Native American Cultural Center to honor Tom and Judy Fredericks at Powwow
MINOT, N.D. – The Minot State University Native American Cultural Center will honor Tom and Judy Fredericks for the establishment of the Catherine Medicine Stone Fredericks Scholarship Endowment at the 30th annual Spring Honor Dance & Powwow Celebration.
The Fredericks will be honored with a Men’s Traditional Special Friday, April 26 after the Grand Entry, which is set for 7 p.m. There will be cash prizes totaling $1,000 for first, second, and third place in the Men’s Traditional Special.
The Spring Honor Dance & Powwow, hosted by the Native American Cultural Center and the Native American Cultural Awareness Club, is scheduled for Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27 at the Minot State University Dome.
“We are very excited to be able to honor Tom and Judy at the Spring Honor Dance & Powwow for all they have done for Native American students at Minot State and for the Native American Cultural Center,” said Annette Mennem, director of the Native American Cultural Center. “This scholarship, one of several that Minot State offers for Native American students, will directly help students pursuing their education at Minot State and for that we are forever grateful for their generosity.”
The Catherine Medicine Stone Fredericks Scholarship Endowment was established in December 2018. It was created by the Fredericks to honor Tom’s mother, Catherine, who had the foresight to make education a family priority.
“It is our hope this scholarship will give Native students an opportunity to gain a higher education that will allow them to attain a better life,” the Fredericks said in a statement when starting the endowment. “It is in honor of Catherine’s strong leadership of her family’s education. Tom could think of no better way to honor his mother than to have Native students get scholarships to aid them in what Catherine believed was the road to success.”
Tom, an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, is the equity partner at Fredericks Peebles & Morgan, LLP, one of the nation’s largest Native American law firms dedicated solely to the practice of federal Indian law. He was the founding partner in his own firm in 1979. Tom was appointed in the President Jimmy Carter administration to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, the highest American Indian position. He was also Associate Solicitor of Indian Affairs within the Department of Interior.
He earned his undergraduate degree at Minot State and earned his law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder Law School. In 2011, Tom earned Minot State’s Golden Award, the highest award bestowed by the MSU Alumni Association, and in 2018 he was named to the Minot State Athletics Hall of Fame.
Catherine was born in the village of Ree on the banks of the Missouri River. Her first language was Mandan and later learned Arikara and understood Hidatsa. She learned to speak English when she attended boarding school in Pipestone, Minnesota at the age of nine. Catherine was a lifetime resident of Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, where her and her husband, John Fredericks, Sr., owned a successful ranching operation along the banks of the Little Missouri River.
Eight of the nine children Catherine and John raised earned college degrees with several attaining advanced degrees. Among her children and grandchildren are doctors, lawyers, nurses, engineers, pharmacists, accountants, educators, and other professionals.
The Minot State Native American Cultural Center exists to provide academic support services and advocacy to Native American/American Indian students at Minot State, while serving as a home away from home. The Center also serves to provide awareness and sensitivity to ethnicity and culture through education experiences for students, faculty, staff, and the surrounding communities.
The Native American Cultural Awareness Club (NACAC) exists to offer support and encouragement to Native American students attending Minot State. Additionally, NACAC promotes an awareness and understanding for Native American culture and Indian issues at the university and greater Minot community. The club annually sponsors the Spring Honor Dance & Powwow Celebration and Native American Cultural Celebration Week.
For more information on the Catherine Medicine Stone Fredericks Scholarship Endowment, the Minot State Native American Cultural Center, or the Native American Cultural Awareness Club, contact Mennem by EMAIL or by phone at 701-858-3365.
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Published: 04/10/19
