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<p><b><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman"><b><font size="3" face="Eras Demi ITC, Arial">NAPT
Empowers, Educates and Entertains for the 25th Year</font></b></font></b></p>
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<p><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="2"><i>By Frank
Blythe (Eastern Cherokee/Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota)</i><br>
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<div align="center"><font size="2" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><b><font color="#FFFFFF">Frank
Blythe</font></b></font></div>
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<p><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="2">As we wind
down our 25th year at NAPT, we’ve been looking ahead as a public
broadcast and multi-media entity. Our long-term mission of ‘empowering,
educating and entertaining through Native media’ still holds true
for us. We’ve always envisioned that our public radio and television
programming has provided a window to Native America that otherwise may
not have been open all these years.</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="2">When we
started 25 years ago, we thought video distribution was the real marketplace
for American Indian programs we acquired for public television. Internet,
satellite, wireless, and digital production were not in the consumer market,
let alone in Indian country. But now all that is here, and NAPT is moving
with the future to provide our programming via <a href="http://www.airos.org" target="_blank">www.airos.org</a>
and <a href="http://www.visionmaker.org" target="_blank">www.visionmaker.org</a>.
While the technology can be accessible to any who has a computer, it still
is a long ways from connecting all of Native America. But it does allow
Native filmmakers and radio producers better methods to create new voices
for their communities. NAPT tries to meet these needs by developing training
opportunities for digital production.</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="2">Some of
our Indian Country and public broadcast friends have told us we at NAPT
have been pioneers for Native media since its beginning. We appreciate
that honor, but we wouldn’t be where we are today if it hadn’t
been for other pioneers in Indian media who made new programs available
for big audiences to see and hear. We still depend on those Native producers
who now weave new words and pictures for the digital world: George Burdeau,
Phil Lucas, Sandy Osawa, Peggy Berryhill and Lena Carr, just to name a
few. My thanks to them and many other Indian vision makers for working
with us from our early years to the present. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="2">We also
wouldn’t here today without long time support from some public broadcasting
pioneers whom I have had the pleasure to work and learn with. My thanks
to former board members and public television executives Bob Ellis, KAET;
Ron Hull, NETV; Marty Busch, KUSD; Otto Schlaak, WMVS; Don Burgess, KUAT;
and Jack McBride, NETV.</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="2">Aho, until
our first newsletter in our 26th year.</font><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="2">
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