Op-ed: EFN celebrates the women who’ve helped it reach 20 years and counting
- John Lagimodiere | March 15, 2018
Sat down to start pulling another women’s edition together last week and it hit me that all of a sudden 20 years have gone by. In March of 1998, we published the first edition of Eagle Feather News and we had no idea what we were doing, but we just started doing it.
When I accepted the first cheque that covered a two-year subscription, I was figuring how we were going to have to rebate that person their money once we crashed after six or eight months. There was no way we were going to make it two years. Then after two years we prayed to make it to five. Then it was ten. And in the blink of an eye another decade blew by like nothing.
Fitting, though, that our anniversary issue is always on the same month as our women’s issue because we would not have made it ten days as a business and a newspaper if it wasn’t for the women involved in making it happen. So please allow me to take this space to pay homage to the women of Eagle Feather News. Deepest apologies if I miss anyone.
First and foremost, I would be nothing without my life and business partner Deirdra Ness. Her finance degree and business background are the perfect supplement and complement and knowledge base to add onto my amazing three-year BA in Sociology. Her ability to see things in business I can’t and her confidence in pointing out issues and making hard decisions has allowed us to go and grow through tough times and suffer and thrive through mistakes. She makes me what I am in all aspects of my life and that helps lift up the paper. Great mom, too. I am so lucky.
Speaking of moms. My mom Dexter and my mother-in-law Marie both lent us money in the early days when we had none to pay our employees. Deepest gratitude.
Over 20 years we have had dozens of different women write for us or work in the office or from home or just help us out in the community. They have all played a part and over time included folks like Elizabeth Mooney, Christa Nicholat, Donna Boyer, Wanda Bear, Karen Trotchie and Faith Obey. Office superstar Jaqueline Gabriel always had our back as well. Later on, we had Peggy Robillard and Julie Wriston on the team. Darla Read started writing for us in the early days and still is a key player in her role as our awesome web editor.
The best part of our paper has always been the writers. Much credit has to be given to our friend Shannon Avison. Shannon is the department head of the Indian Communication Arts program at the First Nations University of Canada and she has brought me down to Regina to teach her students in the summer institute since the year 2000. It is from those sessions that we have found dozens of new and emerging writers, too many to name really, with various voices, different angles to stories and ties to the community.
Our old friend Sandra Ahenakew came from INCA. She worked in our office. She wrote stories and she also had the very popular column Sandy Says. We love her.
Shannon also helped us find Jeanelle Mandes who I taught over ten years ago in a summer institute. Then she freelanced for us. Then she was our intern. Then she earned her masters in journalism. And now Jeanelle is our news editor. Thank you, Shannon!
One of my co-teachers at the Institute turned out to be CBC journalist Merelda Fiddler. Merelda wrote a bit for us, but she also convinced her bosses at CBC to take a flyer on us and in 2006 we were able to create a ten-part summer replacement radio show for national radio! As IF!
An introduction by an old friend to his mother-in-law Bernelda Wheeler opened up our door to a Pandora’s box of fantastic women writers. Bernelda was a CBC radio star in the 1970s. A trendsetter, if you would. And she graced our pages for many years with her fine pragmatic and thoughtful writing.
Our relationship with Bernelda led to other amazing women joining us as writers. They include Andrea Ledding, Dr. Winona Wheeler, Leah Dorion, Dee Badger, Katie Sawatzky, Tiffany Head, Ntawnis Piapot, Jessica Iron, Maria Campbell, Dawn Dumont, Alyson Bear and former provincial poet laureate Louise Halfe. How’s that for a roster?
So, thanks to these wonderful women, we have been able to bring you hundreds of stories on our website or in our paper over the past 20 years. Thanks ladies. And thank you for continuing to read.