Julius Morris will soon be a graduate of the criminal justice law enforcement program at Western Dakota Technical College and is finishing with a huge honor. He is the second student at WDT to win the national American Technical Education Association Technical Student Award for 2023. “I just never imagined me being, you know, looked up to like that. It’s like I’m making changes and I never imagined me being that important,” said Julius Morris, a future graduate of the criminal justice program. Morris has faced several obstacles in life, originally from Pine Ridge, where he grew up in poverty. He served almost four years in the army and was discharged due to an injury which he endured six surgeries. After this, Morris enrolled in Western Dakota Tech, and started his path in the law enforcement program.
A trademark battle is brewing between two Indigenous North American video producers over the use of an Indigenous descriptor in their respective company names. The bubbling dispute between Frisco, Texas-headquartered IndigiStudios — founded by actor Gary “Litefoot” Davis, known for his role as Little Bear in the 1995 film “The Indian in the Cupboard” — and Kelvin Redvers’ Vancouver-based IndigiFilm Media raises questions about the use and protection of cultural identity-based descriptors in corporate names. Canadian producer Redvers, a member of the Dene nation, set up his film and TV production company IndigiFilm a year ago in June, with an eye on developing and producing scripted and unscripted projects in Canada and overseas.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.