Honoring Dakota Project Online Community Conversation: Shelley Buck

We are honored to co-present this online conversation led by the Honoring Dakota Project with Shelley Buck, president of Owamniyomni Okhodayapi.

Shelley Buck is president of Owamniyomni Okhodayapi, a Minneapolis nonprofit that is creating a place of healing restoration, education, and connection at the upper Lock on Minneapolis’ Central Riverfront that is a sacred area to the Dakota people. Buck is an enrolled member of the Prairie Island Indian Community and served 12 years on the Prairi Island Tribal Council including 6 years as President.

Buck has a Bachelor of Science in business accounting from Indiana University, a Masters of Art in sports management from Concordia University, and a Masters of Jurisprudence in Tribal Indian law from the University of Tulsa.

Buck currently serves on the boards of The Minnesota Wild Foundation, Great River Passage Conservancy, Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi and Meet Minneapolis. She also held the position of Alternate Regional VP for the National Congress of American Indians.

Art of the Rural is grateful to collaborate with Honoring Dakota Project, Winona County Historical Society, Engage Winona, and The Cedar Tree Project in the Spillway initiative in Winona, Minnesota, a town located along the Mississippi River in Dakota homelands.

Through support for artists, culture bearers, artisans, and storytellers – alongside the local organizations that support them – Spillway works to create the conditions for engaged projects that honor diverse lived experience, deepen regional relationships, and build rural-urban networks of knowledge-sharing and exchange that will create opportunities for artists, culture bearers, and artisans to thrive and connect with new colleagues and audiences.

We are also grateful for the support of the Chicago Community Foundation.