Out of more than 13,000 entries, a video highlighting Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Eagle Aviary was honored this year with a People’s Telly Gold award.

Protecting the Messengers — Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Eagle Aviary is part of a For Our People docuseries produced by Self-Governance Communication & Education Tribal Consortium (SGCETC).

“We’re a non-profit organization that works with tribal nations all across the country to enhance and advocate for tribal self-governance and sovereignty,” SGCETC Executive Director Jay Spaan said. “One of the things we are tasked with, part of our mission, is educating people about what tribal governments do.”

The docuseries, he said, is part of how they accomplish that. SGCETC goes around the United States and highlights different tribal nations and how they are serving their communities. They try to film three to four episodes each year, and to date, they’ve released about 23 in total.

For the segment on CPN, Spaan said he lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and had heard about the Aviary, as well as working closely with CPN Self Governance Director Kasie Nichols. Spaan reached out to Nichols to ask about doing a video segment on the aviary, and Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett agreed to let them tell the story.

“I was really thrilled about the opportunity to show off our Self Governance (office),” CPN Aviary Manager Jennifer Randell, who is featured in the Protecting the Messengers episode, said. “They are our cheerleaders. They helped get the grant for the Aviary, so to be able to show that off was important to us.”

Creating the episode

Once SGCETC identifies a story, Spaan said, they partner with Pursuit Films, an all Native-owned and operated film production company based in Tulsa.

“I think that is critical,” Spaan said of choosing a Native-owned company to partner with. “They really understand Native culture, understand working with tribal governments, and they honor and respect that tribes are the storytellers and should be the ones telling that story and not someone from the outside.”

SGCETC and Pursuit Films start with a storyboard and a series of pre-interviews to make sure they understand the story.

“We’re always looking for that emotional connection and also making sure that it’s a great success story for Indian Country,” he said.

His team did multiple Zoom meetings with Randell, Aviary Assistant Bree Dunham, Nichols, Chairman Barrett and Vice-Chairman Linda Capps.

Those interviews are especially important, Spaan said, because they help determine the direction of the films.

“We really see ourselves more as the vehicle that allows tribes to tell their own stories. We’re reaching out to tribes and saying, ‘What do you want to highlight?’” Spaan said. “We’re just there to capture that story. We don’t script anything. That is all directly from the tribe, telling their own story.”

Once they had done the pre-interviews, they started the planning process and then brought in a five-person film crew to the Aviary for two and a half days of filming.
“I don’t know how they did all of that video that they did for two days and managed to edit it down. I would still be editing it,” Dunham said. “They’re great storytellers.”

After the episodes are filmed, SGCETC premiers them at an annual conference where those involved in the story are invited on stage to talk about their experience with filming and why they wanted to tell the story. This year, the conference took place in April in Phoenix, Arizona, and Dunham and Randell were present for the Q&A at the premiere.

Telly Awards

“I feel like we have so many great episodes, and this one really stood out,” Spaan said. “Just the dedication and commitment of Jennifer and Bree to the project, and how the Tribe really supported that vision. It’s a unique story.”

Because of that, SGCETC decided to select the video as one of their entries for a Telly Award.

The Telly Awards receive more than 13,000 entries from around the world, and Spaan said they narrow those entries down to a smaller number and allow people to vote for the winners.

Once voting was complete, Protecting the Messengers received a 2024 People’s Telly Gold award. SGCETC was also honored with a Silver Telly for the other piece they entered, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe — Healing Our Community, about a healing center opened by a tribe in a remote part of Washington state. In both cases, Spaan said they wanted to show the innovation of tribes and how they serve their communities.

“It’s a great honor for us to be able to win that, and it also helps open up the door to start submitting for the Emmys and things like that,” Spaan said.

Video as outreach

With part of SGCETC’s mission being to educate, they also hope For Our People serves that purpose, and episodes are available to the public. SGCETC posts all episodes on YouTube, with plans to add them to their website in the future. They’ve also had episodes shown by agencies to staff members and to universities as a part of curriculum about tribal governance.

Winning a Telly, he said, will help with that.

“It gets us a lot more attention, so hopefully people will see it. That’s our goal, is to have as many people as possible in the public to view it and to try to understand the great stuff the tribes are doing,” Spaan said.

Randell and Dunham have already seen an impact from the release of the video in what they do.

“We’ve had a lot of tribes interested, and tribes have reached out since then, even tribes that don’t have self-governance programs,” Randell said. “So, for me, that’s really exciting, because if you’re not invested in your sovereignty, you’re really missing out, especially now. I think tribes really need to stand on their sovereignty and claim that while they have the opportunity to do so. Self governance isn’t a federal program, it’s a way of life. Tribes are best suited to understand the needs of their people, and the Nation’s commitment to programs like the Aviary wouldn’t be possible otherwise.”

When Dunham and Randell first approached Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett about opening an eagle aviary, Dunham said they only had a three-minute DVD of an eagle release to give a vague idea of what they wanted to do. With this episode of For Our People, she said it will be a great way of inspiring other tribes.

Learn more about SGCETC at tribalselfgov.org, and visit their YouTube channel, @TribalSelfGov, to watch videos in the For Our People series.

To learn more about CPN’s Eagle Aviary, visit cpn.news/aviary.