This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. Please remove or replace such wording and instead of making proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance.(November 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this message )
Mark Maryboy was also the San Juan County,Utah Commissioner for District Three. In 1986,he became the first Native American to be elected as county commissioner in Utah's history.
Maryboy,Rebecca M. Benally and protesters from the Aneth Chapter blocked the main ExxonMobil corporate office for three days in Aneth,Utah.[1]
Life and education
Mark Maryboy was born on December 10,1955,at St. Christopher's mission near Bluff,Utah. He was the fifth of eight children,all of whom were raised in a Navajo hogan.
Mark attended BIA boarding schools[2] in Kayenta and Aneth at varied times,even though it was hard for him to be separated from his parents during those periods. Government schools were difficult for him as there seemed to be a deliberate attempt to destroy the Indian person that he was.
Angry and resentful because of harsh treatment,he ran away from boarding school while in third grade. His parents then enrolled him and his beloved brother,Herbert,in the public school at Bluff. They were the first reservation Navajo students to attend public school in San Juan County.
Upon graduation from San Juan High School in Blanding,Utah he attended the University of Utah,majoring in history with a minor in business. He garnered a B.A. degree in 1978.
Political representative
Mark Maryboy at a Campaign rally
Some time after graduation,he returned to the Navajo Reservation. Working as the Director of Education for the Utah Navajo Development Council,he supervised Headstart,Adult Education,and Vocational Education programs. He created teacher training programs and a class for teen mothers.
Maryboy married Rosylyn Johnson,who is also a Social Worker on the reservation. They have one daughter.[citation needed]
San Juan County Commissioner
San Juan County which includes the Utah section of the Navajo Nation near its southern Stateline with Arizona.
One hundred and thirty years after Native Americans were pushed to isolated reservations,the Navajo people of Utah reclaimed a place in the American political process.
In 1986,Maryboy,then age 31 and politically ambitious,ran for San Juan Commissioner. This was the first election after the county was divided by Justice Department decree into commissioner districts. He was elected a San Juan County Commissioner and became the first Native American to hold such a position in the state of Utah.
An elected official,he realized even greater inequities in services given to his Navajo constituents. The Navajo people were bringing in more money for the county than they were receiving back in services. He mixed it up with the other commissioners,often battling the always capable right-wing former Commissioner Calvin Black,the undisputed kingpin of San Juan County politics,during hotly contested commission meetings.
Maryboy's four terms on the San Juan County Commission - particularly the first half-dozen years - were the subject of much press and the stuff of legend-making. His sword-crossing with the late commission chairman,Cal Black,spiked tensions across southern Utah as Maryboy fought for funding for roads,sanitation and water for Utah's Navajos.
In 1989 Navajo elders and other Democratic stalwarts determined to run a Navajo for every county post up for election. 56 percent of San Juan's population was Navajo at the time. The campaign aimed at getting tribal members to the polls was called "Niha-Whol-Zhiizh",meaning "It's our turn."
The Democratic-Navajo plan fizzled. Maryboy won a second commission term,but was the only Navajo Indian elected.
Navajo Nation Council Delegate
In November 1990,he was elected to the Navajo Nation Council as a council delegate from the Aneth area.
He sat on the advisory board of the College of Social &Behavioral Science at the University of Utah. He is currently the chairman of the Navajo Nation Council Budget &Finance Committee.
Maryboy met President Bill Clinton in 1992 at the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. Maryboy delivered a prayer in Navajo at one of the sessions. He was a delegate to the United Nations Conference for Indigenous peoples in Geneva,Switzerland in July 1992. He was appointed to serve on the Utah Advisory Committee for the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1993. He was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the National Advisory Council on Indian Education in 1994.
Navajo Council Speaker Morgan struck Maryboy in the chest after Maryboy made a complaint to the speaker that he didn't help Maryboy bring up legislation that had been skipped over earlier that day.
The item—formal condolences to the family of late Council Delegate Curley John of Aneth,whose family was in the gallery—was skipped because Maryboy was out of the Council Chambers dealing with Constituents.
Maryboy tried later to put the item back on the agenda but was ruled out of order,the paper reported
Aneth Chapter members had demanded Morgan issue a public apology,following the bathroom scuffle,during one of Aneth's monthly chapter meetings in Utah. Speaker Morgan ignored the Aneth meeting,overall never presenting himself.
