Education boss: Blame me for Hawaii

ST. JOHNS, Ariz., Feb. 21, 2008

If you're still looking for someone to blame for the high number of Navajo Nation officials at last fall's National Indian Education Association Conference in Hawaii, you can blame Pauline M. Begay.

"It's my fault," declared the Apache County superintendent of schools, who also happened to be NIEA treasurer last year.

Flashing her trademark toothy grin, the petite elected official explained the events that led to the biggest kerfuffle since the council voted for $50,000 to buy gold rings for its members.

Begay, who was on the NIEA board for three years, said she had been trying to figure out a way to get Navajos more involved in the association.

"Other tribes with casinos donate a lot of money to the association," she said. "Us Navajos, we have not had any donations from our tribe."

Last year, the board met at the Gila River Indian Reservation south of Phoenix, and she talked them into traveling north and blitzing the council.

"I said, 'The Navajo council is in session right now,'" she recalled. "'Let's all go up there and invite them to our conference.'" The NIEA board thought that was a splendid idea. They drove up to Window Rock and marched into the council chambers en masse. The council gave the NIEA president, "a very charming Hawaiian lady," five minutes to speak, Begay recalled.

"She invited them right then and there," Begay said.

The board followed up with letters to Speaker Lawrence Morgan, President Joe Shirley Jr. and other key government personnel.

It worked too well.

Once she got to Hawaii and was at the podium, Begay recognized a lot of faces in the audience.

"How many Navajos are here?" she asked on impulse.

"I couldn't believe how many people raised their hands," she recalled. "I was so happy. But yet when we got back, our local people didn't understand."

The superintendent still doesn't think it was a bad thing so many high-level Navajos showed up in Hawaii.

"They have donated to the cause by their registration and membership fees," she said. "The NIEA is out on the front lines whenever there's legislation going through Congress. It's very important they have our support."

Besides that, registering for the conference automatically made the delegates members of the organization, and they continue to get updates on issues important to Indian education.

"The more informed our politicians are about education, the better our laws are going to be for students and teachers," Begay said.

So you can either blame Begay, or give her credit. Either way, she's a hard person to ignore.

Little package, big energy

Still, the girl from Nazlini Chapter never thought she'd be in elected office.

Begay's mother died when she was 2 weeks old, and her grandmother and paternal aunts stepped in to raise her.

"I was raised traditionally," said Begay, who is Tódích'íi'nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for Ma'ii Deeshgiizhnii (Coyote Pass Clan). "Nazlini was a very isolated place."

The family sent its "motherless lamb" off to boarding school, first in Nazlini and later to California.

The naturally curious young woman proved an excellent student, and was awarded a scholarship to Brigham Young University.

At the time Begay thought she would go for a business education degree, but after two years at BYU she came back to the reservation and got a job with Head Start. She helped to found the Home Start program, which is still in place as home-based education.

She continued to take education courses at local colleges and ended up with a bachelor's degree from Prescott College in 1995.

Her educational career took her home to Nazlini, then to Window Rock, Kinlichee, Ariz., and Wide Ruins, Ariz. Eventually, the tribe snapped her up to write a Navajo studies curriculum for Head Start.

All the while, she kept taking classes.

"I got my master's (degree) and I just couldn't stop," she said, treating the reporter to yet another grin. She ended up with a doctorate in education from the Fielding Institute in 2002.

That's when she caught the eye of some folks in St. Johns, Ariz., the Apache County seat.

"They approached me about running for superintendent," Begay recalled. "I was surprised. They weren't even our people."

Begay decided she would run for county office if she could talk some other Navajos into it.

Talking people into things seems to be her strong suit, for she convinced Katherine Arviso and Lenora Johnson to campaign for county treasurer and recorder, respectively.

"All three of us ladies were elected," said Begay, flashing another blinding grin. "We made history."

Indeed, the present Apache County government has more Navajos in elected office than any other in history, with two Diné supervisors and the three officials - not bad for a county that excluded Navajo Nation residents from voting for county offices until the 1970s.

With the Diné population outpacing that of non-Navajos, the county will soon be half Navajo, Begay pointed out.

"We need more Natives to run for office," she said. "Diversity is good for government, just like it is for education."

Arizona can use more. Begay is the only Native among the 15 county superintendents of schools.

"Every time a Native education issue comes up, everybody looks at me to respond," Begay said.

Elected in 2004, she is planning to run for a second term.

Target: Statehouse

Now that she's off the NIEA board, Begay is turning her attention to state politics.

When we caught up with her at her office Tuesday, she was preparing for a trip to Phoenix to lobby the state Legislature.

Historically, said Begay, "the county school superintendent was not visible enough."

With more than 20 education-related bills before a Legislature that is facing a $600 million budget shortfall, she believes it's time for her - and the rest of the state's educators - to become a familiar presence in Phoenix.

Begay's other big drive this year is to make teachers aware of the technology resources available to them.

There is, for example, an employee at the county office whose whole job is to help teachers learn new technology and apply it in their classrooms, and another team who will go to schools across the county and fix computers.

New this year is distance-learning equipment in the county office that can be used for long-distance teacher training.

Begay has also developed an accredited high school curriculum for the county youth detention center, and tries to maintain contact with the Native American detainees.

And she's working with a district judge to create a drug prevention program - Apache County high school students should watch for a questionnaire on illegal drug use that's going to be circulating soon and is intended to establish some baseline data.

Any message for Diné youth from the highest education official in the county? "Stay in school, eat healthy and get a lot of rest, because AIMS testing is approaching again!" With a grin, of course.