AMERICAN INDIAN JOURNALIST, ACTIVIST DIES

Charles “Chuck” Trimble, a former leader of the National Congress of American Indians and founder of the American Indian Press Association, died Monday in Omaha. He was 84.

The Oglala Lakota journalist and activist died of natural causes, his daughter, Kaiti Fenz-Trimble, said on Facebook.

Trimble was born in Wanblee, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Reservation and attended the then-Holy Rosary Mission boarding school. He graduated from the University of South Dakota, served in the U.S. Army and later studied journalism at the University of Colorado.

Jack Marsh, a former Argus Leader editor and Freedom Forum executive, said Trimble was admired by Native and non-Native journalists alike. “He was an honorable, fine and decent man who did much to promote reconciliation and advance a greater understanding of Native people and Native issues,” Marsh wrote on Facebook.