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Portrait of Dr. Herman ‘Mogri’ Lookout unveiled at the Beach Museum of Art

The 2018 photo is by Osage artist Ryan RedCorn and is titled “Uncle Mog.” RedCorn took the portrait of Lookout in the former Wakon Iron Hall at a dinner for the remaining Osage full bloods of the tribe.

A 10-foot-tall image of Dr. Herman “Mogri” Lookout was recently unveiled at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, located on the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, Kans.

According to an Instagram post, the 2018 photo is by Osage artist Ryan RedCorn and is titled “Uncle Mog.” RedCorn took the portrait of Lookout in the former Wakon Iron Hall at a dinner for the remaining Osage full bloods of the tribe. The image, a dye-sublimation print on polyester fabric, belongs to the collection of Dr. Alex RedCorn, Ryan’s younger brother and professor at KSU.

“In 2021, The Kansas Board of Regents approved the awarding of an honorary doctorate degree to Lookout. Kansas State University’s then-President Richard Myers spoke about Lookout’s contributions including creation of an alphabet for the Osage language,” according to the post.

Lookout is the first person in KSU history to receive an honorary doctorate from the College of Education. He is also the first Osage to deliver a commencement address at a KSU commencement ceremony, and he gave it entirely in the Osage language. 

Lookout is one of six remaining full blood Osages and is the grandson of Chief Fred Lookout. He is credited with leading the team that developed the Osage orthography, as well as the team that reached out to Google to make the orthography into Unicode. Their efforts made it possible for Osages everywhere to write the orthography on any digital platform.

Lookout has been teaching with the Osage Language Department since its founding in 2003. During his time at the department, Osage language classes have been taught in up to seven sites across the reservation, in four high schools and on Zoom for Osages living coast to coast. In 2012, Lookout was selected as an honoree for the AARP Oklahoma Indian Elder Honors and in 2015, the Fourth Osage Nation Congress commended Lookout for his leadership of the Osage language department and the revitalization of the language. 

Lookout, 82, continues his work with the Osage Language Department as its master language teacher.

For more information on the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, visit https://beach.k-state.edu/

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Shannon Shaw Duty
Shannon Shaw Dutyhttps://osagenews.org

Title: Editor
Email: sshaw20@gmail.com
Twitter: @dutyshaw
Topic Expertise: Columnist, Culture, Community
Languages spoken: English, Osage (intermediate), Spanish (beginner)

Shannon Shaw Duty, Osage from the Grayhorse District, is the editor of the award-winning Osage News, the official independent media of the Osage Nation. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Legal Studies with an emphasis in Indigenous Peoples Law. She currently sits on the Freedom of Information Committee for the Society of Professional Journalists. She has served as a board member for LION Publishers, as Vice President for the Pawhuska Public Schools Board of Education, on the Board of Directors for the Native American Journalists Association (now Indigenous Journalists Association) and served as a board member and Chairwoman for the Pawhuska Johnson O’Malley Parent Committee. She is a Chips Quinn Scholar, a former instructor for the Freedom Forum’s Native American Journalism Career Conference and the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. She is a former reporter for The Santa Fe New Mexican. She is a 2012 recipient of the Native American 40 Under 40 from the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. In 2014 she helped lead the Osage News to receive NAJA's Elias Boudinot Free Press Award. The Osage News won Best Newspaper from the SPJ-Oklahoma Chapter in their division 2018-2022. Her award-winning work has been published in Indian Country Today, The Washington Post, the Center for Public Integrity, NPR, the Associated Press, Tulsa World and others. She currently resides in Pawhuska, Okla., with her husband and together they share six children, two dogs and two cats.

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