Rapid City, SD 57709.

Blog Entries by Tim Giago

Holocaust Museum of the Indigenous People Should Be Built at Wounded Knee

(39) Comments | Posted April 29, 2013 | 1:14 PM

Since 1492 the history of the Western Hemisphere has been marked by one of the greatest holocausts in the history of the world.

There are no true figures to quote about how many millions of indigenous people have perished in this land that was once their own. Those who...

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Remembering Allen Neuharth, the Newsman From South Dakota

(0) Comments | Posted April 25, 2013 | 4:11 PM

A man dressed in black and silver approached me at a newspaper convention in San Francisco 30 years ago. He held out his hand and said, "Hi, Tim; I'm Al Neuharth and I also am from South Dakota."

That was the first time I met the man...

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Signing Off After More Than 30 Tears

(5) Comments | Posted February 10, 2013 | 1:17 PM

We all, eventually, reach that point in our lives when it is time to move on.

For more than 30 years I have spent each Sunday morning listening to National Public Radio with a piping cup of coffee at hand while I racked my brain to turn...

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Indian Country Loses Three Great Leaders

(1) Comments | Posted January 23, 2013 | 11:19 AM

Perhaps there are many people in America who do not know of the three great Native Americans I am about to eulogize, but all three passed away within two weeks of each other, and all three were champions for Indian rights all of their lives.

Wayne L. Ducheneaux was an...

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The Destruction of Wounded Knee, 1973

(7) Comments | Posted January 13, 2013 | 2:21 PM

In a couple of weeks flyers will be strewn across the Pine Ridge Reservation asking the residents to honor the "Liberation of Wounded Knee in February of 1973." Those who would celebrate and hand out flyers have a delusional recollection of the past.

Wounded Knee was a small village...

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Bureau of Incompetence

(1) Comments | Posted January 11, 2013 | 11:37 AM

When measuring incompetence in the federal government where does one begin?

An excellent starting point is with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The acronym BIA is as familiar to Native Americans as FBI is to all Americans. Both Bureaus have had their faults, but the evidence making the BIA...

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'Wiping Away the Tears' at Wounded Knee

(19) Comments | Posted December 31, 2012 | 10:42 AM

It was just six days after the horrible massacre of nearly 300 Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee and the news was spreading not only across the nation, but to the small communities in Western South Dakota. December 29, 1890 was to become a day of infamy to...

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The Olympics of Indian Basketball

(1) Comments | Posted December 25, 2012 | 7:35 PM

It started out in 1977 as a tournament to bring American Indian teams together and prepare them for the long season ahead. It has gone where no one alive today ever thought it would go.

When the Lakota people hear the acronym "LNI" they know exactly what it means. It...

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"There Are No Words to Describe It"

(1) Comments | Posted December 17, 2012 | 8:52 AM

While trying to talk about the tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut last week it was said over and over by different individuals, "There are no words to describe it."

It wasn't a tragedy that resonated in only one small community in New England, but it was a horrific happening that spread...

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Native Americans and Homosexuality

(21) Comments | Posted December 10, 2012 | 2:46 PM

Can the government refuse marriage and federal benefits to gays and lesbians? Those are the questions before the U.S. Supreme Court, which should make a ruling in June 2013.

In the New York case the survivor of a same-sex marriage is challenging the justices to decide whether the federal government...

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Ask Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren

(5) Comments | Posted December 6, 2012 | 3:25 PM

Native Americans fit nicely into that media box labeled "Out of sight; out of mind:" And if not out of sight, then badly portrayed.

At Thanksgiving white and black school children sporting cardboard headbands and feathers whoop and holler like "wild Indians" around their classroom desks. This past Thanksgiving I...

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Playing Both Ends Against the Middle

(2) Comments | Posted November 26, 2012 | 10:54 AM

Thankfully we will have a slight respite of two years before the mid-term elections roll around.

It is time for all Native Americans to scrutinize their political affiliations. Have the Democrats or the Republicans fulfilled your political aspirations? Has either Party stood up for your interests?

My answer to...

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Sweating a Little Blood in Indian Country

(3) Comments | Posted November 24, 2012 | 10:42 AM

A famous columnist once wrote, "It is easy to write a weekly column. All you have to do is sit in front of your typewriter until you sweat blood."

Of course the typewriter has long since been replaced by the computer, but that concept of writing a...

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Heart Disease and Diabetes Have Invaded Indian Country

(2) Comments | Posted November 5, 2012 | 8:52 AM

One day I was scheduled to go into surgery at the Rapid City Eye Institute for a detached retina and while I was on the gurney hooked up to monitors, the nurse attending me called a physician and he studied the heart monitor and suddenly stopped the tests and disconnected...

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Stuck Like a Fly in the Honey of the Democrats

(2) Comments | Posted October 25, 2012 | 10:05 AM

I have a friend who suffers from that age-old illness known as Demo-nesia. He has been immersed in the pit of the demagoguery of the Democratic Party for so long that his mind has been literally boggled.

I fully expected to get some very negative responses on the column I...

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The Failed Policies of the Democrats on Indian Reservations Will Continue Under Matt Varilek

(12) Comments | Posted October 21, 2012 | 9:57 PM

I've never met Matt Varilek, the Democrat running against incumbent Kristi Noem (R-SD) for the lone Congressional seat in South Dakota. However, I have talked to him on the phone and I will get into that conversation later in this column.

I have met Representative Kristi Noem, first at...

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"What the Hell, They're Only Indians"

(7) Comments | Posted October 12, 2012 | 5:20 PM

Melvin "Dickie" Brewer, a classmate of mine at the Holy Rosary Indian Mission on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and a lifelong friend, like so many Indian boys and girls faced with the hardships of growing up in poverty, developed a drinking problem.

It became a little more...

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Red and White Race Relations 22 Years Later

(2) Comments | Posted October 4, 2012 | 12:51 PM

October 8 is Native American Day in South Dakota, the only state in the Union that honors Native Americans with a state sanctioned holiday: A holiday that, in fact, replaces Columbus Day.

Many Native Americans went to bat to cause this to happen. The primary motivator was the 100th anniversary...

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Sister Ivo and the Mission Boarding School Epidemics

(0) Comments | Posted October 1, 2012 | 8:21 AM

We didn't know where she came from because in the 1940s many of the nuns and priests at Holy Rosary Indian Mission on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota came from a foreign country.

Her name, unfortunately for her, was Sister Ivo. Yeah, you guessed it: the Lakota boys...

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Mascots, Ignorance and Racism

(22) Comments | Posted September 23, 2012 | 5:16 PM

Twenty years ago I was on the Oprah Winfrey Show with Michael Haney and Suzanne Harjo to talk about the use of Native Americans as mascots for America's fun and games.

It was the first time in television history that a major talk show allowed Native Americans...

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