The future of government-to-government partnerships and relationships is exciting in North Dakota. Between federal, state and tribal governments, we’re seeing greater collaboration and communication, leading to better outcomes for all. Scott Davis, Executive Director of the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission, joins us to talk about what's on the horizon.
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| North Dakota's history is full of legendary people, and today North Dakota is a place where anyone can be legendary. | |
| Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, once said, Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. | |
| This is a show about people doing just that, for the people of the great state of North Dakota. | |
| Welcome to Work Worth Doing. | |
| Today we're having a conversation about tribal engagement and how the state is working with tribal leaders to solve the biggest issues we face. | |
| The future of government to government partnerships and relationships is exciting in North Dakota. | |
| Between tribal, state, and federal government, we're seeing greater collaboration and communication leading to better outcomes for all citizens of North Dakota. | |
| We'll get started with today's conversation soon, but since the Legislative Assembly adjourned their regular session recently, let me provide a quick summary of some of the biggest news regarding tribal issues to come out during the past few months. | |
| The legislative session started with Governor Burgum's State of the State address, where he announced that the flags of all five tribal nations that share geography with North Dakota would have their flags displayed in Memorial Hall at the State Capitol for the first time in history. | |
| This moment set a tone of collaboration for the rest of the session. | |
| Following more than a year of working with stakeholders and crafting new policies, the legislature passed multiple positive bills for our tribal nations, including a new agreement for sharing oil and gas tax revenue, creating new processes to aid in missing persons investigations, and passing a bill to make sure all of our high schools allow tribal regalia to be worn at graduation ceremonies across the state. | |
| All of these issues warrant a deeper look, so let's get started. | |
| We're joined today by Scott Davis, Executive Director of the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission, a position he has held since 2009. Usually I would tell you all about Scott's background at this point, but Scott and Doug had an in-depth conversation about Scott's career while we were recording this episode, so I'll let you hear it directly from them. | |
| Here's Doug Burgum and Scott Davis. | |
| You've been doing this for 10 years. | |
| Obviously, this is work worth doing, and I can tell every day that you're fighting for your people and working to make things happen, but tell us a little bit about the passion you bring to this job every day, where does it come from, and why are you doing this? | |
| This is a tough, difficult job, but you're in here every day. | |
| Well, Governor, first of all, thank you for allowing me some time and have a very, I guess, a heart-to-heart conversation with you today. | |
| Yeah, doing this for 10 years. | |
| The anniversary was a couple weeks back. | |
| I didn't know how to take it. | |
| I was like, man, this has been a decade, if you want to think of it that way. | |
| You start processing of all the stuff you've been through over the years. | |
| It's a passion that I have. | |
| I think it comes from my parents, from my ancestors. | |
| It comes from you, your staff, my brothers and sisters that work for you, the administration. | |
| We're all in this together. | |
| To know that and to feel that people have your back, you have my back, and the trust that you have in me and trying to read that to our tribal leaders and our people back home has been very rewarding. | |
| Do I get tired some days and burnt out? | |
| Yeah, I do. | |
| Do I get frustrated and angry at times? | |
| Do I cry? | |
| Yes, I do. | |
| But, you know, I'm happy. | |
| I'm content at times, but I know there's so much more work to do. | |
| And we've had a chance to work together for just over 28 months, not even two and a half years. | |
| But I'm going to go back. | |
| Your family's been engaged here. | |
| Education's been important to you. | |
| But tell the listeners a little bit about how you grew up, where you grew up, and the opportunities that have been afforded on the way. | |
| And I'm going to throw in some sports questions, too. | |
| Yeah, well, that too has been a journey, Governor, with my journey of where I finally landed on my two feet here. | |
| But, you know, growing up, my father was an educator, you know, in the school system. | |
| He started out as a Dickinson State grad, ran track, house country, was very successful at it on cinder tracks back in those days. | |
| And my mother was in health care. | |
| She was a dental assistant coming out of Haskell Junior College in Kansas back in the 60s. | |
| Their love story began in Standing Rock through my father's blood brother at the time, Don Blevins, who was an amazing standout athlete back in those days. | |
| The love story took him to Wapton, where I was born. | |
| He was a coach and teacher there. | |
| But it was always service growing up. | |
| Growing up, it was always, what's your goals? | |
