Tribal Members To Get Radio Training Program Hopes To Bring Public Radio Presence To Area

A project is being established on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation to train tribal members in professional radio production.

Seven adult tribal members will be selected to participate, and each student will produce works to be marketed for regional and national broadcast on mainstream and native public radio.

“When I was a young boy, radio was all that we listened to,” Nez Perce elder Richard Ellenwood Sr. of Lapwai said Friday.

Ellenwood is a board member of Idaho Mythweavers Inc., which is sponsoring the project along with Jack Straw Productions of Seattle and the Nez Perce Tribe.

Applications are being accepted for the training program, which will take place in Lapwai and Seattle this June.

Students will learn a variety of skills, from script writing to technical production. They also will work with radio professionals, which organizers hope will lead to internships, job placement, self-employment or additional training.

The program is aimed at creating a public radio presence on the Nez Perce Reservation and at providing employment opportunities, said Jane Fritz, project director and Idaho Mythweavers board member.

Idaho Mythweavers is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to promotion, preservation and presentation of cultural traditions.

The Nez Perce were chosen for the radio project because the tribe expressed interest several years ago in setting up a radio station on the reservation, but there are few Indians in the broadcast media, Fritz said.

“Their stories up to this point have been documented through our eyes,” said Fritz, a Sandpoint resident. “It’s time Indian people tell their own stories in their own way.”

Ellenwood agreed.

“It’s an excellent way to promote our culture, language, music and heritage to tribal members as well as the non-Indian,” he said.

Ellenwood suggested that students may apply newly learned skills to documenting oral histories for tribal archives, creating cultural programming and assisting in tribal public relations.

Fritz said the Nez Perce program is a pilot for the Plateau Tribal Radio Project, which eventually will involve the recruitment and training of Indian producers throughout the Inland Northwest.