Sovereignty

by an Osage citizen

The school, the farm and the Visitors Center were named as accomplishments in December 2025. Eight months later, the Nation announced all three would close.

The budget sequence, outlay history and emergency orders are documented on the record. This page follows what the three affected programs did and what their closure removed or changed.

The 2026-2030 Strategic Plan Update

In December 2025 the Osage Nation published a Strategic Plan Update covering 2026 to 2030, prepared by the Office of Self Governance and Strategic Planning and signed by Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, who wrote that “This plan embodies the will of the Osage people.”

The document restates a 25-Year Vision under the heading “THIS IS THE WILL OF THE OSAGE PEOPLE.” It opens “We will be a strong, proud, resilient, and enduring sovereign nation as demonstrated by”, followed by six statements. The plan sets those priorities on a twenty-five-year horizon, beyond any one administration.

Three of the six bear directly on the programs closed eight months later. One names “A flourishing Osage culture”, “a revitalized Osage language spoken at a basic level by a vast majority of Osage Nation members”, and “a unique and vibrant Osage history taught to Osage children and fostered, promoted and memorialized throughout our homelands”. One names “Highly educated Osage Nation members supported and promoted by the Nation at the pre-school level continuing through the post-secondary level and beyond”. One names “A self-determining civically engaged society” with “ethically responsible government leaders who faithfully serve our Constitution and are accountable for their actions to Osage Nation members”.

The same document lists all three programs among the accomplishments of the preceding five years. Eight months after publication, the August 5 release named all three and gave their closure dates.

𐓈𐓘̄𐓬𐓪́𐓮𐓤𐓘 𐒰͘𐓤𐓪́𐓱𐓘𐓬𐓣 (Daposka Ahnkodapi)

The school in the Nation’s plans.

The December 2025 Strategic Plan Update lists Daposka Ahnkodapi among the accomplishments of the preceding five years, recording that the “Osage Nation certified private school is now offering classes up to 8th grade.” The entry immediately before it records the completion of the Wahzhazhe Early Learning Academy in Pawhuska, for children from six weeks to four years old “to be immersed in the language and culture of the Osage.”

The same document’s 25-Year Vision names “a revitalized Osage language spoken at a basic level by a vast majority of Osage Nation members.” In the survey behind that plan, “Osage Language (spoken and written)” ranked first among the kinds of cultural education respondents said should be offered more often, at 851 responses, ahead of nine other options.

FY2026 appropriation.

ONCA 25-96 appropriated $2,597,099 to Daposka Ahnkodapi for FY2026. That was approximately 3.2 times the $805,201 appropriated to the Pawhuska Visitors Center. Harvest Land had no FY2026 tribal appropriation line.

The closure.

The August 5, 2026 release announced the closure. Classes were days from starting. On March 8, 2026, at a campaign dinner at the Grayhorse Village Community Building, then-Congressman Joe Tillman had told an audience of more than two hundred:

"The last piece of fake news that's going around is I'm going to close down all the schools, all the WELAs, all the Daposkas, and we're going to send everybody back to public schools. ... That's so far from the truth. We have invested millions and millions of dollars into Daposka and into WELAs. Why would you want to shut that down? We want to make it better and we want to move forward."

Tillman was elected Principal Chief after making that statement and took office on July 11. His administration announced the closure on August 5.

The August 10 hearing.

The Education Committee met in special session on August 10, 2026. No current student testified. Parents spoke for children who were not in the room, and one graduate of the school’s first class spoke for herself.

Pehan RedCorn, an alum of that first graduating class and a Pawhuska High School sophomore, addressed the committee in Osage. Osage News reported her words:

"If it weren't for this school, I wouldn't be standing here before you, speaking in our language. I understand what a privilege this is. From this school, I've been taught to be proud of who I am and where I come from. Proud to be Wahzhazh. ... Proud to be here today."

She closed: “Please give the kids the same gift I was given. ... Keep this school open.”

Debra Atterberry, a former Osage Congresswoman, Osage language teacher and past principal of the school, put a distinction to the committee:

"I don't have all the answers, but as we think about the future of Osage education, I believe there is a question worth asking: Do we want to protect and promote our language, or do we want to take the next step and give another generation the opportunity to speak it?"

