{"id":22862,"date":"2025-04-04T16:11:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T22:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/native-parent-advisory-committee-to-present-pete-sands-navajo-highways\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:18:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:18:56","slug":"native-parent-advisory-committee-to-present-pete-sands-navajo-highways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/native-parent-advisory-committee-to-present-pete-sands-navajo-highways\/","title":{"rendered":"Native Parent Advisory Committee to present Pete Sands\u2019 Navajo Highways"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Navajo
Navajo Highways, created by Pete Sands, will be presented by the Native Parent Advisory Committee at Montezuma-Cortez High School on Saturday. (Navajo Highways\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Navajo Highways<\/em> puppet show will reappear at Montezuma-Cortez High School on Saturday, April 5, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., led by Time Magazine\u2019s 2021 Guardian of the Year Pete Sands.<\/p>\n

Sands created the show to educate attendees about the Navajo language. The idea came after Sands heard of a first-grade teacher who maintained her students\u2019 attention using a hand puppet. In 2019, Sands visited the Sesame Street Headquarters in Manhattan to learn the art from the puppeteers.<\/p>\n

Sands, a singer and actor, was named Time Magazine\u2019s Guardian of the Year in 2021 for his work in the Navajo Nation during COVID-19. His article, \u201cHow the Coronavirus Crisis is Affecting Utah\u2019s Navajo Nation,\u201d was featured in Time Magazine.<\/p>\n

Navajo Highway<\/em>s is set to become a TV show, with sneak peeks during the performance at MCHS. \u201cIt\u2019ll be a mix of live skits and film skits, and a couple sneak peeks into the first season of Navajo Highway the TV show,\u201d Sands told The Journal <\/em>on Wednesday. \u201cSo people will have the chance to see how incredible the TV show looks, sounds, and feels.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event is free, but donations to the Native Parent Advisory Committee are welcome. MCSD Director of Native American Services Olivia Lansing shared that all proceeds will go toward the Native Parent Advisory Committee Scholarship, which helps send Indigenous students from MCHS to college.<\/p>\n

Before his 2023 performance, Sands shared that his favorite part of the show is seeing the children\u2019s eyes light up as they watch the puppets. Through the puppets and their story, children learn without realizing they\u2019re learning, something Sands referred to as \u201cmagic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s revitalizing culture and language,\u201d Sands said. \u201cSometimes it takes getting outside the box. Educating people doesn\u2019t have to be boring.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

was created to educate and promote the Navajo language<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,21,155,28,1097,60,216,1655,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-cortez","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-indigenous-people","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-navajo-nation","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22862","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=22862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77882,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22862\/revisions\/77882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22862"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}