| What are you going to do with your life? | |
| In sports, my dad was a standout athlete in college and running. | |
| Running and basketball was my upbringing. | |
| Of course, going to the NBA was the goal and all that stuff, but I had a pretty successful career in running in college and track and playing basketball. | |
| Tell us about high school first. | |
| Where did you end up going to high school? | |
| I was here at St. Mary's in the mid-'80s, and then when we transferred, my dad got the superintendent job up at Belcourt. | |
| My senior year of all years, we moved up there. | |
| But at first, I didn't want to move home or move away from Bismarck because, of course, all your friends are here. | |
| So I pleaded with him and some of my friends from high school, you can stay with me, but it didn't turn out that way. | |
| My senior year was probably the greatest year of my life because I got to re-engage with my family, my relatives back home, and my grandparents, and that was a blessing. | |
| It was my best year. | |
| Then off to college at Haskell Junior College in Kansas, I already knew my junior year I was going to go down there because there were A national powerhouse and cross country and the marathon. | |
| And I have to say, you know, my first cross country meet down there in Wichita, you know, we pulled up in a van and everybody was looking at us. | |
| And I kept asking my coach, why is everybody looking at us? | |
| Is it because I thought it was, you know, like, because we're Indian, you know? | |
| No, it's because we're Haskell. | |
| You know, that's where Billy Mills went. | |
| That's where Jim Thorpe went. | |
| I mean, you know, you got a legacy of national prominent world-class runners down there, and just to be part of that mystique was amazing. | |
| So I had a pretty good career down there. | |
| I was All-American. | |
| And did you have a specialty distance, or was this all in cross-country? | |
| Mostly cross country, but the marathon, we have national marathon championships that back in those days, I think they still have them in the junior college ranks, but I was at All-American placing fourth, and we were back-to-back national champions in that. | |
| So going into that fourth year, we thought, wow, we've got two All-Americans returning, we're stacked, we're 10 deep runners, and And I thought we were going to win it all. | |
| And how marathons race, you know, you hit the wall, things change. | |
| And it was amazing how, you know, at 20 miles of all things, I just had a burst of speed. | |
| And it just hit me. | |
| Your second wind, 20 miles, I just, you know, end up placing fourth. | |
| And then after that, I took a year. | |
| And then tell us what kind of a time on that. | |
| It was 2.39 was my marathon time. | |
| Wow. | |
| Smoking. | |
| 26.2 miles. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | |
| Incredible. | |
| So I thought, you know, that was that. | |
| And then my sophomore year in college, I had an up-and-down little season, had a few injuries. | |
| And then after that, I took a year off and went to teach and coach at the Pure Indian Learning Center down in South Dakota. | |
| And again, that was a school like Wapton that a lot of these kids from kindergarten through eighth grade were challenged. | |
| You know, they were either the court ordered or something was happening with their lives where they were at a boarding school there. | |
| And so these were some tough kids, very street smart, very, you know, they just needed direction. | |
| But in the course of that year, I figured out very quickly that, you know, these kids, aside from what they're going through in their lives, they just need love. | |
| They need attention. | |
| And that taught me so much about myself, about people, about children. | |
| And then you worry about them, you know, going back home. | |
| Because going back home to the res, it's tough. | |
| It can be tough, you know. | |
| And then after that, I finished up at Minot with my career and wanted to be a psychologist and coach. | |
| But I just wasn't into Freud and Jung and all that, so I just chose to go back to work and worked and still had my two year degree and worked different jobs throughout the state and out of state and moved to the cities for a while. | |
| Did all that and then years later ran to my wife. | |
| I applied for a job here in town at United Tribes College at the gym and at the Wellness Center and there she was. | |
| Her and her friends ran out of gas. | |
| I pulled over to help them out and there she was. | |
| And that was the end of that, I guess, for us. | |
| Scott to the rescue. | |
| There you were. | |
| Serendipity. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And then working out there at the college under President Gipp, you know, we start, you know, I was a development officer after raising money and trying to engage people to support the college, and it led me to... | |
| To meet people like the mayor and the city commission here, the county commissioners, and then it led to meeting Dale Brown, you know, who is a huge Native American supporter, which I didn't know at the time. | |
| And to this day, Coach and I are very, very close. | |
| We adopted him as a member of my family. | |
| He calls me at least twice a week on something. | |
| You know, there was at a time where I had been convinced to come and coach for one year for free, him and Jerry Tarkanian, to coach the tribal college at United Tribes. | |
