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‘Bingo Queens’ author at library

Program on women who started tribal gaming

CN-WP-bingoqueensThe Waupaca Area Public Library’s next Lunch & Learn will feature author Mike Hoeft talking about his book, “The Bingo Queens of Oneida” at noon Tuesday, Dec. 8.

The free program will include a light lunch catered by a local restaurant.

People may reserve a spot for the program online at www.waupacalibrary.org/node/4026 or by calling 715-258-4414.

Lunch & Learn will include the sale of the book and a book signing.

After graduating from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he worked as a reporter and copy editor for 30 years at daily newspapers.

For 23 of those years, he was on the news staff of the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Hoeft lives with his family in Oneida and currently works as a paralegal for the Oneida Tribe Child Support Agency.

Before Indian casinos, a few enterprising tribes got their start in gambling by opening bingo parlors.

A group of women on the Oneida Indian Reservation, just outside Green Bay, introduced bingo in 1976 simply to pay a few bills.

Bingo not only paid the light bill at the struggling civic center but was soon financing health and housing services for tribal elderly and poor.

“The Bingo Queens of Oneida: How Two Moms Started Tribal Gaming in Wisconsin” tells the story through the eyes of Sandra Ninham and Alma Webster, the Oneida women who had the idea for a bingo operation run by the tribe.

Bingo became the tribe’s first moneymaker on a reservation where about half the population was living in poverty.

Hoeft traces the historic struggles of the Oneida from their alliance with America during the Revolutionary War to their journey to Wisconsin and details the lives of tribal members who worked with Ninham and Webster.

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