Kansas State University

Indigenous voices in media subject of Huck Boyd Community Media Lecture

Submitted by J. Steven Smethers

The Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media will sponsor its second annual Diverse Voices in the Media lecture on Tuesday, Nov. 2.

Debra Bolton, Ohkay Owingeh/Diné /Ute and director of intercultural learning and academic success in Kansas State University's Department of Diversity and Multicultural Student Affairs, will deliver "Indigenous Voices in the Media: Telling Our Own Stories" at 1:30 p.m. in the K/S Ballroom of the K-State Student Union. A panel discussion will follow at 2:30 p.m. Panelists will include Audrey Swartz, University Archives and Special Collections librarian, who is a member of the Miami Nation, and Nate Armenta, assistant community coordinator for Housing and Dining Services and member of the Diné. Steven Smethers, director of the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, will serve as moderator. Masks are required on the K-State campus.

The lecture and panel will include information about how Native Americans are working to replace inaccurate stories and images through discussions of historical exclusions that led to loss of sovereignty/self-determination and how multiple forms of media may have contributed, knowingly or unknowingly, to the many forms of erasure.

November is National Native American Month, and this event is one way to pay tribute to the rich ancestry, traditions and contributions of Indigenous peoples. The lecture and panel are also among activities related to this year's K-State First book, "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline.

Bolton, a human scientist, and geographer, also serves as a faculty member in the geography and geospatial sciences department. Her continued research focuses on health, well-being, environmental/social connectedness, and belonging in underrepresented, historically excluded, and displaced populations in Kansas and in Indigenous populations in the United States. A former commissioner for the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, Bolton continues to apply her research and life experiences in her capacity as a trustee for The Nature Conservancy to further her work goals and her interests in environmental stewardship. She has been a National Geographic Explorer since 2017.

Swartz received her Master of Library and Information Science in library studies with a focus on archival management in 2016. She also began her career at Hale Library in 2016. Swartz has processed several university archival collections and presented many issues that make archives inaccessible to Indigenous peoples. She is currently working on finding and documenting the Indigenous students who attended K-State University.Armenta is from Bloomfield, New Mexico. He is a graduate student in counseling and student development and serves as an assistant community coordinator in Jardine for Housing and Dining Services. He received his bachelor's degree in history from Fort Lewis College in spring 2020.

The inaugural Diverse Voices in the Media lecture was "Lessons from reporting on LGBTQ Kansas" in October 2020.

The Huck Boyd Center is named for the late McDill "Huck" Boyd of Phillipsburg, who was publisher of the Phillips County Review and a great believer in preserving small towns and small-town media.

Gloria Freeland, professor emerita of the A.Q. Miller school and former director of the Huck Boyd Center, said the Diverse Voices in the Media lectures and the Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media series help highlight the importance and contributions of community journalism in Kansas and across the nation.