Edward Reina ( March 6, 1948 - September 14, 2025 ) was a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, (Akimel O’odham). He was a Chief Police Executive, who worked for five (5) Tribal Governments, as Chief of Police for four (4), the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe and as Director of Public Safety for the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Edward Reina served on GLOBAL, a Federal Advisory Committee dealing with Criminal Justice Information Sharing, a life time member of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, he was the first Tribal Police Chief to serve as President of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police and on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, served as chairman of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Section (AZ Tribal Police Chiefs), Chairman, Juvenile Justice Working Group of Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, and served as a member of National Task Force on Juvenile Justice for Native American and Alaska Native, and was a member of the Tribal Issues Advisory Group for the United States Sentencing Commission. Edward Reina Chaired and Co-authored “Crime in Indian Country Report April 1994” presented to US Attorney General Janet Reno, and chaired the Planning and Development, of the 2001 IACP summit “Improving Safety in Indian Country”, a report that is still used by the US Department of Justice.

Evelyn “Evie” Stevenson (March 24, 1939 – March 12, 2015) was a member of the Salish and Kootenai Tribe. While raising a young family in San Francisco, Evelyn was very active in the civil rights movement and American Indian causes. She was involved in the Alcatraz occupation in the early 1970s and went to the island in a rowboat for six months. She became an attorney, finished her undergraduate degree and attended Golden Gate University Law School in San Francisco. She began working with the Salish and Kootenai Tribal Court System in the summer of 1974 after tribal sovereignty became more of a goal upon enactment of the Indian Education and Self-Determination Act. Together with Judges Donny Dupuis and Louise Burke – and other pioneering warriors of that time – they began building a modern, sophisticated Tribal Court system. They provided the first prosecutor, the first tribal advocate program and court adviser. Evelyn and her dear friend, Kathleen Fleury, were the first Indian women to pass the Montana Bar, and Evelyn became the first in-house legal counsel. During her first year with the tribes, she spent the winter in Washington, D.C., learning of the past litigation and Court of Claim cases that large firms had previously handled. The tribes were becoming prepared to stand on their own, supporting their ancestors’ wishes in becoming a sovereign nation. Evelyn worked with other attorneys back East in developing the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. She fiercely defended the law with an unrivaled devotion and dedication. She rarely lost in court. That federal law became her lifelong passion, designed to hopefully avoid further destruction of the American Indian family. She became a nationally recognized expert on the subject.

Emory Sekaquaptewa (December 28, 1928 – December 14, 2007) was a member of the Hopi Eagle Clan. He was a Hopi educator, judge, artist and cultural treasure as well as a noted research anthropologist. Sekaquaptewa spent nearly four decades at the University of Arizona’s Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA), where he taught courses such as Hopi Language and Culture. His most notable academic achievement, however, was compiling and publishing the definitive dictionary of the Hopi language.

Born in Hotevilla in northern Arizona, Sekaquaptewa was the first Native American to attend West Point. He later graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1953. He spent two years as an Air Force officer before returning to Arizona to teach high school.

Sekaquaptewa served as governor of Kykotsmovi and also with the Hopi Land Negotiating Committee in the 1960s during the tumultuous disputes over tribal lands between the Hopi and Navajo nations.

He was executive director of the Hopi Tribal Council and an associate judge on the Hopi Tribal Court. Sekaquaptewa founded and was chief judge of the Hopi Appellate Court and was instrumental in meshing traditional Hopi rules with federal and state laws in adjudicating tribal disputes.

In 1970 he became the first member of the Hopi tribe to earn a law degree from the University of Arizona, beginning his long association with the University of Arizona. There are no records to indicate it, but his family said he was the first Native America to graduate from the UA with a juris doctorate.