Utah Navajo Commission
The Utah Navajo Commission manages revenues derived from mineral development on the Utah portion of the reservation for the Utah Navajos. The population of Utah Dine' is nearing 10,000 enrolled members. Mark Maryboy serves with this entity as well seeing to the deployment of monetary funds and the Navajo energy issues in San Juan County.
Navajo water rights issue
In 2002 he and the Utah Navajo Commission urged the Navajo Nation to reassert Colorado River water claims the tribe waived in the late 1960s to help facilitate a power plant near Page,Arizona.
In a resolution to the Navajo Nation Council this week,the Utah Navajo also urged the Navajo tribe's water attorney be fired and the tribe create an independent water commission to reform the tribe's water policy
According to the Utah Navajo Commission,the tribe could claim between one and two million acre feet (2.5km3) of Colorado River water,which potentially could be worth billions of dollars.
Mark always felt that it was long past time for the Navajo Nation to take aggressive and comprehensive action on the tribe's dormant water rights.
The council waived at least a portion of its rights in a 1968 agreement with the federal government and the Salt River Project,which planned to build a coal-fired power plant near Page.
In that deal,the council agreed not to demand more than 50,000 acre-feet (62,000,000m3) of Colorado River water so that 34,100 acre-feet (42,100,000m3) could be diverted to the plant.
In 1933,Congress created the Utah Navajo Trust Fund. It is unique in that the state was deemed the trustee-delegate for oil pumped from Navajo land.
According to the law,37.5 percent of royalties are supposed to go to Utah Navajos. But a 1991 report from the state found gross mismanagement. Some people were later indicted for misusing the trust fund
Navajos living in nearby San Juan County in southeastern Utah have long protested the saturation of oil and gas wells around their homes. Mark and other Utah Navajos have long argued that the Navajo Nation returns little profit to Navajos living in desperate conditions in the Utah portion of tribal land.
Utah Navajo allegations of corruption within the U.S. Interior gained support from an Interior whistleblower in 2003.
Aneth Oil Crisis
In 1997,local residents began the Aneth Oil Protest against Exxon-Mobil's Utah Navajo community policies. Protesters from the Aneth Chapter blocked the main ExxonMobil Corp. Office for 3 days at the McElmo Oil Plant near Aneth,Utah.
From the start,the protest was made up of local Navajo people who were becoming increasingly angry at Exxon-Mobil's stance towards the environment and its hiring practices within the local communities. Many other national political activist organizations such as the American Indian Movement wanted to get involved with the protest. However,it was agreed to not include outside affiliates,which might result in losing the original meaning and message of the protest .
Former Navajo Nation president Albert Hale was also mobilized to the northernmost corner of the Navajo Nation where the protest was initiated. Mark,along with members of the Aneth Community,helped create a new standard for the Navajo workers working in the Aneth Oil area as well as the hiring process.
Life after politics
Heeding to his father's wishes,he did not seek a fifth term on the council.
Maryboy established Utah Navajo Health Systems in 1999 along with Donna Singer. Then he ramrodded tribal legislation that allows the agency to keep its profits,rather than return them to Window Rock. This remains a legacy for the policies Maryboy left.
Utah Navajo Oil Revenues
Recently Counsel Delegates Kenneth Maryboy,Davis Filfred,and Former Counsel Delegate Mark Maryboy have been actively working to ensure that the Aneth Oil Royalties stay with the Utah Navajo people.
However such causes are not without competition,the Navajo Nation itself has been working counter to the Utah Navajo people in taking over the Aneth Oil Revenues. It presents a significant problem with a line of issues Kenneth is up against.
On June 16,2008,Kenneth Maryboy,Mark Maryboy,Davis Filfred,and the honorable Phil Lyman of Blanding,Utah will travel to Washington,D.C. to present a working model of how an easy transition from the State of Utah handling Utah Navajo royalty money,to a functioning Utah Navajo organization before Congress.
Related Research Articles
San Juan County is a county in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census,the population was 14,518. Its county seat is Monticello,while its most populous city is Blanding. The Utah State Legislature named the county for the San Juan River,itself named by Spanish explorers.
