It’s been a good couple of years for tribal gaming ventures. Revenue was up and was on pace to outdo non-Native competitions.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe has seen great success with its casino, located outside Worley, Idaho, on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation, which sits on the rolling hills of the Palouse. This year it’s embarking on its largest expansion yet, the Spokesman-Review reports.

This will be the seventh time the casino has been upgraded. A large focus is the addition of both casual and fine dining options.

When the camas and arrowroot are blooming, the tribe plans to open 98 new hotel rooms in two wings, more casino space, two new restaurants and a 15,000-square-foot spa.

Walking from the darkened casino floor into the under-construction hallway leading to the spa and restaurants is like stepping into the open Palouse grasslands. Light is drawn in from windows near the high ceiling, and tall windows line the walk. Native works of art will be displayed along the walls.

Outside, workers have returned the surrounding hills to native grasses and shrubs and a five-story eagle staff sculpture dominates the skyline.

Inside what will be the casual pub-style restaurant, large glass doors will open onto patio seating and natural amphitheaters that managers plan to use for outdoor concerts and other events.

Jenna Cederberg

ND House: UND must keep Fighting Sioux name
Early this week the House of the North Dakota Legislature passed a bill that would require the University of North Dakota keeps its controversial Fighting Sioux name, the AP reported.

The only problem is, a lawsuit settled between UND and the NCAA says the school needs to drop the abusive and hostile name.

Supporters of the measure argued that North Dakota’s Board of Higher Education, in deciding to discard the nickname and logo, ignored strong public sentiment in favor of both. Opponents of the nickname and logo say they are racist and demeaning.

“Overwhelmingly, Native Americans and regular North Dakota citizens … they said, we don’t want the name to go away,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Al Carlson, R-Fargo, the House majority leader. “Are we supposed to ignore it, and say, we don’t have the authority to do that?”

Separately, representatives voted down two related bills that required UND to keep the nickname unless the members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe voted to revoke permission for using it. Neither bill got more than eight votes in favor.

Navajo is new Native link at White House

Navajo County has a new representative in the White House. Phoenix native Charlie Galbraith started his job an associate director of the Office of Public Engagement and deputy associate director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs this week, Navajo Times reports.

His jobs are wide-reaching.

(Galbraith) understands that each of the 565 federally recognized tribes has different issues and is looking forward to learning about their cultures.

“They’re going to keep me busy,” he said of his mission to keep the president current on their issues.

Galbraith is taking over the position from Jodi Gillette, Standing Rock Sioux, who is now deputy assistant secretary for policy and economic development at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Tulsa women turns idea into booming business

Jenna Cederberg

Before she was dubbed “Champion Fry Bread Maker” at the Flowing Water Navajo Casino in New Mexico, Helen Moore, 70, was a postal worker, a teacher and worked from the Bureau of Indian Education. She was a bilingual teacher and worked seasonally at an agricultural products business.

Now her days are spent carefully crafting the traditional favorite in the most authentic of ways, as the Deseret News reports. She is one of two chefs that are on full-time fry bread duty at the new casino.

Moore learned the craft as a child and now will help Flowing Waters fill its more than 400 orders for the treat each day. She can measure the recipe by sight and knows just how well the fry bread goes with mutton stew, another favorite at the casino. It’s something she made for her sister and brothers, then taught her children the recipe so they could keep the tradition alive.

Moore holds this process close to her heart.

The process of making fry bread is deeper than clocking in for work every morning, however, Moore said.

“A lot of it is your mood,” she said while stretching a ball of dough in preparation of dropping it into the deep fryer. “If you’re angry or upset, the dough will not cooperate. If you come to work frustrated, the dough won’t come out good. It’s best if you’re in a good mood. The dough will be soft.”

Though working hand-in-hand to produce jobs and revenue in Hogback, casinos and fry bread share an unappetizing history.

The Navajo people began making fry bread when they were forced off their sacred land in the Four Corners in 1863 and were rationed government supplies of flour, salt, baking powder, lard and water.

