Spreading good will

Operation Morning Star to deliver truck of new woodstoves, toys and items to Cheyenne River Reservation

By Abena Songbird

Dakota Journal Staff Writer

INDEPENDECE, MO — Richard Boyden, founder of Operation Morning Star, a 501-c3 non-profit based in Independence, Missouri will be rolling into the Cheyenne River Reservation December 23 – 25 to disseminate some “heart-felt” giveaway items from the communities of Independence and Kansas City, Missouri.

                Operation Morning Star, a non-profit based in Missouri, was founded by Richard Boyden when moving from Seattle to Missouri in 1985 he drove through the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

                He had been doing some work previously in Indian country; raising money for the Seattle Indian Health Board when Jo Ann Kauffman (Hattie Kauffman’s sister) was the head of it, he also tutored on the Lummi Indian Reservation, when he attended Western Washington University in Montana.

                Boyden taught investigative journalism, and introduction to radio broadcasting in Haskell Indian Nations University (Lawrence, KS), and he’s a former radio talk show host out of Kansas City, Missouri. Boyden was on the air for six years and interviewed people such as the renowned author, historian, scholar Vine Deloria, Jr., Paul Gorman Sr. (Navajo Codetalker), writer-columnist- policy advocate, Suzan Shown Harjo.

                “After seeing the economic conditions on the reservation, when I got on radio and my format included Indian country, I felt led to start Operation Morning Star for the purpose of trying to collect gifts of food and other need items that were not available because of socially engineered conditions that were in evidence not only in Pine Ridge but throughout Lakota County in South Dakota,” said Boyden.

                Operation Morning Star’s mission is to “fill in the gaps where needed” when it comes to food, appliances, furniture etc. as well as to begin to initiate economic development as it translates into housing needs and production needs, he said.

                “My biggest problem,” said Boyden, “has been my opposition from the media here in Kansas City: all the radio stations, newspapers, rock stations etc. except the “Independent Examiner.”

                He said he called Dakota Lakota Journal because of the “racial disparities” when it comes to covering issues of importance in Indian country, such as the ongoing socio-economic conditions of poverty.

                Boyden takes issue with the “Kansas City Star” for their lack of response to articles such as Operation Morning Star and also said they didn’t send a reporter to cover Suzan Shown Harjo when she was invited to come by the Missouri American Indian Council to speak on her successful lawsuit against the “Washington Redskins” for the trademark patent right to that symbol. “She’s a warrior woman,” said Boyden adding, “It was overturned by a judge, after being successfully sued, now it’s back in Court.” He said the newspaper failed to give her coverage, “They’ll always give coverage for the “n” word but not the “r” word,” he said. “Native issues are not ‘on the back of the bus’ he said, “they’re not even on the bus.”

                His website: www.operationmorningstar.org documents this issue as well as the many programs his organization is involved in on the reservations. He also has a very graphic short course in "Indian Country History" for those unfamiliar with history pertaining to American Indians that is NOT found in U.S. History books.

                For the last nine years (1997) Operation Morning Star (OMS) has championed an “Adopt a Lakota Program,” where Boyden said, “You don’t send money to me, or the family. What you do – I find the family to be adopted – and you send money to the grocery store, the propane company, the electric company etc. They can go and get the food. Then the people that adopt, you know your money is being used, not by the charity, but by the people you’ve adopted,” he said, “for direct services.”

                He said his program has worked very well for elders and families. This year Operation Morning Star is sending trucks to Cheyenne River Indian Reservation – and is looking for families who need help (For families: see the webpage or contact info at end of article) he has brand new woodstoves “right out of the crate” to give.

                This holiday season he has $15,000 worth in “brand new” woodstoves, (22) donated from the store,  “Victoria Sales” out of Fenton, Missouri. They are EPA safe, he said. When the Journal talked to Boyden he was busy trying to raise additional funds for the $200 needed for the pipe flutes per stove, “so that there won’t be any fire accidents.”

                The donor responsible for the woodstoves, store owner, Randy Stires, Boyden said, “Is a real example of what Jesus was about in contrast to the “pseudo Christian” programs.”

                Some of the previous accomplishments of Operation Morning Star include: They delivered large donations of tomato plants (10,000) and other vegetables: beans, peppers and corn which came from greenhouses in two separate trips each Spring.

