Good-bye and Congratulations

It was with great sadness the Osage Nation learned of the passing of J. R. Ricketts, on Saturday, September 27th; the director and long-time employee for the CDIB/Membership Department. It is unfortunate he was unable to see his plans for his department reach fruition.

In July of 2014, the new tribal executive administration came into office. Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear stated, “After our inauguration, the first department director with whom Assistant Chief Red Corn and I met with was J. R. Ricketts. He reported the department being understaffed.”

Director Ricketts knew what the problems were for his department and he knew how they could be addressed. Chief Standing Bear went on to say that “with our full support, we authorized additional resources to the CDIB/Membership program who then hired additional, qualified Osage personnel to fulfill the duties of the department.”

During the past month of October, the Osage Nation CDIB/Membership Department successfully processed 419 Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) applications. This compares to 723 applications being processed during the entire year of 2013. This department is responsible for prompt and efficient processing of Osage CDIB cards in cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and to process the membership cards for our Osage people.

Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear congratulates Assistant Director Asa Cunningham-Concha and employees: Sarah Oberly, Cherokee Cheshewalla, Caron Littlecook, and Lauren Malone on a job well done!