{"id":15794,"date":"2025-11-06T15:12:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T22:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-honors-ute-chairman-manuel-heart-on-senate-floor\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:50:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:50:35","slug":"hickenlooper-honors-ute-chairman-manuel-heart-on-senate-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hickenlooper-honors-ute-chairman-manuel-heart-on-senate-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Hickenlooper honors Ute Chairman Manuel Heart on Senate floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper delivers a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor, honoring Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart. (Screenshot from C-SPAN recording)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper took to the Senate floor Tuesday to deliver a speech honoring the legacy of Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cChairman Heart is retiring after a long and remarkably successful career serving the Ute Mountain Ute people,\u201d Hickenlooper said during his four-minute remarks.<\/p>\n

Heart steps down after nearly three decades on the Tribal Council, leaving his seat to newly elected Chairman Selwyn Whiteskunk.<\/a><\/p>\n

The retiring chairman attributed his decision to<\/a> a desire for rest and to spend more time with family \u2013 including 19 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren \u2013 while leaving room for a new generation of tribal leaders who will be sworn in Friday. Much work remains ahead for the tribe of more than 2,000 members, Heart told The Journal<\/em> after the tribe\u2019s Oct. 10 election.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper said Heart\u2019s 27 years on Tribal Council and 15 years as chairman \u201cwill undoubtedly leave thousands of lives better off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe struck that delicate balance between preserving and investing in Ute culture, and securing more resources by navigating intergovernmental relationships to make sure to deliver to the needs of his community,\u201d Hickenlooper said.<\/p>\n

The senator noted among Heart\u2019s successes expanding Ute Mountain Utes access to water<\/a> and \u201cimproving the tribe\u2019s health, safety and education.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an example, Hickenlooper referred to Heart\u2019s spearheading of federal funds used for the building of the tribe\u2019s Kwiyagat Community Academy, which opened in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my years in service in Colorado \u2013 as a mayor first, but then as a governor \u2013 I can think of very few leaders that have been as successful and insightful and as diligent as Chairman Heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that his deep commitment and his love for the Ute people, for the Ute community, is not gonna end now as he steps down as chairman. He will continue to be a leader in his community and in the state of Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heart\u2019s time as chairman \u2018will undoubtedly leave thousands of lives better off\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,1651,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-sen-john-hickenlooper","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19846,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15794\/revisions\/19846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15794"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}