                In 1999, when Oglala had the tornados, Boyden on the air with OMS raised $6,500 to buy  huge family sized tents for every homeless family “due to FEMA’s lack of assistance” he said. He said FEMA’s money was being funneled into the local CAPP Offices and was distributed elsewhere -“every place but Oglala, it never reached the people there until much later.”

                Boyden said the national food bank: Harvesters: Heart to Heart (out of Kansas City) was a big benefactor for communities in need all around the world, but “wouldn’t give me a crumb of food” for his OMS/Pine Ridge operation when it needed food for the tornado victims in Oglala in 1999..

                “They’ll help everybody but First Nations Indigenous who should be helped. They deserve – on the concept of restitution for what’s happened to them. They deserve to “not be given things” but restored them the integrity and way of life that was stolen and destroyed,” said the non-Native Boyden. “That’s the purpose of Operation Morning Star in a nutshell.”

                Last year, OMS delivered a semi-turck full of toys within the Red Shirt Community of Pine Ridge. OMS delivers semi-truck full of toys four times a year in their “Toys for Native American Tots Program.” Boyden now uses use his own personal truck but previously the Local 41 Teamsters Union loaned OMS a driver and truck. This year he will be renting a truck.

                They traveled to Manderson, Wounded Knee, Allen, Oglala multiple times during the year with a tribal endorsement letter from John Yellow Bird Steele. He also has other letters from students at Haskell and Melissa Buckles, enrolled with the Ft. Peck Assiniboine Sioux Tribe. They are all posted on the OMS website.

                In January 2002, OMS delivered 35 tons of food to Pine Ridge, Now that delivery has grown to 160 tons currently. His former students from Haskell work with him, as well as families and a volunteer list he draws from for the labor – to load up the trucks.

                “We’re coming to Cheyenne River!” Boyden will be loading the woodstoves and items on his semi Dec. 23, leaving Christmas eve and arriving in Cheyenne River on Dec. 25, Christmas Day. His contacts there are: Mary Tall Elk, who works with the tribe, and Larry Fiddler, past assistant to former CRST Chairman Harold Frazier, in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Natural Resources Agency. “What I’ve asked from Mary and Larry is I want the names and addressed of those families who are without,” said Boyden.

                He is currently looking for names, addresses, families at Cheyenne River who are without, who “really need our services”: gifts, stoves etc.”

                This year Boyden said he met with a Jewish Synagogue, whose members want to come and do “hands on” assistance in the midst of the people on the reservation. “This is a first! “I’ve never read or heard about it any media in Indian country of in mainstream media, where a Jewish organization has decided to do something for the indigenous people of this country. They decided they wanted to do something,” said Boyden. “The paradox is that the Jewish people that live in this country came here to be free from religious persecution and are living on the land of the people who have been victimized by the same people they ran from.”

                Beginning in January 2007 Boyden will be doing an online radio show through the internet from his home/office. His format will be “everything”: Native American, political and spiritual, broken down into subject-matter. He will continue to interview folks in Indian country.

                “I make no salary doing this. I drive an ’88 Jeep Cherokee, a ’94 Van and I live in a $200 a month cabin,” Boyden said. Further dispelling the myth that OMS is like other “charity organizations who profit off Native peoples, he said, “I don’t have a Swiss bank account.”

                Operation Morning Star is also doing a Christmas Turkey Drive hoping to collect 1,000 turkeys from two Hy-Vee stores in Independence, Missouri.

                “I’m an outsider,” said Boyden. “A stone-cold white man. I came into Indian country bringing gifts that come from the hearts of people here (Missouri) in a “give-away tradition” The people in Independence and Kansas City, MO who respond to OMS are aware of centuries of suffering and injustice going on. The Oyate are very thankful and appreciate what’s being done. I feel this appreciation and love towards me. What I’d like to see happen is for them to turn towards one another and restore in their hearts the same love, the same forgiveness, the same charity towards one another that was once there before the white man came to this land.

                For further information about Operation Morning Star, to donate items, or if you are a Native family in need of assistance please Contact: website: www.operationmorningstar.org, email: operationmorningstar@yahoo.com or write: Richard Boyden 213 ½ West Southside Blvd. Independence, Missouri 64055 or call: (816) 461-6666 or (816) 352-7999, 816-305-6765