Chickasaw, Choctaw highlight economic development

[The Straight Story]

TULSA, Okla. - Two of the leaders of Oklahoma’s "five civilized tribes" took advantage of a federal American Indian housing summit to highlight their peoples’ great strides forward in economic development.

Chickasaw Gov. Bill Anoatubby and Choctaw Chief Gregory E. Pyle both made recitals of what their tribes have been able to establish from humble beginnings to where the two nations now employ more than 10,000 between them.

Chief Pyle noted that while the focus of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Southern Plains regional housing summit was to leverage outside financial resources, he said that a lot of the Choctaws’ financial success has come from observing what other Indian tribes have done.

Pyle said that his tribe has gone all over the country - to Arizona, Florida and Las Vegas - to observe successful Indian economic development ventures, and hasn’t been afraid to try to replicate the ones it saw as viable. And while not all have been successful, he said his tribe might start four businesses to find one or two that work.

The tribe, based in Durant, Okla., employs 5,700 people currently, with an annual payroll of $85 million. Chief since 1997, Pyle noted that housing has played a key role in the tribe’s development.

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