Wyandotte Nation Chief Billy Friend is one of the Native American Leaders featured on the Journal Record’s Power List. You can scroll down, click, and read the terrific article on Chief Friend as well as any of the other great leaders featured on the list. Read the article on the Journal Record’s website!

Here is a link to the article:

https://journalrecord.com/2026/06/22/journal-record-power-list-native-american-leaders-2026/

Excerpt from the article:

‘Oklahoma’s story cannot be told without Native American voices at the center of it. The 39 tribal nations that call this state home have shaped its culture, its economy, its laws and its identity in ways that continue to grow in significance.

For the 2026 Power List: Native American Leaders, we set out to recognize some of the Oklahomans who are making that impact most visible — chiefs and governors leading sovereign nations, artists preserving culture, journalists amplifying Indigenous voices, politicians navigating the halls of Congress and executives building enterprises that reach across the country and around the world.

These are leaders in every sense of the word. We are honored to recognize them and grateful to them for keeping Oklahoma’s Native American culture alive and thriving.’

-Heather Warlick, editor, The Journal Record