Network News

RDLN Leader Mily Treviño-Sauceda was awarded an Alston/Bannerman award in April. The Fellowship is "committed to advancing progressive social change by helping to sustain long-time activists of color" with a stipend of $15,000 for a sabbatical of "reflection and renewal".

RDLN Graduate James Banks has been elected Chairman of the School Board at a charter school near Visalia, California.

RDLN Board member Twila Martin-Kekahbah, has joined the staff of the Northwest Area Foundation as Community Liaison.

Board member Shirley Sherrod, former Chairwoman Billie Jean Young, and Field Advisor Sophia Bracy-Harris have played leading roles in the organizing of the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative, an effort of the Ford Foundation. Billie Jean, Shirley, and now RDLN Leader Lillie Webb are among those who will be traveling to India with this group in December.

RDLN Leader Carol Jorgensen has been named head of tribal liaison for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, DC. Until recently, she was Tribal Government Program Manager in the Forest Service at USDA.

RDLN Graduate Minnie Bommer stepped down as Executive Director of Children & Family Services, based in Covington, TN. She will continue to help the agency, working to establish a new clinic, and she is considering a run for Mayor of Covington in 2003. Graduate Cynthia Elllis was on hand to help celebrate her retirement, as was her RDLN Study Advisor Barbara Clinton, Director of the Center for Health Studies at the Vanderbilt Medical Center at Vanderbilt University.

RDLN Leader Robert Jackson, Executive Director of the Quitman County Development Organization in Marks, MS, was awarded a Fannie Mae Foundation James A. Johnson Community Fellowship, which rewards six leaders in the affordable housing and community development field with an award of $90,000 (providing each fellow with both a $70,000 grant and a stipend of up to $20,000 for travel and education-related expenses).

RDLN Graduate Alice Paris is Co-Director of the Minority Land and Community Security Center at the Tuskegee Institute. She continues as Director of Special Projects for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

RDLN Graduate Julie Moss has been elected Treasurer of the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians. Julie had written a successful CDGB proposal for the Band, and the day after her graduation ceremony at the RDLN Assembly in Texas she was hired as Director of Federal Programs.

RDLN Graduate Earnest Johnson is affiliated with the Program for Rural Services and Research at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, which is documenting his life and work and creating a curriculum from his credit union experience. Earnest was inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame of the Cooperative Development Foundation in 1998, and was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the National Credit Union Association in 1999. For many years he was the credit union specialist for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in Epes, AL.

RDLN Graduate Kathy (Murray) Supernaw currently works with the Trust Management Improvement Project at the Department of Interior in Washington, DC. She earned her law degree after graduating from RDLN and was editor-in-chief of the only student Indian law journal in the country at the University of Oklahoma.

RDLN Graduate Winona LaDuke has published several books: Last Standing Woman (Voyageur 1999), the non-fiction All Our Relations (Consortium 1999), and the collection The Winona LaDuke Reader (Voyageur 2002). Winona was the Vice Presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket with Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000.

RDLN Graduate Meredith Dean is coordinator of the Appalachian Women's Alliance, a grassroots network of women and girls in seven states. In September 2002, the group held its sixth annual Ironwood Festival, a celebration of "the artistic talent, regional leadership and courageous lives of Appalachian women through an informal day of music, storytelling, poetry, dance, and visual arts." The event was held at a 4-H center near Abingdon, VA.

Diane Padilla is the Statewide Agricultural and Rural Development Consultant to the California Director of the State Employment Development Department and at the same time is "on loan" to the Governor's Office of Planning and Research serving in the Community Vitalization Unit as an Assistant Project Director on Rural California Initiatives.