Board

Father Randolph Graczyk is a Capuchin-Franciscan priest currently serving as pastor of St. Charles Parish on the Crow Reservation in Pryor, Montana. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Chicago and assists with the immersion program at St. Charles. Father Graczyk is fluent in Crow and has published a grammar of the Crow language, a Crow dictionary, and is currently helping with the development of Level 3 Crow language curricular materials.

Dr. Pease is a Crow educator and advocate. She is the founding president of the Little Big Horn college as well as the past president of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and director of the American Indian College Fund. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education and the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities. She has also served as a trustee of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Roanne Hill is a Crow language and culture teacher at St. Labre High School. She grew up speaking Crow and didn’t learn English until age 5. Roanne has been involved in the Crow Summer Institute as a teacher since its inception. She teaches classes on how to teach the Crow language, including Teaching Crow Level 2 Methods and Teaching Crow Level 3 Methods. Her voice is also used in many of Crow Language Consortium’s materials.

Jason Cummins served as a school leader in Apsáalooke schools for close to 20 years and in 2019 was the Montana Indian Educator of the Year. He is currently a professor of Educational Leadership at Montana State University. He recently served at the White House and was appointed by President Biden as the deputy director of EO 14049, the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities. Along with members of the White House Council on Native American Affairs (WHCNAA) Education Committee, he wrote the first draft of The National 10-year plan to revitalize Native American Languages across the federal government. The final plan is expected to be released in 2024. During his time as Deputy Director, he assisted in the development of a Native American Teacher Retention Initiative (NATRI) grant competition, the Research and Development Infrastructure and Grant Program ensuring TCUs were included, the Native American Language Resource Centers (NALRC) Program, and State and Tribal Education Partnership (STEP) grant competition and the Native American Teacher retention grant. He is integral to the promotion and continuation of the Crow (Apsáalooke) language revival within the region.

Curtis Yarlott is the Executive Director and President at St. Labre Indian School. He is directly responsible for implementing results-driven education reforms, contributing to a higher percentage of graduates and post-secondary academic acceptance. He is a proven, results-oriented, senior-level leader with experience in multi-cultural environments involving both not-for-profits and for-profits.