Author: Bill Donovan

Dick Hardwick, managing editor of the Navajo Times for the past three years, got a step closer to his goal of going back to his old position as the liaison between the BIA and the tribe when the Advisory Committee voted to put Chet MacRorie back in as managing editor.

Just six weeks after taking office, Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter MacDonald convinced members of the Navajo Tribal Council they needed to have a hearing to look into allegations that the tribe’s former chairman, Raymond Nakai, took action just before he left office to give him and his vice-chairman thousands of dollars they were not entitled to receive.

An anonymous letter arrived from a Navajo living in Southern California and Dick Hardwick, the Time’s editor decided to publish it although the paper had a policy of not printing unsigned letters.

Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter MacDonald made his first public speech since being elected to office 50 years ago this week, as the guest speaker at the annual banquet for the McKinley County Chamber of Commerce, and he decided to use it to tackle one of the main issues of the day — the distance that existed between the tribe and the towns that bordered the reservation.