Roseburg Schools and the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians have announced a partnership to help preserve the tribe’s ancestral language, as KLCC’s Brian Bull reports.

Starting this fall, both Native and non-Native high school students can take the Takelma language for official language credit.

The last known speaker died more than a century ago, but linguists and audio recordings from the Smithsonian Institution have helped revive it.

Lindsay Campman, a spokesperson with the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua, says the tribe has deemed language as important to its citizens.

“And that continues to make our people strong. It’s a link to have something in common with your ancestors who lived a very, very different life centuries ago. But being able to speak that same language that they did, that’s a powerful connection.”

The Cow Creek Band is also partnering with Roseburg Schools on a statewide program to improve Native students’ attendance and is gifting the district half a million dollars towards renovating Roseburg High School’s sports complex.

Myles Lewallen, left, his client Indigenous Design Studio + Architecture founder Tamarah Begay, and his co-counsel Jake Curtis testify before the Budget and Finance Committee on June 17, 2026. (Courtesy Navajo Nation Council)

The Navajo Nation Council has paused its public hearing into the ZenniHome scandal until next month, but in testimony last week, a key witness made a bombshell allegation against her ex-business partner.

KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has details.

Tamarah Begay is the founder of Indigenous Design Studio and Architecture, which hired the now-bankrupt ZenniHome as a subcontractor to make 160 modular homes for the Navajo Nation.

Zenni built only 18 after getting $24 million.

“I am not a thief, and I am not a criminal.”

But under oath, Begay leveled an accusation against ZenniHome CEO Bob Worsley.

“He went ahead and actually forged my name under HozhoniHomes and submitted that to the state of Arizona.”

That 2023 filing created an LLC, naming Begay’s firm as a member.

Her legal counsel clarifies they have not “seen any documents with her signature forged,” but insists this entity was formed “without her consent and against her express direction.”

Neither Worsley nor his attorney, who signed off on the LLC, immediately responded to KJZZ’s request for comment.

(Courtesy Lomakatsi Restoration Project)

Nine tribal members have graduated from a forestry and wildland firefighting training program in southern Oregon that blends modern fire management with traditional Indigenous knowledge.

The graduates completed 18 weeks of paid training through the Tribal Ecological Forestry Training Program, operated by the Lomakatsi Restoration Project.

Participants learned wildland firefighting, forest restoration, fuels reduction, chainsaw operation and cultural burning practices.

For thousands of years, Indigenous communities across the West used carefully managed burns to improve forest health, encourage the growth of important plants and reduce vegetation that can fuel large wildfires.

Many of those practices were restricted after federal fire suppression policies took hold. Today, tribes and land managers are increasingly looking to traditional fire knowledge as a tool for reducing wildfire risk.

Program leaders say the training not only prepares Native youth for careers in forestry and firefighting, but also helps reconnect participants with cultural traditions tied to caring for the land.

The program serves tribal communities in Oregon and northern California, where increasingly severe wildfire seasons have threatened forests, wildlife habitat and rural communities.

Organizers say graduates leave with industry certifications and hands-on experience that can lead directly to employment in wildland firefighting and natural resource management.

As fire seasons grow longer and more intense across the West, supporters say Indigenous knowledge and the next generation of Native fire practitioners will play an important role in protecting forests and communities.

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