| Oh my goodness. | |
| Yeah, that was on the table. | |
| For the listeners that don't know Dale Brown, we're talking about Shaq's college coach, Shaquille O'Neal's college coach at LSU, coaching legend, but that's fantastic and fun. | |
| So again, life coaches, you know, leadership, and then meanwhile I was taking grad courses up at Mary, and at the time Kevin Kramer was one of my instructors, teachers, and so we start talking, and then Then one day, Governor Hoven's staff and Kevin Kramer talked to me about, hey, you know, the governor would like to talk to you about something. | |
| I thought, oh, great. | |
| This is about the college, you know, and I thought this is going to help the college in some way. | |
| And, you know, he just one day asked me, would you consider working for me? | |
| And I'm like, you know, are you sure you have the right Scott Davis here? | |
| And then I was just floored. | |
| You know, I was just shocked. | |
| Like, you know, I didn't believe him. | |
| Ron Rauschenberger was part of that discussion. | |
| So it took me about four weeks to go through that process because I valued this position in a way that I knew enough, working for my own tribal government for eight years and staying in Iraq, I knew what I was going to get myself into. | |
| I knew this wasn't just a fancy title. | |
| And I knew myself enough that if I'm going to take this job, I want to do this, this and this. | |
| Give me the green light to make change. | |
| Tribal engagement is one of the governor's five strategic initiatives for his administration. | |
| As sovereign, yet connected governments, this effort within Governor Burgum's administration often interacts with the tribal nations through the governor's other initiatives, like innovative education and behavioral health. | |
| First Lady Catherine Burgum has taken on the task of improving behavioral health in North Dakota by eliminating the shame and stigma associated with addiction and mental health. | |
| One way to eliminate stigma is by standing up and speaking out as someone in long-term recovery from the disease of addiction. | |
| Simply being a face and voice for recovery can inspire others to do the same. | |
| Scott Davis took a brave step and stood up as one of those faces and voices of recovery. | |
| In this next section, you'll hear Scott make a connection between sobriety and self-determination, and the connection that has to everyone's life. | |
| This sense of self-determination translates into a notion of self-governance that frames Scott's approach to working as an advocate for stronger government to government relationships. | |
| You've got this unique background, Scott, with all this education and different education institutions that you've seen from public high schools in Turtle Mountain to United Tribes, and you've got direct family connections and enrolled family members at Turtle Mountain and Standing Rock. | |
| You've got friends and relatives all over the state. | |
| It really brings a unique perspective. | |
| But when you think about the future, where do you see the potential? | |
| What are some of the hurdles we have to cross? | |
| We've had some great successes in the last two years, but how high is up and what's next? | |
| Yeah, that's a great question. | |
| Yeah, I am definitely connected with a lot of relatives and friends over the years, you know, and that's a blessing. | |
| But, you know, the challenges remain the same. | |
| And I guess maybe sometimes I get misunderstood about my approach on things, of where I stand on things. | |
| Because I've been part of that discussion for 20 years prior to this job. | |
| You know, I worked for my tribal government for eight years on and off, and I was... | |
| Very close with Chairman Murphy and Chairman Taken Alive and understood and paid attention to what those issues were, whether they're water, land, economic development, diabetes, health care, drug addiction, all that. | |
| Even for myself personally, Governor, as you know, I make no bones about my own recovery, 12 years of my sobriety. | |
| Congratulations. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Thanks for being an amazing face and voice of recovery so people can see what recovery looks like. | |
| There's so much hope in recovery and we know that the disease of addiction touches every family and every community and every organization in our state. | |
| It's still too hidden, still too much stigma, and only with the courage of people like yourself and the First Lady and your wife talking about this stuff. | |
| I mean, that's what's making changes. | |
| It is. | |
| It is, absolutely. | |
| And the stigma, because, you know, in these jobs, in these positions, you know, sometimes the spotlight's on you. | |
| And there's always this thing hovering over my head like, you know, I'm in recovery. | |
| And do I say that? | |
| Do I want to share that? | |
| You know, is it really personal to me? | |
| And it wasn't until you and when Catherine came along that when you announced that the shame and stigma It shouldn't be that way. | |
| That brought tears in my eyes. | |
| That was a very strong moment in my sobriety that told me that you're free. | |
| Say it. | |
| And you're taught in sobriety to be honest about things and call it out and have the courage to say things. | |
| And when you guys had led that with me, it gave me a whole new breath of fresh air about my sobriety. | |
