Power Pandonians

As PANDOS continues to do our work and we collaborate with the community, we get the opportunity to meet and work with amazing people. We refer to those that go above and beyond the call of service as 'Power Pandonians' and we want to use this space to recognize them:

Warren Davis
Warren Davis was born in Northern Utah, and has resided in Cache Valley for his entire life. He’s is Navajo from his Mother’s side, and raised with a very strong indigenous identity. With a passion for empowering indigenous youth through culture, Warren has served his community by establishing a Native American Student Council at one of his local high schools, and has worked closely with Northern Utah Native Connections in providing cultural performances and education to local schools.

Carol Surveyor
Carol moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico where she was engaged heavily in her community. She volunteered for Red Nation and got involved raising awareness for native communities in and around Shiprock, New Mexico after the disastrous Gold King Mine spill in 2015 that compromised drinking water for thousands of people. She moved to Utah, May 2016, to serve as her mother’s voice and advocate. Her mother was murdered November 30th, 2015. When the bullet silenced her, Carol' s mother became one of the statistics of thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women across the country. Upon moving to Salt Lake with her daughters, Carol immediately got involved with the Salt Lake area native community organizers. Over the summer and fall of 2016 Carol traveled to Standing Rock and organized for the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. She helped co-founded the Utah League of Native American Voters and PANDOS in order to bring voice and action to the Native Community in Utah. She is inspired to work for her community in order to build unity and power with the people.

Larry Cesspooch

The Ute Storyteller uses modern technology and traditional to tell his stories with film, animal puppets, Native artifacts and music. Cesspooch (who's name means Whitebelly in the Ute language) is a Vietnam Veteran. He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts Institute and the Anthropology Film Center, both in Santa Fe, N.M. Larry started one of the oldest tribal production groups in the states, the "Ute Tribe Audio-Visual." He served as Ute Tribe Public Relations Director and "Ute Bulletin" newspaper editor from 1990-2002. Cesspooch now produces for his own "Through Native Eyes Productions," as Producer/Director.

Christina Saavedra

PANDOS wanted to take a moment out to thank Christina Saavedra for all of her volunteer work with PANDOS. Christina moved to SLC from Oregon only a few months ago, and since then she has been helping PANDOS extensively with designing the fliers for the Folklore in Honor or Water event as well as for our Cultural Appropriation talk. Christina has also helped us design the program for the Folklore event and is always willing to give a lending hand when needed. Christina is a freelance artist who is hard working, organized, a great communicator, and dependable. Christina is also a loving and amazing mother to her son Blue. PANDOS is lucky to have someone as wonderful as Christina to be one of our volunteers.

Stephany Murguia

Stephany has been tantamount to the success of several of the PANDOS events, including the "Rock with Standing Rock" event and the "Word Warriors" project.

Her dedication, organizational expertise and commitment to our success is one that we value tremendously. She has volunteered with us for several hours and commonly takes on tasks which we know she can be counted on to follow through on and constantly goes further in ways in which she can help.

We're thrilled to have such a strong, intellectual, woman to call friend and want to extend our highest thanks for her kindness and amazing work ethic.

Amber Jacobson

Amber has been a regular attendee in our community events and, to our fortune, had volunteered to help with our "Word Warriors" project in February.

Her kindness, helpful feedback, and reliable presence during in person, and virtual planning meetings was crucial to the success of our action. On the evening of "Word Warriors", she had helped to cultivate the considerate, hospitable, and warm environment we were aiming to achieve.

We're also excited by the opportunity to work with Amber on the planning of our upcoming "Folklore in Honor of Water" event happening this Spring.

Amber always brings a strong positivity and an unquestionable reliability wherever she volunteers and we're extremely thankful for all she does.

Madelynn Conrad

Madelynn had spent a few months with the PANDOS leadership as the press secretary and had done a lot of great work in contributing to the events we held Q4 2016.

She became motivated to get involved with PANDOS after her trip to Standing Rock and is proud to become another voice for Native sovereignty.

She looks to future capacities to assist PANDOS as a volunteer and continues to feel honored to be a part of PANDOS. We know she still looks forward to assisting in making a difference in both the local and national community and we're excited to have the opportunity of a continued working relationship with her.

Heather Stevens
Heather Stevens has called Salt Lake City home for the better part of her life. She has been active in sports in one form or another for as long as she can remember and developed a keen interest in human movement and injury management at a young age. She completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology at UNLV and went on to get her certificate in Massage Therapy.

Heather genuinely loves helping people in any way that she can. In 2015 through her love of riding her bike she discovered a passion for fixing bicycles for the homeless and underprivileged with the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective. The peaceful approach of the water protectors at Standing Rock helped wake up the activist inside of her and she could not stay silent anymore. She feels blessed to have been able to have had a hand in building PANDOS.