Navajo crowd thrilled with Barack Obama winObama campaign volunteer Yvonne Mata uses her cell phone to photograph the CNN election results during a Democratic Party celebration Tuesday , October 4 at the El Rancho Hotel. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Across the country, cheers erupted when Barack Obama was announced the next president of the United States Tuesday night, including at the Nakai Hall in Window Rock where more than 130 people gathered for a support watch party.

The audience kept track of the race on CNN’s Web site with Kyle Curley of Diné for Obama updating the crowd on the number of electoral votes through a public address system.

Supporters cheered and shared a meal of hamburgers and chips as they awaited the results.

Debbie Luther was wearing her Obama T-shirt and buttons as she listened to the results.

“I know he’s going to win,” she said half an hour before Obama was announced as the next president of the United States.

Luther got to the polls in Fort Defiance at 6:15 a.m. and there was already a line. She had to wait about 20 minutes to vote, but nothing seemed to dampen her spirits Tuesday evening.

“I’m so excited,” she exclaimed.

Luther said she thought that one day she would be able to vote to put a minority in the White House.

“I thought someday someone will be brave enough to do that,” she said.

Raymond King, who was also at the Obama support party, said he knew that one day a minority would be president.
“I’m glad to see it. It’s about time,” King said. “We’re not sitting in the back seat. Maybe things will start changing for us.”

His biggest concerns right now are with the economy and the war in Iraq .

King said he wished his father — the man who took him to Salt Lake City to see John F. Kennedy Jr. when he was running for president — was there to see the historic moment.

King was one of the first people to get to the Division of Diné Education center to vote for U.S. President Tuesday morning.

King said he also made sure that his own kids got to the polls, saying to them, “This is where you voice your opinion.”

One young man who has been voicing his opinion as one of the organizers of Diné for Obama is 21-year-old Curley.
This was the first presidential election that Curley voted in, and he said it gives him hope that Obama was elected.

“I was disappointed with the last two election results,” he said.

Patrick Sandoval, chief of staff for the Navajo Nation Office of the President, said he was very satisfied with the results Tuesday.

“I think that it’s the first time in a long time that the Navajo Nation is going to have the opportunity to have the president of the United States committed to us. He’s committed to all Indian nations but he’s personally committed to Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. that he will be there and the appointment of a Native American to the White House will be ultimately important,” Sandoval said.