Cato W. Valandra, Director (1977-1987)

Cato Valandra, Rosebud Sioux, was born in 1921 on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. He attended the He Dog Day School at Parmelee and graduated from St. Francis Mission High School, St. Francis, South Dakota. He served as a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army in the South Pacific during World War II. After the war, he began the first of a number of businesses on the reservation. In 1954 he became the treasurer of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. From 1962 to 1969, he was the president of his tribe and led it into programs of housing and industrial development. He assisted in the organization of the United Sioux Tribes in the struggle against state jurisdiction on Indian reservations.

Mr. Valandra served as vice-president of the United States Commission on Indian Opportunity, a member of the advisory board of Arrow Foundation, and the National Advisory Board of the Small Business Administration. He served as director of the Institute of Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota from 1977 until his death, 1986.

[Reprinted from Who's Who Among the Sioux (1988)]

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21 June 1997