Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby received the Wendell Chino Humanitarian Award during the recent National Indian Gaming Association Conference in San Diego, Calif.
Ernie Stevens, NIGA Chairman, said that the NIGA presented the award to Gov Anoatubby for his diplomacy, his leadership and for all he does for the Chickasaw Nation and Indian Country.
Gov. Anoatubby said he was accepting the award in honor of the "people who work every day in the trenches, because they earned this award not me."
The award is named in honor of Wendell Chino, who served as elected leader of the Mescalero Apache Nation from 1955 until 1998.
Chino developed a number of tribal businesses, including one of the first tribally-owned casinos in the U.S. These businesses helped to greatly improve the economic condition of his people.
"If you ever saw Wendell Chino in action you would never forget," said Gov. Anoatubby during his acceptance speech. "He was a champion for tribal sovereignty. He began tribal businesses because he knew those business would provide jobs for his people."
Gov. Anoatubby has a record of economic success similar to that of Wendell Chino.
Beginning work for the tribe in 1975 as health director, Gov. Anoatubby later worked as finance director and special assistant to the governor before being elected as Lt. Governor in 1979. He was elected to his first term as governor, in 1987.
When Gov. Anoatubby was first elected, the tribe had about 250 employees. Today, the Chickasaw Nation employs more than 11,500 people. The financial condition of the tribe has been improved tremendously. Funding for tribal operations has grown exponentially. Tribal assets have grown twenty fold.
Stevens said "Governor Anoatubby will be remembered by future generations for building the modern economy of the Chickasaw Nation."
Gov. Anoatubby was among several tribal leaders in Oklahoma worked together to craft new language to be added to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. This new language guaranteed that Oklahoma tribes, even though they had no reservation land, would be allowed to establish gaming facilities.
The new language proved to be very important to the development of gaming businesses which bring millions of dollars into tribal and local economies.
"If it wasn't for the governor and his fights, we wouldn't have the compacts that we have today in the state of Oklahoma," said NIGA Treasurer J.R. Mathews, who is also the vice chairman of the Quapaw Tribes.
Inside the Chickasaw Nation, Gov. Anoatubby worked with his staff to ensure that gaming revenues contributed to expanding health care, housing and education services. These revenues also helped to build the Chickasaw Cultural Center, which will open later this year.
Gov. Anoatubby received a standing ovation from a packed banquet room in the San Diego Convention Center.
"The only way I can express my appreciation for Wendell Chino," Anoatubby said, "is to try to emulate him."
Wendell Chino
Wendell Chino was elected leader of the Mescalero Apache Indian Nation from 1955 until his death in 1998.
Chino was born in 1923, only 11years after his parents were freed from U.S. imprisonment as prisoners of war.
He was first elected leader of the tribal business council in 1955, when that position was the highest elected office in the tribe. A 1965 change in the tribal constitution created a council form of government headed by a president. Chino won election to that position in 1965 and was reelected 16 consecutive times.
Chino "was a leader in tribal sovereignty," said Neal McCaleb, a former head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Chino, he added, understood before others "the fact that tribes were not an agency of state government, but were superior to state governments."
He was a champion of tribal sovereignty who developed a number of successful businesses. He developed one of the first successful tribal casinos in the United States before the Indian gaming Regulatory Act was passed in 1988.
Chino developed several other successful businesses, including a ski resort, golf course and sawmill among others. Those businesses improved the economic condition of tribal members. Proceeds from those businesses also enable the tribe to build schools, a hospital and health centers.
President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Chino to the National Council on Indian Opportunity. In that role, he helped bring about greater American Indian participation in federal Indian policy.
