Content about Anthony Shackelford

On Independence Day six Osages took the oath of office to serve on the Third Osage Nation Congress at the Congressional Chambers where they will serve their legislative duties over the next four years.

Newly sworn-in Osage Nation Supreme Court Chief Justice Meredith Drent individually called the six newly-elected Osages up to the stage, asked them to raise their right hands and repeat the oath she read aloud.

Come Election Day, more than 20 Osage Congressional candidates will erect campsites on the west side of the government campus in Pawhuska to greet fellow Osages who will be casting their ballots.

Bruce Cass, director of the Osage Nation Properties Department, invited all 34 candidates to participate in a May 2 drawing for camp space on the greenery west of the Congressional Chambers and Pawhuska Indian Health Service clinic.

Six community organizations in Osage County are recipients of 2011 Osage Nation Community Challenge Grant funding, according to the Nation’s Office of Strategic Planning and Grants Management.

This year, the Nation will award a total of $105,662 in grant funding which will be divided among the six entities.

Plans for the long-publicized bronze statue of a Native American warrior and eagle titled “The American” are unclear after the Osage LLC declined to participate in a land purchase and investment opportunity. Listed in an appropriation bill passed by the Second ON Congress, the $2.5 million appropriation was for a 21-story statue which would exceed the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

On the last day of the 2010 Hun-Kah Session Thursday, the Osage Nation Congress rescinded last week’s board confirmation votes conducted by secret ballot then voted again – in the open – on all board appointees which resulted in dismissals of George Pease and Elizabeth Lohah Homer from the Gaming Enterprise Board.

Thursday’s votes come eight days after the Congress declined to confirm board members Frank Oberly, Pease and Chairwoman Homer in a secret ballot vote on April 7.