By Paolo Zialcita | Published by Colorado Public Radio | October 13, 2025 

Rick Williams doesn’t just want your land acknowledgment. 

You’ve probably heard them at meetings or graduations. The idea is to take a few short minutes to acknowledge the land where you’re sitting was once home to Native tribes before white settlers came and built cities on top of it.  Listen to the audio story and read the full article here. 

Side Bar Courthouse News• August 19, 2025 

Forrest Fenn hid a treasure chest full of gold and diamonds somewhere out in the Rocky Mountains because he wanted kids to go outside and smell the sunshine, inspiring hosts of naturalists to hide their own treasures and, more importantly, enjoy the treasures that are U.S. public lands. 

But these treasured lands and parks have suffered abuse, neglect and the constant threat of being sold off by zealous policymakers looking to open up millions of acres of protected space for development or resource mining, an act some experts akin to political suicide. 

Join us for the ninth episode of Sidebar this season as we poke around vast swaths of beaches, mountains, canyons and river beds in pursuit of what treasures these U.S. public lands hold. 

By Anna Alejo, CBS News Colorado • November 22, 2021 

A group of American Indian leaders in Colorado began to organize three years ago to study the history of Native Americans in our state. Their work is called the Truth, Restoration and Education Commission.

Rick Williams, who is Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne, is President of People of the Sacred Land, the nonprofit that led the effort. Read the full article and view the evening news segment here. 

Photo Credit: CBS Colorado 

By Taylar Dawn Stanger, Indigenous Affairs Fellow • July 8, 2024 • Grist 

Skiing, hiking, and other outdoor recreational pastimes have lent Colorado a woodsy — and environmentally friendly — reputation. This image is at odds with the state’s first and biggest industry: mineral extraction. From 1858 to 2022, mineral extraction in Colorado has amounted to a $546 billion dollar industry. The state remains one of the leaders in coal and gold, but the state is also home to oil, natural gas, limestone, and helium mining. Read the full article here. 

By Bente Birkeland • Jun. 14, 2024, 7:00 am • Colorado Public Radio

A report released today aims to quantify the historic loss of life,land and precious resources for 10 Native nations historically in Colorado, and asks the state to help “mend all that has been broken between Colorado’s original inhabitants and the settler community.”  Read the full article here

Amanda Horvath, Julio Sandoval •  July 2023 • Rocky Mountain PBS

SEDALIA, Colo. — Phillip Gover, who is from the Pawnee and Choctaw Indian tribes, looked across a hillside along the front range in what is now Douglas County, Colorado with a smile on his face. It was the start of the three-day Outdoor Native Youth Wilderness Camp at Tall Bull Memorial Park. Read the Full Article.

Clarissa Guy •  March 17, 2022 • Rocky Mountain PBS

CLEAR CREEK COUNTY, Colo. — In Denver, visitors and residents alike can orient themselves by looking towards the Rocky Mountains sprawling to the west. Read the Full Article.

Elle Sullum •  Feb. 1, 2022 • 303 Magazine

A few years ago, Rick Williams, a member of the Ogalala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne tribes, went to study the history of his great-great-grandfather. What he uncovered was larger than he could have imagined. Read the full article here.