Willie Grayeyes and Kenneth Maryboy have made an historic step from the past. Now the new American Indian majority on the San Juan County Commission have to make the future work.
Votes are still being counted, but it appears Grayeyes will join Maryboy and Bruce Adams on the commission. Grayeyes and Maryboy are Navajo, and it will be the first time since statehood any Utah county has been controlled by a non-white majority.
American Indians make up a little more than half the county’s population, but it took a federal court to force the county to draw its electoral districts in a way that didn’t favor the mostly white residents at the north end.