Throughout March, WOOD TV8 (www.woodtv.com) will share stories of women making an impact across West Michigan. While Dozens of women were nominated, NHBP’s Vice Chairperson, Dorie Rios, was selected as one of WOOD TV8’s four finalists.

Remarkable Women of West Michigan honors women making a difference in their community. It honors their self-achievement, their creativity and their spirits.

Each Tuesday during March, WOOD TV8 and eightWest will share one of the four finalists for the Remarkable Women of West Michigan 2024 contest, culminating with announcing the 2024 Remarkable Women winner. The winner will then travel to Los Angeles in April to join winners from all Nexstar Media stations to find out who earned the Remarkable Woman 2024 national title. 

As the current Vice Chairperson of the NHBP Tribal Council, Dorie challenges, educates, empowers others and builds a better future for those not just within her Tribe and others in Indian Country, but for everyone she meets and even those she may never meet.  

For a decade, Dorie worked steadfastly as our Housing Department Director until 2010, when she was elected to the NHBP Tribal Council.

As the current Vice Chairperson, she chairs several committees within the Tribe, one of which is fittingly, the Housing Committee. 

Within that role, Dorie has overseen remarkable growth for Housing our Tribal Members, including the most recent opening of the Widokwtadwen Development, designed for low-income families on Tribal-owned land. Today, Native people experience the second highest rate of homelessness in the U.S., at 10%. A lack of affordable housing is tied to higher rates of homelessness in general and on Tribal lands. Still, Dorie’s work ensures NHBP Tribal Members are not part of these alarming statistics.

As Vice Chair of the Native American Heritage Fund (NAHF) Board since 2016, Dorie has voted for and helped oversee the programs supported by this fund. Each year, a state revenue-sharing payment of $500,000 goes into this fund to promote relationships with Michigan school districts, universities and municipalities.

Dorie challenges communities to effectively remove hateful language and imagery from their schools, buildings and street signs, while also providing resources through NAHF to improve curricula and educational resources related to Michigan Indian history, empowering educational systems to teach history accurately.

Building upon her love for cooking and feeding her family, Dorie advocates for Native Food Sovereignty, a practice in which Indigenous People re-learn our traditional ways of catching, foraging, hunting, growing and preparing their own food. Dorie’s leadership has precipitated much of our Tribe’s current knowledge of our Cultural and traditional practices around food, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds each day.

Even during an informal conversation with Dorie, you know her passion lies with empowering the Tribal youth. Her desire to see our Tribal youth succeed in their dreams of earning degrees, achieving meaningful and high-paying careers and living their lives in a good way is impressed upon you every time we speak.

Her dedication, humility and service to her Tribe as well as all people, not just for today but for future generations, are what make Dorie Rios a Remarkable Woman.

Check out WOOD-TV8’s website each week to learn more about the finalists.