Piikani Lodge Leadership Team

PLHI’s leadership comprises community leaders who carry Holy Bundles, Medicine Pipes, and Medicine Lodges for The People. They are Traditional Society members who are stewards of Amskapi Piikani (Blackfeet) Ways of Knowing and Being, dedicated to the protection and continuation of Piikani identity, sovereignty, and sustainability. They define solutions by collaborating with elders, local leaders, youth and other community members. Their voices are reflected throughout our plans resulting from years of in-person community meetings.

Board of Directors

The Piikani Lodge board members are community leaders who carry Holy Bundles, Medicine Pipes, and Medicine Lodges for the benefit of the people, along with advanced degrees. They are Traditional Society members who are dedicated to the protection and continuation of Native peoples’ identity, sovereignty, and sustainability. They are responsible for the protection and continuance of ceremonial ways of life and have assumed responsibility for community welfare.

PLHI Board Member

**Soyopoksakii (Red Blossom Woman) Antonia Pemberton-Gray, MS**
Antonia is Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet and Northern Cree, a respected elder, honored teacher, and has been transferred into the rights as a helper with the Holy Bundles. Antonia is also a Pipe Carrier and Sun Dance Lodge member and has dedicated much of her adult life to caring for and educating youth within the Blackfeet Nation and beyond. She brings a wealth of experience and community knowledge to the PLHI BOD.

PLHI Board Member

**Dr. Kristin Ruppel, PhD, Associate Professor of Native American Studies**
Kristin is an Associate Professor of Native American Studies at Montana State University. Her training led to a focus on the United States' "civilization" policies and their ongoing consequences for American Indian allotted landowners. Dr. Ruppel brings a lifetime of experience and education to guide PLHI within the governance of the PLHI BOD.

PLHI Board Member

**Piitaa’pokaa (Eagle Child) Joe Martin, MS, PhD**
Joe is a member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. Joe is the Tribal Education Director for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Auburn, WA. For the past 18 years, Joe has served as the administrator in charge of all education programs for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, is responsible for over 800 employees and all educational programming, to include the Muckleshoot Language Program, the Muckleshoot Culture Program, the Early Childhood Education Division, K-12 Tribal School Division, the Adult and Higher Education Division, the College and Career Education Opportunities Program and the Muckleshoot Language Program.

PLHI Board Member

**TARA HOUSKA JD**
Zhaabowekwe or ‘woman whose voice pierces the air with purpose’ Tara Houska JD
Tara is a citizen of Couchiching First Nation, a tribal attorney, land defender, environmental and Indigenous-rights advocate and founder of the Giniw Collective, an Indigenous-women-, two-spirit-led frontline resistance to defend the sacred and live in balance. Houska was active in resisting the Line 3 and Dakota Access oil pipelines and the Dakota Access pipeline and is heavily involved in the movement to defund fossil fuels. She is a TED speaker, and recipient of the 2021 American Climate Leadership Award and the 2019 Rachel’s Network Catalyst Award. Houska served as an advisor on Native American affairs to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and co-founded Not Your Mascots, a nonprofit committed to promoting positive, public sphere representation of Native Americans. in the public sphere. She has written for the women-led climate anthology All We Can Save, The New York Times, CNN, Vogue and Indian Country Today. Houska earned a B.A., B.S. and a juris doctorate Juris Doctorate from the University of Minnesota.

Piikani Lodge Leadership and Staff

The majority of Piikani Lodge’s leadership and staff come directly from the Blackfeet community. Those few who come from outside of the community have worked with Piikani Lodge since its founding days and receive ongoing guidance from leadership. Kim Paul, Co-Executive Director, founded Piikani Lodge to address the glaring health and economic disparities she witnessed first hand. She knew that the health of the people and the integrity of the land was inextricable. The staff share a passionate vision for regeneration of lands and people and offer expertise and experience in food and agriculture systems, community health, economic development, large landscape architecture and planning, and recreation and conservation.

**Kim Paul, MS, PhDc**
**Miisami Sapai yi Aki (Long Time Charging into Battle Woman)**
Kim is the Founder and Co-Executive Director of Piikani Lodge Health Institute, and carrier of the last repatriated Holy Siyeh Ksiskstakii Mopistaan (Holy Bundle). A long-standing member of the Amskapi Piikani Blackfeet Tribe and traditional societies, she was transferred the rights to the traditional Stand Up Warbonnet. She has dedicated her life to activism for equity, the reclamation of cultural identity, climate change adaptation, and “culture as medicine” within areas of community wellness, mental health promotion, suicide prevention, and substance misuse reduction. After dropping out of school in the ninth grade and re-entering academia twenty-eight years later (after singly raising her four children), her western degrees encompass undergraduate degrees in pre medicine and research psychology, Magna Cum Laude MS in environmental chemistry and biomedical science and Summa Cum Laude doctoral coursework in biochemistry, biomedical science and community and public health. She is the first female Piikani warrior to achieve these STEM degrees.

**Coy Harwood, Co-Executive Director**
Blackfeet/Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
Coy was awarded the prestigious Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship in 2022 and has since gone on to accomplish great things. The 35-year-old husband and father of a 2-year-old son and infant daughter is an enrolled member of both the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation and Blackfeet Nation. He grew up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, which helped shape his vision to right the wrongs of the past and pave the way for a healthier future for his children and the Blackfeet people. Coy has worded as a scholar, a phlebotomist, an EMT, a biomedical researcher, an intern for the American Indian Physicians Association, and a college lacrosse coach. He has also traveled to Thailand to study traditional plants, and ventured over to Nepal and New Zealand to learn about different cultural practices. Coy earned a Master of Science degree in health sciences, with an emphasis in international and cultural medicine. Currently, he is enrolled in a doctoral program through the MSU - Indigenous and Rural Health program.

Piikani Lodge Staff

PLHI’s multicultural team members (80% Blackfeet) are deeply rooted in the realities of the Piikani people and have backgrounds in conservation, research and economic development, workforce training, food systems and agriculture, landscape architecture, and other related fields.