FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — February 24, 2021, at 4:00 P.M. MST
KANAB, UT, February 23, 2021 — Grand Staircase Escalante Partners is thrilled to announce Davina Smith has joined its Board of Directors. “Davina brings such a wealth of experience protecting cultural and natural resources throughout the West,” said Sarah Bauman, Executive Director of Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. “We are incredibly grateful for her insights, her dedication to protecting Grand Staircase and Bears Ears, and her commitment to promoting healing for people from all walks of life and our planet.”
Davina Smith is the former Executive Director for SLC Air Protectors, Director of Operations for Utah Diné Bikéyah (UDB), American Indian Education Coordinator for Salt Lake School District, Fourth Street Clinic, and Program Director for the American Indian Teacher Training Program (AITTP) at the University of Utah and Arizona State University. She is currently the Vice President of IndigiCANN (Indigenous Connecting All Nations Network) and CEO of Haseya Native Initiatives LLC.
“I’m originally from Monument Valley, Utah, and I’m a member of the Diné (Navajo) tribe,” said Davina Smith. “My clans are Táchii’nii (Red Running into the Water) clan, born for the Tábąąhá (Edgewater) clan. I’ve lived most of my professional life away from the Navajo Nation, currently residing in Salt Lake City. My personal mission is to preserve and protect the cultural and natural resources of ancestral Native American lands to benefit and bring healing to people and the Earth.”
Davina Smith joins the board for Grand Staircase Escalante Partners at a critical time for the Monument. Her personal mission will guide the organization’s work to secure lasting and meaningful protections for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. “My grandmother, Katherine Smith, was seen as an activist, cultural educator, land defender, and resistor who protected Navajo land and refused to leave Big Mountain (Black Mesa),” said Davina Smith. “She was someone who loved her land and would do anything to protect it, along with protecting Mother Earth. These following words my grandmother have always resonated with me, ‘I was born in Big Mountain. That’s my mother. So, all of my life, I will always be thinking of this place. My spirit will be here forever.’ My ancestors, elders, and grandmother’s resiliency to protect Mother Earth runs in my veins.”
Grand Staircase Escalante Partners is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2004 to protect and preserve Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Contact: Sarah Bauman, Executive Director • sarah@gsenm.org
