External links
- Richard A. “Skip” Hayward, Mashantucker Pequot Tribal Nation
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Richard Arthur Hayward | |
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| Born | November 28, 1947 |
| Other names | Skip Hayward |
| Citizenship | Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe, American |
| Occupation(s) | tribal leader, pipefitter, restauranteer |
| Organization | Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe |
| Known for | helping Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe gain federal recogition, founding Foxwoods Casino |
| Title | Tribal Chairman |
| Term | 1975–1998 |
| Predecessor | none |
| Successor | Kenneth M. Reels |
| Relatives | Elizabeth George Plouffe (grandmother) |
Richard "Skip" Arthur Hayward (born November 28, 1947), served as tribal chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe from 1975 until November 1, 1998.
Kenneth M. Reels succeeded him as chairman.
Hayward was born on November 28, 1947, in New London, Connecticut, one of 10 children. He married Aline Aurore Champoux and held a variety of jobs before running a clam shack called the Sea Mist Haven near the Mystic Seaport.
Before becoming the tribal chairman, he worked as a pipefitter at General Dynamics Electric Boat and lived in Stonington, Connecticut. [1]
Hayward's grandmother Elizabeth George Plouffe died in May 1973. She was the last member of the Pequot Indian tribe to live on the 214-acre (87 ha) Pequot Indian reservation in the 1970s. [2] She was the only person living on the reservation, so the land passed back to the State of Connecticut when she died. [3]
In 1975, Hayward met with Thomas Tureen, the head of the Coalition of Eastern Native Americans (CENA), who helped him initiate a land claim on his family's behalf. Tureen and Hayward also discussed obtaining federal recognition from the federal government for his group. [4] In 1976, Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso gave state tribal recognition to Hayward's organization, the Western Pequots. In 1979, Hayward and the Western Pequots received a $12,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to create an economic development plan for the reservation. The group then received a $1.2 million loan from HUD in 1979 for the construction of 15 houses. Hayward appointed his cousin John Holder (Pequot) as executive director of the housing project. [5]
In 1982, Hayward and his associates worked to achieve federal recognition of the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe. Instead of undergoing the system processed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs's Office of Indian Affairs, they gained recognition through U.S. Congress's passage of the Mashantucket Pequot Settlement Act in 1983. [6] [7]
They were represented at the Congressional hearing concerning their proposed settlement bill by Tureen and a lawyer named Jackson King. King worked out a deal with Tureen that, in the proposed settlement bill, they would also ask the Federal government to give them enough money to buy out the landowners whom King was representing. [8] That bill was approved by the Senate in February 1983.
President Reagan vetoed the bill, however, stating that it would set a dangerous precedent for creating other new tribes, but Senator Lowell Weicker began to lobby against the President. He raised Congressional supporters who threatened to override the veto, so President Reagan compromised; and thus the Western Pequots were given Federal recognition.
Hayward and Tureen immediately started planning a high-stakes bingo operation. [9] Neither of them had any experience in running a business, so Hayward sought out Howard Wilson, a member of the Penobscot tribe and a veteran bingo operator. [10] The bingo hall opened on July 5, 1986, and was generating as much as $30 million a year in revenues by 1988. [11]
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was passed in 1988, and Hayward and Tureen saw that a casino situated on an Indian reservation would be a highly profitable enterprise. They found overseas financial backers Malaysia's Genting, and Foxwoods Casino began its business in 1992. By 1998, the casino was generating more than a billion dollars in revenue and Hayward was a multimillionaire. [12] The Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe grew from 125 people when Hayward organized the Western Pequots, to more than 300 in 1996. [13]
In 1998, Hayward lost the election for tribal chairman to Kenneth "Kenny" Reels. [14] Hayward had been chairman of the tribe since the creation of Western Pequot Indians of Connecticut, Inc. He ran for the position of tribal chairman again in 2002 but lost to Michael J. Thomas. [15]
In 1994, the University of Connecticut awarded him an honorary degree. [16] In 2017, the tribe gave Hayward its first Lifetime Achievement Award. [17]
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