Peterson Zah honored with MLK award

By Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Former Navajo Tribal Chairman and the first Navajo Nation president, Peterson Zah, has been selected as the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. Servant-Leadership Award winner.

Zah, an advisor to Arizona State University presidents for 13 years, was selected for the honor because of his long and exemplary service to Native American people, to ASU students and faculty, and to the broader community, according to ASU Media Relations Assistant Director Sarah Auffret.

He will receive the award at an MLK celebration breakfast on Jan. 28 at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel.

Throughout his career, Zah has made education his first priority. He is known for doing whatever it takes to motivate students to stay in school including counseling them, calling a professor or staff member or dipping into emergency funds provided by companies or private individuals who want to help.

“Our success doesn’t stop at enrolling students, or graduating them,” Zah said. “Success is helping the schools prepare them for college, working with families, supporting traditional values and developing scholarship programs so they can succeed. Success is when they go back to their people and become contributing members, working to improve American Indian communities.”

One of Zah’s major achievements on behalf of his people was the creation of the Navajo Nation Permanent Trust Fund in 1985.

President Joe Shirley Jr. congratulated Zah in a release and said he has the highest regard for him.

“He brought $1 billion to our nation,” Shirley said.
The president further said that Zah’s farsighted vision for the financial future of the Navajo Nation and the education of its youth has come to fruition today and will continue to bring dividends to the Navajo people for many more generations to come.

Zah has been a key leader to bring Native American students from tribal communities to ASU and help them succeed.

“Sometimes I think it’s not fair to get paid for what I do,” he is quoted as saying. “I really love it.”

He travels up to 1,000 miles a month to tribal communities to talk to students and families about college and to work with leaders to develop partnerships with ASU. He frequently speaks to national and local groups about tribal issues and concerns, gives presentations to ASU classes and meets with students in his office who are having financial or personal problems.

Zah is credited with helping to double the Native American student population at ASU. He continues to build key alliances with tribal and community groups. He also helped to create ASU’s Native American Achievement Program, a partnership with tribes to provide scholarships, mentoring and advising to students.

This year, ASU has 1,370 Native American students enrolled – nearly double the enrollment 14 years ago just before he started working there. Of that number, 900 are Navajos.

With his leadership, ASU faculty, staff and students reach out to Native American schools throughout the state, bringing enrichment programs on math and science, reading and art to elementary and middle schools. They travel to Indian communities from Gila River to the White Mountain and San Carlos Apaches.

Born on the Navajo Nation in 1937, Zah left home as a teenager to attend Phoenix Indian School. He graduated from ASU in 1963 and returned home as a vocation educator, teaching Navajo adults the essentials of the carpentry trade.

Zah was elected chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council in 1982. He became the first president of the Navajo Nation in 1990.