Eddy Red Eagle Jr., an Osage elder and former Congressman, addressed the Constitution:

"The Osage governing Constitution, and I take partial blame because in my day I allowed it to happen. I didn't catch it, but it's inverted. The element of culture is not elevated high enough in our government. Every decision, every movement, every action exercised by this government should be washed through the element of our culture. Does this meet Osage? Is this Osage?"

Amy Shackelford, a parent at the school, gave the committee a count: “Since Friday, we have collected 1,268 signatures from the community saying that they want this school. ... We want this school. This isn’t just families who have students in there. This is people who understand that this endeavor is larger than the children in there.” She also said, “We want a real answer as to why our school is closed.”

Geneva HorseChief Hamilton, a parent, told the committee “There are children who are here, who can pray in Osage and talk in Osage.”

At the same hearing, Hamilton said she had met privately with Tillman after the closure. In the official hearing recording, she testified that Tillman told her the school had been done on a whim and was a project of former Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear. This is Hamilton’s account of an unrecorded conversation, not a recording of Tillman making the statement. She rejected the characterization and traced the school to more than twenty-five years of language and cultural revitalization.

The plan’s 25-year horizon and the history Hamilton described cover roughly the same span. The Strategic Plan was prepared by the Office of Self Governance and Strategic Planning, based on eighteen listening sessions and 1,275 completed surveys, and signed by Standing Bear. It named the school as a recent accomplishment and language revitalization as a 25-year goal eight months before Tillman’s administration closed the school.

The appropriation and closure authority.

The August 5 release and the Osage News report on the August 10 hearing do not explain how the school was selected for closure, what became of the $2,597,099 appropriated to it for FY2026, or on what authority an appropriated program was closed mid-year. Eli Potts, chair of the Education Committee, said the Executive Branch had been invited “via two emails”, with the Tillman administration’s chief of staff copied on both and the second directed to her. Osage News reported his account of the reply: “As Chair of the Education Committee, I’ve received no response, not even acknowledging the request. ... Zero communication.”

No accounting of the FY2026 appropriation appears in the August 5 press release, the August 7 Treasury release, the August 13 statement, or the August 14 emergency-lift release, all four of which are held in this record’s corpus.

Harvest Land

Harvest Land in the Nation’s plans.

The December 2025 Strategic Plan Update lists Harvest Land among the accomplishments of the preceding five years:

"development of the Osage Nation Harvest Land and Butcher House enhances food sovereignty by providing access to locally sourced, nutritious foods, promoting health, creating jobs, and stimulating the local economy. These initiatives support sustainable natural resource management and preserve traditional hunting and food preparation practices, strengthening the community's self-sufficiency and cultural identity."

The plan places Sovereignty among its top three strategic focus areas. Those focus areas were drawn from 1,275 completed surveys and eighteen listening sessions held between December 2024 and July 2025.

Funding.

Harvest Land has no line item in the FY2026 tribal appropriation act. The August 5 release says federal CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act grants funded the operation and that continuing it after those funds expired would require approximately $1 million a year in tribal funds.

In his August 24 interview, Tillman instead described Harvest Land as having a $1.2 million appropriation. He did not identify its fiscal year or funding source. The interview does not reconcile that figure with the absence of a Harvest Land line in ONCA 25-96.

Food, programs and public benefits.

Harvest Land’s services page names the Elders Nutrition Program, Wah-Zha-Zhe Early Learning Academy, Daposka Ahnkodapi, In-Lon-Schka and feasts among the recipients of its harvests. The operation also ran farmers’ markets, an online store accepting EBT, youth work, agricultural education, cultural gardener classes and the Osage Nation Food Assistance Program. The youth programming ran year-round: the Financial Services Summer Youth Program, National Youth Works Volunteers, church summer camps, and Native American Agriculture Student Groups, plus Cultural Gardener Classes four times a year through a partnership with Tri-County Technology Center. The Food Assistance Program launches on June 1, 2026, offering up to $250 annually per eligible citizen through Harvest Land and Butcher House Meats.

Tillman called $65,000 the farm’s annual return. That figure is cash received, not a measure of the operation’s total output. It excludes food distributed directly to elders, early learning centers, Daposka, cultural events and participants in the Go Healthy study. It also excludes youth work, agricultural education and the Food Assistance Program. The comparison therefore cannot show the farm’s value or the savings from closing it. It also cannot establish a $1.135 million saving against Tillman’s $1.2 million figure: the interview did not identify that figure’s fiscal year or funding source, and the administration plans to retain the property, equipment and a smaller operation.

