#TYCAMW23

FRIDAY KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Melanie Hoffert is the author of the award-winning book Prairie Silence.

She is currently working on a book called Water Land "about life transition and, well, no surprise with the title, water. About that transition… meet my wife, Emily Turner, CEO & Founder of All Square. We met when her mom gave her my book, Prairie Silence, as a gift for Emily’s 30th birthday. That gift, in turn, delivered my greatest life gift (Emily) along with the wildest, most beautiful, most tumultuous tale, derived from sharing life with a baby of the family (I’m the firstborn) entrepreneur, dreamer, never-stop-until-wrongs-are-righted-attorney. We met as I was nearly 40—and everything in my life changed, for the better. "

Read more about Melanie by clicking here.

Emily Hunt Turner is a civil rights attorney with a background in architecture, law, and public policy.  Prior to All Square, Emily spent five years as a federal attorney for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) working on housing segregation and barriers to housing for justice-impacted citizens. In 2021, Emily was named "40 Under 40" by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal and selected as a 2018 Minnesota Wavemaker in Community Impact.

Having grown up in rural North Dakota, Emily is thankful for having spent the formative years of her adult life in New York, Atlanta, and New Orleans—where she learned from and practiced under some of the world's most formidable racial and social justice operatives. She is also forever thankful to have found her wife, Melanie Hoffert, also a native North Dakotan.

SATURDAY KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Prairie Rose Seminole, Sahnish/Arikara, Northern Cheyenne, is currently engaged as the Indigenous Fellowship recipient with the National Parks Conservation Association. Along with this fellowship through 2024, she is involved with building Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion curriculum with Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, and Minnesota State University Moorhead. 

Seminole resides in, and has been involved in the ND political landscape over 20 years and has served in appointed public office - dedicated to building inclusive movement, shifting the balance of power to create real positive change for Indigenous people and communities. 

Seminole most recently served as the American Indian Alaska Native Program Director for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving 

American Indian, Alaska Native communities. Seminole continues to serve within the Church and around the United States as an educator, and advocate, deconstructing colonial systems of oppression, and establishing restorative practices building community. 

Seminole has served on the Fargo Human Relations Commission in Fargo, the Midwest Advisory Council to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and currently sits on the advisory council to the Olamina Fund and the boards for Humanities North Dakota, the Northern Plains Sustainable Agricultural Society, and the ELCA Social Statement Task Force on Government and Civic Engagement.