WWU to Host Timothy Ballew II to Speak at the Inaugural Salish Sea Speakers Series Jan. 14

Western Washington University will host Lummi Nation Chairman Timothy Ballew II to speak at the Salish Sea Speakers series from 4-5 p.m.  on Thursday, Jan. 14 in Communications Facility 120 on campus.

​Ballew will also speak from noon-2 p.m., the same day, at Northwest Indian College’s Cultural Art Center (Log building).

Both events are free and open to the public. Free parking is available.

Ballew will discuss the pressing ecological and social issues facing the Salish Sea and how the Lummi Nation has been working towards building strong and resilient communities. He is a regional and national leader in defending Treaty rights – and has been a powerful voice in protecting one of Lummi’s Sacred Sites, Xwe’chi’eXen (Cherry Point).  Ballew will also discuss his role as a leader of the Lummi Nation, as well as his efforts at a national scale working with other tribal leaders. 

Ballew is an enrolled member of the Lummi Nation and has resided in or near the Lummi Indian Reservation his whole life. He is married to his wife, Leanne, and they have two sons, Hunter (9 years old) and Tandy (6 years old). He has practiced his treaty fishing rights since he was a child and intends to pass on that tradition to his children.

Ballew graduated from Western Washington University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. In addition to exercising Lummi’s Treaty Rights as a commercial fisherman, he has also held a number of employment positions within the Lummi Indian Business Council and has served on the Ferndale School Board, Lummi Commercial Company Board of Directors, and the Lummi Nation Housing Authority Commission. Ballew was elected to serve on the Lummi Indian Business Council in November 2011, and his peers elected him as Tribal Chairman of the Lummi Indian Business Council in 2012.

For more information contact Steve Hollenhorst, dean of Western’s Huxley College of the Environment, at Steve.hollenhorst@wwu.edu or (360) 650-3521.