| Like, you know, there's no shame in that. | |
| It is what it is, you know? | |
| And that allows me to be free more in a sense of who I am as a person. | |
| It's a really empowering message that you're delivering and I have to agree with you because I, when we, you know, take a look at part of the First Lady's initiative to end the shame and stigma, part of that is if we have, as North Dakotans look at each other and see someone who's suffering from the disease as North Dakotans look at each other and see someone who's suffering from the disease of addiction and we realize it's a disease, then we'll respond to that person like they had cancer It is. | |
| It is, absolutely. | |
| Even how I relate in my job about things. | |
| Sometimes there's this fogginess of what you see and what you don't see, of how to sometimes govern effectively. | |
| We all understand there's politics and governing and leading. | |
| We all know that in these jobs. | |
| But at the end of the day, what is the truth? | |
| How are we going to fix this? | |
| And if we're not sobering up to the fact that This cannot change. | |
| This cannot continue, this way of doing, living, and governing. | |
| Then how can we really be effective in bringing wellness and the full circle of who we are as a people? | |
| You know, that strongness, that greatness, that powerfulness that we all had at one time with our tribal nations. | |
| I mean, we are powerful people. | |
| We are great people. | |
| I mean, I always say this too when I talk to the youth community. | |
| You know, you come from powerful people. | |
| Your tribal name, your ancestral name, that's a powerful thing that's in your blood and bones. | |
| But if that's diluted with addiction, with corruption, with lies and Facebook and bullying and all this stuff, then how can we be sovereign again? | |
| How can we be free of these things like our ancestors were? | |
| I want that. | |
| You want that. | |
| But the only way we can do that is that first step, those steps in sobriety. | |
| And that's how I look at some of my work, Governor, is just that. | |
| If we can't be able to call these things out and address them internally, tribally, then how are we going to expect things to move forward? | |
| And also, at the same light, when you talk about treaties, that we expect the government to adhere to these treaty responsibilities. | |
| I fully understand that that's in the marrow of my bones and in my DNA that the treaty is the law of the land. | |
| But the reality, the soberness that comes to my mind is that how is that working for us? | |
| Do we really believe that the government, the U.S. government, is ever going to fulfill their trust responsibilities for us? | |
| I don't believe that. | |
| I don't think that will ever happen in my lifetime. | |
| And in the same sense, we're sovereign. | |
| We are sovereign. | |
| We have treaty language. | |
| We have U.S. government language in our Constitution that defines us as sovereign nations. | |
| Okay, what does that mean? | |
| Sovereignty to me means that you call your own shots. | |
| Sovereignty to me personally means my sobriety. | |
| Sobriety is sovereign to me. | |
| My actions, my education is very sovereign to me. | |
| I own that. | |
| I earn that. | |
| You know, the money in my bank is sovereign to me. | |
| The way I treat my kids and my family is sovereign to me. | |
| I own that. | |
| I control that. | |
| Not the government, not the state government, not troubled government, but me alone. | |
| And I really believe, in my personal belief, that's how my ancestors acted and behaved. | |
| They were truly sovereign. | |
| We have to understand that disease of addiction is powerful, and it's cunning, and it's progressive, and it's ultimately fatal if not treated. | |
| Shame and the stigma keeps people from accessing their own sovereignty, accessing their own power, and recovery is freedom. | |
| Making progress together with our tribal nations requires a collaborative approach and strong relationships built on trust and mutual respect. | |
| This is the foundation for the successes that came out of this legislative session. | |
| This momentum will continue forward as we implement better taxation agreements, improve coordination among law enforcement, expand behavioral health services, provide a better education for our students, and dedicate time and resources to recognizing the complex and powerful history of this land and its people. | |
| And we know that tragically in the last year, we've had two incidences in our state that have reached national news, not the kind of news we want to be on, for, you know, murdered, missing indigenous women and making some important changes there in terms of how we approach that. | |
| When those happen, I know I can feel the hurt for you personally. | |
| I know you feel deep empathy for everyone, but in some cases you know these people, you know their families, and you worked so hard during those cases to try to bring those to resolution. | |
| I just want to again say thanks for caring so deeply. | |
| Thank you, Governor. | |
| I'll just use our relative, Olivia Lombare. | |
| I mean, that was an eight-month search for her. | |
| That required every badge in the state to be looking for her. | |
| And how do you do that? | |
| How do you get law enforcement to engage when legally or what have you, they can't cross that border, that line, because they're not? | |
