Sunnie Vision

The perspective of a Navajo sports journalist when she isn't butchering sheep.

[clahchischiligi]

Giving back

There is no better feeling than giving back.

As a child growing up on the Navajo Reservation I was taught to help where i was needed and to find ways to give back-to my people and anyone who helped me.

I never really knew what it meant to “give back” until I completed college and became a professional journalist.

When I started in journalism at the the age of 19, i knew absolutely nothing about the field.

I never worked at a high school newspaper because the school I attended didn’t have one. I never worked at the college paper because the college I started off at didn’t have one either.

I picked up journalism at the American Indian Journalism Institute held at the University of South Dakota, a boot-camp for Native American college students interested in the field.

At AIJI, I learned journalism, did it and decided to be it.

My start at AIJI led me to six internships in college and numerous awards. I worked with some of the best editors and mentors over the years, who also had a hand in molding me into the multi-award-winning journalist i am today.

Because of journalism programs like AIJI, Chips Quinn Scholars Program, the Sports Journalism Institute and mentors an former Washington Post Editors Denny McCauliffe and Bill Elsen, i’m living out my dream of becoming a sports writer.

Every internship received, whether it be at Sports Illustrated or the Albuquerque Journal, they all had one thing in common- that i didn’t get them alone.

This years marks my 10th year in journalism and i can’t think of a better way to commemorate it than by mentoring at the Oklahoma Institute of Diversity in Journalism.

I have served as a mentor in the program, a high-school journalism camp held at the University of Oklahoma, for the last four years along along side one of my long time mentors Bill Elsen.

I have also served as a mentor for the Native American Journalists Association student projects (both high school and college) and the UNITY Journalists of Color student projects.

I’ve made it a point to help with diversity journalism programs because they had a vital role in my development as I grew into a professional journalists.

With the guidance of my many mentors obtained through such programs and the knowledge gained, I have traveled and learned things I probably never would have had I stayed within the boundaries of my home on the Navajo Nation.

Most of the knowledge and experience i gained as a young journalist came from others investing in me, now i wish to be on the other end, investing in other budding student journalists.

It is my way of giving back. 

Cheers to those who invested in me, I can only hope I was worth the investment.

[clahchischiligi]

My uncle turns the sheep head and explains the process of how to cook a sheep head during a community butcher in my hometown of Teec Nos Pos, Ariz.

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I covered the 60th Miss Navajo Nation pageant and witness some fascinating young women run for the title. Here some are in the sheep butchering contest. It is a must for Miss Navajo to know how to do this.

[clahchischiligi]

Thank you and farewell to another Navajo Code Talker

Navajo Code Talkers are timeless heroes.

They are the men young Navajo soldiers wish to be and the heroes we all look up to.

This week, another Navajo Code Talker was taken from us. Samuel Tso, 89, of Lukachukai, Ariz., died this Wednesday.

Reports say that Tso wasn't one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers but that doesn't make him any less important.

I, myself could never muster up the guts to volunteer to help fight for the country that never even recognized my people, the Navajo people, yet these 29 and dozens more did just that.

The Navajo Code Talker helped win World War II using the Navajo language as code the Japanese failed to break. 

Our Code Talkers to this day are still the silent heroes when it comes to the outside world, but here on the Navajo reservation, they are our highest pride and joys.

In my still young time as a journalists I am honored to say that I was given the opportunity to sit down with such a brave Code Talker like Tso.

They are humble, graceful, wise and ever-so inspiring.

As a journalists and a Navajo women I am forever thankful for men like Tso and the rest of the Navajo Code Talkers. 

Ahe'hee, thank you Samuel.

-S.C.