Tribal Leader To Get Honorary Nic Degree

North Idaho College will award an honorary degree to Lawrence Aripa, vice chairman of the Coeur d’Alene Indian tribe.

“I wish we could have done it sooner,” said Jeanne Givens, a member of the tribe and NIC’s board of trustees. The degree will be conferred in a ceremony today.

Normally, the college awards honorary degrees at its May commencement, but Aripa, 69, is hospitalized in Spokane with heart problems. The trustees decided to make an exception because of his poor health, Givens said.

The degree, she said, is “in appreciation for his contributions to the world of art and for his numerous appearances in the classroom as a teacher of Indian history.”

Aripa is a longtime painter whose watercolors, sketches and oil paintings are displayed at the tribal headquarters in Plummer. He is a well-known storyteller who recently collaborated with LewisClark State College anthropology professor Rodney Frey on a book of Idaho Indian legends.