| But we did. | |
| We did it collectively. | |
| The cities, the counties, the state, the feds, the tribe. | |
| We all had a big hand in this, you know, and again, those are things, Governor, where I'm not going to say no to that. | |
| You know, we need to communicate that. | |
| We need to take the lead on that. | |
| I'm not tooting my horn, but you have people in my office like Erica Thunder, who is amazing, young, up-and-coming leader, Brad Hawk, Marietta Kement, and my data person with Leah McLeod. | |
| I mean, that's our office, and, you know, sometimes I've got to hand these things off. | |
| Hey, you've got to take this over. | |
| You know, I've got to focus somewhere else, but In this case, with murdered indigenous women, you know, Erica played a big part in that, in coordinating weekly communication on trying to find her. | |
| So, you know, those are just things, again, Governor, that you don't say no to them. | |
| You got to get them done. | |
| So, Scott, as we, you know, close out here today, be interested in your thoughts about, you know, big vision looking forward. | |
| I know at the conferences, one of the words that kept coming up over and over was healing. | |
| Everybody was, you could just feel in the room that everybody was healing. | |
| And one of the things that I saw this session that we hadn't seen before was a lot of collaboration. | |
| I mean, when we got both parties, both houses, people working together, getting legislation passed, the The flag ceremony, the Vietnam veterans ceremony, I mean a number of things where we're all working together. | |
| When I look forward, you know, sort of beyond healing and beyond collaboration is your word that you talked about. | |
| I'm interested, you know, in empowerment. | |
| You know, how can we empower individuals and families and tribes and communities? | |
| And then I also think another word is I'm thinking about is enlightenment, which is how can we get to the point where everybody in North Dakota, we drop, you know, we drop any prejudice that might exist between people or communities or families and get to a point of enlightenment where everybody understands and respects everybody else as a human being with dignity and respect. | |
| I mean, I mean, it'd be amazing if North Dakota could become that place where we're free of that, where everybody has a chance to reach their own potential, free of that, free of being prejudged. | |
| And I know you said you care deeply about this, but tell me a little bit about when you dream about the future, what do you think about it? | |
| I always think it's bright. | |
| You know, I just see opportunity all around me all the time in relation to history and understanding is the Whitestone Massacre. | |
| At one time it was called a battlefield, but that one there and trying to get appropriations, money, private money to raise for a monument. | |
| For those who were massacred by, at that time, by U.S. soldiers. | |
| You know, again, history is, is, and it is what it is. | |
| And that history has been proven for six years we worked on that, on the accurate history of what really happened there. | |
| Was it a battle or was it a massacre? | |
| Well, it is a massacre, you know, and we have documented to show that. | |
| And we got some dollars appropriated. | |
| We do. | |
| In the State Historical Society this time. | |
| Just signed that bill this week, so congratulations after working six years on that. | |
| Thank you. | |
| And even the locals down in that area agree to this. | |
| You know, those are things where you're... | |
| Well, it's an important piece of our history that many North Dakotans don't even know or understand about, and it's the... | |
| So it's exciting that we're going to have a chance to actually honor those early North Dakotans and tell that story. | |
| And I think the other things, too, is just, you know, the other issues that, you know, whether it's water, water projects, sacred sites, you know, we got some legislation passed to study sacred sites in regards to development and So, you know, in light of what happened with the pipeline, you know, we have a large, you know, number of Native American sites, sacred sites, grave sites in the Dakotas. | |
| And we all know this is Indian country. | |
| You know, it's a term that we use very, very strongly. | |
| And we need to work in a better, meaningful, respectful way with private property owners and private industry owners, whether they're energy or not, to say, hey, let's take a time out. | |
| Let's talk with the tribes. | |
| And how are we going to protect these sacred sites and make sure they're not disturbed or destroyed? | |
| So this study through my office is going to be very, very important in the interim, working with industry, PSC, Sheriff's Office, you know, Association of Counties to educate people about what's out there. | |
| And also the fine line of not telling them where things are at either because, you know, some of these sites are very, very sacred to us. | |
| I mean, as you know, one of our key initiatives in our administration is trying to really focus on tribal engagement. | |
| And when we took office, we were in the middle of a Protest period, which some people thought might take decades to rebuild relationships, and I look at what's been accomplished by you and your team and others and our whole administration. | |
| We're sitting here today, and I'm thinking back to some powerful moments at tribal flag ceremonies. | |
