Kathryn_froelich_introduction.mp4

Well my name’s Katherine Fric and uh my maiden name was Katherine Marie baitman and um I am AA black feet so on my mother’s side I’m sish Aika from White Shield but on my dad’s side I’m black feet from Montana Browning so that’s kind of an interesting like I mean I think a lot of us are mixed now these days you know a lot of tribal people are mixed and I know the Next Generation even more so you know as tribes have moved and intermarried um I remember that I went to um wh shield in my junior high years after uh leaving Los Angeles my mother relocated there when I was 2 years old on relocation program so I grew up in LA but when I was about 9 years old she wanted to start bringing me back home to meet my family my extended family my aunts my uncles you know so we started coming home and then we moved home when I was 12 so I was at White Shield school during my junior high years and when I started you know the boy girl interested you know getting interested um she said you know what there’s nobody here that you can marry cuz everybody’s related so you’re going to have to go to bismar High what a culture shock it was you know even though I grew up in La um it was still a culture shock again to go to a total non- indan school you know where um there were probably in my class of 500 there were probably only three native students here in bismar now that has changed now in bismar Mandan area there are more native students than they’re on Standing Rock and a lot of that is because United tribes technical college and just um jobs you know people have to move to get a job and so that’s it’s growing did you experience some racism then when I was at um bismar High not really you know not too much I think I experienced more when I was in LA I think I remember that you know cuz um the kids would make fun they thought I was uh Japanese or they thought I was ches or something you know and so when I was when I was in elementary school I remember kind of experiencing some of that you know I don’t you know kids don’t realize how cruel they can be children you know so um but when I was at bismar high I couldn’t but the thing I did experience was like I said with the culture shock was uh the difference in sense of humor when I was at White Shield I mean we had what I would call IND and humor you know we would joke with each other about things and especially hard times you know like getting Commodities you know we joke about eating can meat spam you know and eating commodity cheese I mean even today people joke about commodity cheese I mean it was the best though it was really good you know but we would joke about that and then um when we when I came to bismar high I almost thought for a period of time that something was wrong with me cuz I lost my sense of humor CU of the circle of friends that I developed they would laugh at things that I thought oh what is funny about that you know and then I would say something and I quit trying to share my sense of humor because it was like they didn’t get it you know they didn’t understand so even when it comes to sense of humor it’s um it’s different but so anyway graduated from bismar high went to University of Mary and that’s kind of interesting how that happened because I was a waitress I worked throughout my high school you know you know because here my mother’s single parent and uh struggling I mean we struggled all our life whether it was in LA or here um and so I worked in high school at a restaurant as a waitress went to school then worked and when I was a senior I was here in bismar and just out of the blue there was a man that walked in and I waited on him and he said oh you’re Native American aren’t you and I said yeah he said well which tribe are you from I said oh I’m from white Shield I’m a ricko oh he said are you going to college next year I never even had thought about it I mean I mean it didn’t cross my mind you know and I said well I never really thought about it and he said you know what we’ve got a program of at University of Mary and you’re going to go to college I said really so um he set it up and there were about 34 of us they had a grant gotten a new grant for am ameran Indian students this is when University of Mary was very small it was predomitly female and um they it’s nowhere near the way it is now it they just had one building with um some housing limited housing for students so there were 34 of us that came from around North Dakota that ended up at University of Mary and to this day I we kind of meet each other at powwow or you know we laugh about going there and how they gave us stiens and they said you know we’re going to put some money in your bank and then and then you can draw on that during this semester you know and so um Susie pollon from White chill and I joke because we say gee they didn’t realize that none of us had ever had a checking account none of us had ever done that so by the first month we were all broke so then they had to pull us all together and say okay listen we got to do this differently something you know we have to do something different so but anyway so that’s kind of that story but I married a man from standing Rock 44 years ago and ended up down there all my life and it was fortunate that again being a young mother um and ranching was not near as profitable it is now but um there was a job at Head Start that opened up so I got a job there I didn’t I got two I finished two years at University of Mary and then got married and then um so then we needed extra money so with two children so I went and was a teacher Aid for Head Start and after that finished a degree at cting Bow College a teacher preparation program and that was great if it hadn’t been for sitting B College I probably wouldn’t have finished because it was close they provided funding they provided mentoring uh again we had to go on campus at UND for three weeks each semester uh we you know we managed everybody managed to do it and so that was good um so then I was a classroom teacher for uh the bi it’s now bie but it was Bia uh classroom teacher for 15 years um and then again there was another opportunity for me to go back to school and so through University of North Car so I did and got my master’s degree in education and about that time changes in education on the reservation there are just you can it’s one thing you can always expect and that’s big changes they um the contract grant school started to come about and so the Bia um switch switched and went to a contract gr school which meant that everybody had to be Rift so all of the staff were Rift so we all uh could reapply but there were certain conditions and one of them of course was salary was a big issue so anyway several of us left and at that time when one door closed another one opened sitting B College needed someone to head up their teacher prep program so I started there and uh anyway I left there after 17 years and I now work for the M that’s a long story for I mean it was a lot of years but just to sum it up so that’s how I ended up at Missouri River education Cooperative um needed a change I was at Sitting Bull for 17 years department chair and um so now I’m at MC and I love it because the focus of my work is culture and language and that’s where my heart has always been has always been in the importance of kids knowing who they are and helping cuz I remember being one of those kids in La one of those kids at White show one of those kids at bismar high you know and the importance of knowing who you are and the strength that it gives you