Operations after December 31.

The August 5 release scheduled Harvest Land to close on December 31, 2026. In the August 24 interview, Tillman said the property and equipment would remain with Natural Resources, the operation would continue on a smaller scale, production and growing would expand, and another use for the facility was under consideration.

The relevant savings figure is therefore the difference between the former and replacement operations, including retained staff, utilities, maintenance, production, grant obligations and any new program. The interview supplies no such calculation.

The same sources do not say how the Food Assistance Program will deliver its benefit after December 31. The program launched through Harvest Land and Butcher House Meats on June 1, 2026, but the August 5 release, the August 24 interview and Harvest Land’s services page do not identify a replacement enrollment or delivery mechanism after the closure date.

On September 8, 2026, Acting Comptroller James Steed told the Appropriations Committee that the program would keep running through the same channel into the next fiscal year: “Next year, with the addition of the food assistance program, which will run through the butcher house, that will help support that three-month gap to get them back up to $1.6 million.” He projected Butcher House Meats would bring in $1.6 million over nine months in FY2027. Neither figure was reconciled in that meeting against Harvest Land’s own December 31 closure or its retained smaller-scale operation.

The federal research award.

Harvest Land was a research partner and food-access site for the NIH-funded Go Healthy clinical trial. The trial record lists the intervention as completed July 26, 2024, more than two years before the announced closure.

HHS TAGGS award R01MD016191 to Oklahoma State University remains within its period of performance through April 30, 2027. The reviewed ClinicalTrials.gov and HHS TAGGS records include neither the agreement nor the current work plan between the university and the Osage Nation. Any duties remaining for Harvest Land through that date therefore cannot be determined from those two reviewed records.

The $1 million-a-year figure above describes tribal funds; the exposure Red Corn named below is federal grant dollars. Neither the August 5 release, the reviewed ClinicalTrials.gov and HHS TAGGS records, nor the Osage News account of the August 10 meeting states whether meeting any remaining federal grant obligations would cost anything beyond that tribal-funds figure.

At an August 10 Congressional Government Operations Committee meeting, Second Speaker Whitney Red Corn raised the risk directly: “We now have federal funding connections to these two entities (including the school), Harvest Land specifically... there was zero consideration given to the other federal dollars that are tied to this entity... I do not believe we should ever be in the business of having to pay back money for federal grants because we couldn’t see a project through or didn’t complete it or didn’t hold up our end of the deal.” Assistant Principal Chief John Shaw, the only Executive Branch official present, said he would take the question back to executive staff. Osage News reported no Executive Branch response was given at the meeting.

The unresolved period has a specific shape: Harvest Land’s closure (December 31, 2026) and the award’s period of performance (through April 30, 2027) leave a four-month span, January through April 2027, in which the award remains active without the site it was built around.

The replacement operation and its net cost.

The August 5 release, the August 24 interview, the Harvest Land services page, and the federal award and trial records do not show why Harvest Land was selected, what the replacement operation will cost, or what net savings the restructuring will produce.

The Pawhuska Visitors Center

The Pawhuska facility.

ONCA 25-96 funds two visitor centers: $107,197 for Fairfax and $805,201 for Pawhuska. The August 5 release calls the closing facility only “the Osage Nation Visitors Center,” but identifies it as the one operating since 2018.

The Nation’s 2018 opening announcement is datelined Pawhuska and gives the address as 602 East Main Street. The facility that closed was the Pawhuska Visitors Center.

The Fairfax building is separate and later. Osage News reported in February 2026 that construction was complete but the building would remain empty until it had security and internet access.

A recent public investment.

The December 2025 Strategic Plan Update lists it among the accomplishments of the preceding five years, naming the “expanded Osage Nation Visitors Center in Pawhuska and the completion of a Visitors Center in Fairfax” together in one entry.

That expansion was itself a recent public investment. Osage News reported in May 2023 that congressional appropriations for the Pawhuska renovation and expansion totaled more than $1 million, including supplemental ARPA funding. The report described expanded visitor space, an Osage-artist boutique and the Center’s role directing visitors to Osage-owned businesses. The expanded facility reopened in April 2024 and closed in August 2026.

FY2026 appropriation.