Aneth is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Juan County,Utah,United States. The population was 598 at the 2000 census. The origin of the name Aneth is obscure.
Montezuma Creek is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Juan County,Utah,United States. The population was 335 at the 2010 census,a decrease from the 2000 figure of 507.
The Navajo Nation,also known as Navajoland,is a Native American reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona,northwestern New Mexico,and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in Window Rock,Arizona.
The Navajo Nation Council is the Legislative Branch of the Navajo Nation government. The council meets four times per year,with additional special sessions,at the Navajo Nation Council Chamber,which is in Window Rock,Arizona.
The Navajo are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Ute Nation,and are mostly descendants of the historic Weeminuche Band who moved to the Southern Ute reservation in 1897. Their reservation is headquartered at Towaoc,Colorado on the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation in southwestern Colorado,northwestern New Mexico and small sections of Utah.
The Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation is a non-contiguous section of the Navajo Nation lying in parts of west-central Cibola and southern McKinley counties in New Mexico,United States,just east and southeast of the Zuni Indian Reservation. It has a land area of 230.675 sq mi (597.445 km2),over 95 percent of which is designated as off-reservation trust land. According to the 2000 census,the resident population is 2,167 persons. The Ramah Reservation's land area is less than one percent of the Navajo Nation's total area.
Kenneth Maryboy is an American politician for San Juan County,Utah,and was Navajo Nation Council Delegate. Kenneth is a former San Juan County Commissioner. Maryboy was the third Democrat in a row to have been elected to the Commissioner District 3 position since its inception in 1984 that divided the county into three districts. Kenneth was replaced on the commission in 2015 by Rebecca M. Benally
Lawrence T. Morgan is the former Speaker of the Navajo Nation Tribal Council.
Davis Filfred is an American politician for the Navajo Nation Council Delegate in the Utah Navajo Section.
State Route 162 (SR-162) is a state highway located in San Juan County,Utah,United States. It begins at US-191 east of Bluff. It then follows the former alignment of SR-163 to Montezuma Creek. There,it intersects UT-262 at its southern terminus. Afterwards,it follows SR-262's former alignment past Aneth to the Colorado state line. Colorado State Highway 41 takes over in the Centennial State,ending at a junction with US-160 6 miles east of the Four Corners Monument.
The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe of Arizona is a federally recognized tribe of Southern Paiute Indians in Coconino County,Arizona.
Ben Shelly was the 7th president of the Navajo Nation. He was the first president to have been elected both president and vice president of the Navajo Nation,as well as the first New Mexican Navajo to hold the Navajo presidency.
The Trail of the Ancients is a collection of National Scenic Byways located in the U.S. Four Corners states of Utah,Colorado,New Mexico, and Arizona. These byways comprise:
The bill to amend the Act of March 1,1933,to transfer certain authority and resources to the Utah Dineh Corporation.,and for other purposes. This bill was introduced on the Senate floor by Rep. Robert Bennett (R-UT) on 21 September 2009. It was referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs. On December 9,2009 Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held hearing 111-538. No further action was taken by the Committee.
The Utah Dineh Corporation is a nonprofit organization which was established in order to maintain the Utah Navajo Oil Reserve revenues in the Aneth Oil Field section of Utah. Much of this area is within the Utah Navajo side of San Juan County,Utah.
The Navajo Rangers is an organization of the Navajo Nation in the Southwestern United States,which maintains and protects the tribal nation's public works,natural resources,natural and historical sites and assist travelers. The Rangers form part of the Navajo Nation Department of Resource Enforcement. The agency currently consists of 11 officers in four different field locations. The organization was founded by Richard Fowler Van Valkenburgh.
Bears Ears National Monument is a United States national monument located in San Juan County in southeastern Utah,established by President Barack Obama by presidential proclamation on December 28,2016. The monument protects 1,351,849 acres of public land surrounding the Bears Ears—a pair of buttes—and the Indian Creek corridor rock climbing area. The Native American names for the buttes have the same meaning in each of the languages represented in the region. The names are listed in the presidential proclamation as "Hoon’Naqvut,Shash Jáa [sic],KwiyaghatʉNükavachi/Kwiyagatu Nukavachi,Ansh An Lashokdiwe"—all four mean "Bears Ears".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Navajo Nation and 
USA 