Jenna Cederberg

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service may change part of the tax code that hampers tribal economic growth, Rob Capriccioso of Indian Country Today writes.

The issue applies to tax-exempt governmental bond financing by Indian tribes, some of which are lobbying Treasury for the change:

The technicalities involve complex tax code, but the situation can be boiled down to simple terms: Tribes have long been restricted in their participation in certain federal tax incentive programs. With the enactment of the stimulus funds of 2009, some of the rules were changed, so more tribes could hypothetically participate.

However, due partially to the economy, tribal incentives have largely gone stale. Plus, federal technicalities, including the “essential governmental function,” which the IRS has interpreted as a ban on certain projects that it believes to be commercial in nature, have made tribal participation slow.

“Put together, the limits are more restrictive on tribes than those imposed on states and their political subdivisions,” Russ Brien of Brien Law tells Capriccioso.

Gwen Florio

The Lakota Cafe sounds like just the right place to wind up at the end of the long holiday weekend. Especially if you’ve got car trouble.

That’s because the cafe’s owner, Patty Bourne, also owns the Peabody Body Shop, also in the town of Pine Ridge on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

On this Labor Day, the Rapid City Journal’s Steve Miller describes a recent work day for Bourne:

The Lakota Cafe on the Pine Ridge Reservation (Flickr photo from JustifyMyWar)

A bundle of energy, she was wearing a ball cap, gray sweatshirt and black sweatpants the day I stopped at the Lakota Cafe for lunch. She had just come from the auto body shop, where she was putting a windshield in a pickup.

It wasn’t a typical day for Bourne because she usually arrives at the cafe at 7 a.m. and doesn’t leave for the body shop until 4. If she has a car to work on, she’ll generally work until 7 p.m. before going home to Rushville, Neb., to take care of her two kids, dogs, cats and fish.

Bourne, who is 37, came to her twin businesses from the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Department of Public Safety, as well as a second job at the tribe’s Prairie Wind casino.

Miller says the food is good, the staff is friendly, the place is spotless – and then there’s Bourne herself.

“If people walk in and they are crabby because somebody just yelled at them, I hope I could help make them feel better by being polite and courteous,” Bourne said. “When I hire my employees, I make sure they have a positive attitude.”

Sounds like a great business plan.

Gwen Florio

Both a Native American skateboarder and a Native American clothing line will be featured at the 6th annual Dew Tour skateboarding competition running June through October 2010.

As Indian Country Today reports here, Bryant Chapo will be on the tour that will be broadcast on NBC, MTV and USA Network, and distributed in more than 100 countries.

Chapo was born in Albuquerque but mostly grew up on the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho, according to his Native Threads profile, here. Native Threads is one of the only Native-owned and operated clothing companies in the country. Check them out here.

Gwen Florio

Margo Gray-Proctor believes she has the cure for social ills on Indian reservations – economic development and job creation.

Those things must come from – and remain – within, she says.

Gray-Proctor spoke yesterday at the Indian Business Development Expo sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Missoulian’s Vince Devlin reports here.

Gray-Proctor is secretary-treasurer of the Horizon Cos. in Tulsa, Okla., and chairwoman of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. A member of Oklahoma’s Osage Tribe, she’s sometimes called the “Indian Oprah” because of the success she’s had in the business world, Devlin writes.

Horizon, the company she and Cannizzaro founded, offers civil engineering consulting and design for gaming developments, hotels, hospitals, airports and more. It’s expanded since its inception, recognizing opportunities and meeting other needs, such as a drug, alcohol and background screening company that offers its services to tribally owned casinos and others.

“You want that dollar to bounce around eight to 10 times in the community before it leaves,” Gray-Proctor says. Cutting a check to a company that isn’t on the reservation for goods and services, she said, means the money’s gone in 30 minutes. She suggests that Native business owners form associations, and work with tribal governments to keep the money circulating locally.

And, she offers perhaps the most important advice:

“Don’t be afraid to take that risk,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to get in the game.”

Gwen Florio