ONCA 25-96 appropriated $805,201 for FY2026. At the August 10 Government Operations Committee meeting, Congresswoman Maria Whitehorn said “there was funding to keep the Visitors Center operational through Sept. 30.”

The closure.

The August 5 release set the closure for August 8. It closed on that date, with seven employees.

Program Coordinator Rachel White gave the committee the sequence: “This happened really abruptly and very cold. ... Last Tuesday around 3:30 p.m. is when we got invited to a meeting with the Chief’s office. We were told we were closing down the next morning at like 9:30.” She said Principal Chief Joe Tillman “was there for maybe 60 seconds”, and that the Chief of Staff “just told us it’s about the numbers and that we don’t make enough money. We had just been told to rework the schedule to reopen on Saturdays.”

The August 10 hearing.

The Government Operations Committee took up the closure on August 10, 2026. This is a different committee and a different subject from the Education Committee hearing on the school held the same day.

Congresswoman Whitney Red Corn put a figure to the reach of the closure beyond the payroll. The Osage News report identifies “approximately 15 Osage artists and business owners” as affected:

"That is not just a seven employee situation. ... This is a multi-Osage faceted conversation. This was a web of people who leaned into that for revenue. A lot of those folks, that's literally their livelihood."

Assistant Principal Chief John Shaw was the only member of the Executive Branch who attended. Asked whether employees could be moved to other positions, he said those discussions had happened “just this morning”.

The figures Tillman used.

In his August 24 interview, Tillman identified the facility as the Pawhuska Visitors Center and described “their appropriation of $825,000” against $30,000 returned “in coffee sales and whatever.” ONCA 25-96 appropriated $805,201 to the Pawhuska facility for FY2026. The interview does not identify the source of the $825,000 figure. The difference is $19,799. Was Tillman referring to another fiscal year, a rounded request, or costs outside the enacted line? Neither the interview nor ONCA 25-96 answers that question.

ONCA 24-73, the FY2025 Executive Branch appropriation act, recorded $32,572 as “Department/Entity/Program Revenue” for the Visitors Center without identifying its composition. The interview does not say whether the $30,000 came from that line or from a separate ledger, and whether the amount represented coffee revenue alone.

$30,000 against $825,000 is a 3.6 percent revenue-to-appropriation ratio. The Nation’s 2018 announcement states a broader mission: “to promote Osage culture, Osage Nation programs and services, Osage artists and Osage owned businesses.” The ratio is not a calculation of net cost, investment return or performance against that mission. The opening announcement said visitors could buy gifts and art by Osage artists, and the expansion reporting described the artist boutique and business referrals. Coffee sales alone do not state the Center’s full sales activity, much less the operation’s full output.

The interview provides no artist sales, consignment payments, business referrals, visitor counts or net closure-savings calculation.

The appropriation, selection and Fairfax.

The August 5 release and the Osage News report on the August 10 committee meeting do not explain how the Visitors Center was selected for closure, what became of the $805,201 appropriated to it for FY2026, or why a facility Congress had funded through September 30 closed on August 8. Osage News reported that “The Chief’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.”

Those sources and the February report on Fairfax also leave the two-center question open: whether Fairfax is operating now, and whether it will carry any of the cultural, artist, business-referral or visitor services that ended at Pawhuska.

That question is still open. At a September 8, 2026 Appropriations Committee meeting, a committee member walking through the Property Improvement Fund named “our visitor center” among the Nation’s currently vacant properties:

"We know we have property that needs to be improved. We also have a lot of abandoned buildings at this time. This building will be one of them, on the top floors. Our visitor center, uh, Lost Creek, the PRT, and barnes doll, these are just some that I can bring up right now. The superintendent's house."

Unidentified committee member, Appropriations Committee, Sept. 8, 2026

The speaker does not say which visitor center, and this record does not identify them by name from the recording alone. (“Barnes doll” is quoted as transcribed; almost certainly Barnsdall, a town in Osage County, but this record does not correct a direct quotation.)

The budget sequence and the legal questions involving already appropriated programs are documented on the record. A separate reading of what the sequence may mean is identified as opinion rather than record. Whether the closures documented on this page were lawful is now one of three allegations before a special counsel retained to investigate whether they are grounds for removal.

This page is part of a record compiled by an Osage citizen, independent of the Osage Nation government. Every figure, date and quotation on it can be checked against the document it came from.