| Things I've been to at each of the tribes around the state, the work that the First Lady's doing on addiction and recovery. | |
| I'm just filled with gratitude for everything that we've got going on and the positive direction we're moving. | |
| Yeah, it certainly was, you know, the time of when you got the baton, you know, from Governor de Alropa, and from there you took off running. | |
| And I remember our discussion of how do we approach this, and I simply said, well, we need to talk. | |
| You know, we need to go down there and listen. | |
| And I think that's what most people in our state, including my troubled people, want is to be heard, to be listened to. | |
| And to see their point of view on things. | |
| And sometimes you get a little bit of finger pointing at you, wagging the finger at you, but that's part of public service, part of leadership, and that's part of the job. | |
| But at the end of the day, I think you come to a resolution of understanding and respect that, hey, you know, at least they're listening to me, they're giving me attention, they are engaging with me, and I think that's what people want. | |
| You know, I really believe that whether you're Native or non-Native, And we've been very successful at that in trying to turn the corner. | |
| We had those two huge conferences that you led in bringing the feds to the table, the tribal leaders to the table, the state leadership. | |
| That was a huge conference in discussing those heated issues, but discussing those issues in a very good way. | |
| And again, trying to understand where they're coming from, you know, from the tribal side, from a state side, from a federal side, and a private side. | |
| You know, these issues are real, and they're very emotional to me at times. | |
| I mean, they are tough, you know. | |
| Sometimes maybe you need to step back and look at human nature and as a human being sense and really think that this is simply the right thing to do. | |
| You know, and I set aside the politics and the view of how you're going to be perceived and who's going to vote for you and all those things that come to mind. | |
| And I see that on the tribal side as well. | |
| I see that from the tribes, you know, of why are you engaging with the state? | |
| You know, don't you know that they've been an adversary? | |
| They're not an ally because, because? | |
| Well... | |
| Those things are changing. | |
| Why? | |
| Because of your leadership, because we engage, because we take things on. | |
| And I've been told by many tribal chairs and leaders that our engagement process, face-to-face meetings, open door, visiting the tribes numerous times, First Lady's Initiative, I mean, it's a bombardment of engagement that you have led, you know, through my office, and it goes on. | |
| You know, the calls, the issues that we're in, it's constant. | |
| And I don't see them going away anytime soon, but that's the exciting part of this because there are so many issues out there that we need to be addressed in unison with the tribes. | |
| And that's just, I think, one example of the relationships that we're building, and it's great. | |
| And then positive steps that are coming out of that. | |
| And I've got a smile on my face here, too, because I know when we started campaigning back in the spring of 2016, and I went to each of the Well, hey, we don't vote for Republicans here. | |
| What are you doing here? | |
| You must really be confused. | |
| And I said, well, if we get elected, we're going to be working for every citizen in North Dakota. | |
| And we understand the dual citizenship. | |
| We understand the tribal sovereignty. | |
| We also understand that every tribal member is also a citizen of North Dakota. | |
| We have one thing in common is federal government's got a lot of screwy rules and regulations that affect energy and agriculture and commerce and education and healthcare in North Dakota. | |
| And I think it's even worse the layers of bureaucracy they put on the tribes. | |
| And so part of what we can as all North Dakotans, we have an opportunity with respecting everybody, each individual dignity. | |
| We've got an opportunity to really reach our fullest potential. | |
| And We're not gonna get there if either the federal government's holding us back or we're waiting for them to come to our rescue. | |
| And so I feel with the tribal council, the tribal chairman, we can stand shoulder and shoulder and work together and push hard on the feds. | |
| The Governor has been working with Scott and the Indian Affairs Commission to improve government-to-government relationships, and we know there's more work to do. | |
| One of the best ways to ensure long-term success is by empowering our youth to be the best leaders they can be. | |
| This summer, the Indian Affairs Commission will be hosting the 10th Annual Indian Youth Leadership Academy. | |
| You can find out more by getting in touch with Scott's team at indianaffairs.nd.gov. | |
| On the next episode of Work Worth Doing, we will be joined by Major General Al Dorman. | |
| As the Adjutant General, General Dorman oversees the North Dakota National Guard and the Department of Emergency Services. | |
| With over 35 years of service to his nation, he now commands more than 4,000 North Dakota Air and Army National Guard men and women. | |
| And as a bonus, he's a really fun guy to talk to. | |
| That's all for today's episode. |