Curtis Rogers holds his master’s degree in tribal administration and governance outside AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn. in May 2022. (Photo: Rachel Rogers)

This year’s 29 Bush Fellows included five Native Americans from across the upper Midwest.

The Bush Foundation provides up to $150,000 dollars over two years for their fellows to hone their talents and leadership skills.

In the final fifth profile, Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports on a White Earth tribal administrator who wants to best serve his community.

Curtis Rogers is the deputy director of the White Earth Nation of Minnesota. He works with 1,300 employees who serve the tribe’s 17,000 citizens, and covers everything from public safety to economic development. In addition to that, he’s also a husband and family man.

With his Bush Fellowship, Rogers says he’d like to level up with a law degree.

“And that’s because every single day we have people that are coming to us with all kinds of jurisdictional questions. There’s big Land Back issues that we’re facing continuously, with attacks on tribal sovereignty. And I just want to lead and make decisions that are best.”

Rogers remembers his family growing up in the projects of the White Earth Reservation, and struggling to make ends meet. He says he aims to help his people any way he can, and part of that plan will be to help the tribe regain some of its state forest.

Rogers says he hopes to start law school in the fall of 2026.

Charlene Aqpik Apok, left, Maria Destrikoff-Francis, Qimalleq Teter, and her daughter Bugs work on an affirmations activity during a workshop about Dene coming-of-age ceremonies. The workshop took place at the Elders & Youth conference on Monday, October 13, 2025. (Photo: Alena Naiden)

In one Dene family, there had not been a ceremony for girls coming of age for three generations.

Then a group of aunties, mothers and daughters came together to restore it – first, just for their family. And then for all young Alaska Native women interested in learning.

They presented their work at the annual Elders and Youth conference this fall in Anchorage.

The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports.

Fourteen-year-old Manu David is pouring hot tea blended by hand. She brings cups to women of all ages who fill a room during a workshop at the Elders & Youth conference.

David and other girls made these teas during a gathering for girls coming of age, called Nodoyedee’onh. Her family has been reviving this Dene tradition through sharing circles.

“It’s really fun. It’s just like, everybody gets together and we just share about anything and everything.”

They also harvest plant medicine, make their own body products and work on traditional skills like sewing and beading.

Helena Jacobs is one of the women leading the event and has been working with the girls during Nodoyedee’onh.

“I feel like the work we’re doing with them right now is healing multiple generations.”

Her family started to gather every few months and transitioned the family gatherings into a community event for teenage girls.

“…just empower them with knowledge about their bodies and just surround them with a lot of love and support throughout these big transitions in life that can sometimes feel kind of scary or isolating.”

Qimalleq Teter is Yup’ik and Cup’ik from St Mary’s. She says she came to the workshop because she wanted to learn how to guide her four-year-old daughter, but Teter says that she realized she herself still wants guidance.

“You get of age of different things, all throughout your life.”

Teter says that in Yup’ik culture, the ceremonies celebrate different milestones. Like when a woman catches her first fish, makes her first thing and has her first baby. Teter says the workshop reminded her that it’s not too late to honor transitions in her life.

“I think maybe deep down, I just really wanted this for me, not just for my baby, so Quyana.”

The workshop closed with two activities. Women and girls wrote affirmations for themselves and others, and connected them by a string. They also made heating pads filled with rice and fragrances.

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