President, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Diane Enos, the daughter of the late Johnson and Naomi Stewart Enos, is the 23rd President of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the second woman elected to this office. She was sworn into office in December 2006. She is the great granddaughter of Jose Anton, who was of the pre-Indian Reorganization Act Pima leaders of the Community, and she is the first member of the Salt River Indian Community to be a lawyer. As a Senior Trial Attorney, Enos practiced in the Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office for 11 years
Prior to being elected President, Diane Enos served on the Council for the SRPMIC for four terms. She was elected to Council while a second-year law student at Arizona State University. She became interested in law and politics while working as a reporter, covering the proposed Pima Freeway for the “Scottsdale Progress” newspaper. She felt that having a legal background would help her ask good questions. She started law school in 1989 when she was 39 years old and graduated in 1992.
Raised on the Community, Enos attended the Salt River Day School and Westwood High School. She graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from ASU and planned to pursue a career as an artist. Five of her paintings hang in the Sacaton hospital.
Enos, who has spent her entire professional life in community service, is dedicated to promoting education for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa people and to creating new opportunities for traditional O’odham (Pima) and Piipaash (Maricopa) life to flourish within the Community. She avidly supports small business and believes that tribal government has a responsibility to plan for development by creating synergies so all Community members can share in the financial gain. In the near future, she hopes to encourage more small business owners to become vendors, employers and “vision-creators” for the SRPMIC to enhance the social, economic and cultural foundation of the Community.
When not working for the betterment of the SRPMIC, Enos enjoys working out and gardening. She likes to plant and grow Pima corn.
|
