Meet Alicia Hegland-Thorpe: Buffalo Fire’s new Documenters Program Manager

Alicia Hegland-Thorpe joins Buffalo’s Fire as the Documenters Program Manager, marking a milestone for journalism in North Dakota. With a focus on community empowerment and transparency, Hegland-Thorpe brings a wealth of experience and a passion for amplifying Indigenous voices to her new role.

“It’s exciting to be a part of an Indigenous newsroom,” said Hegland-Thorpe. “I feel like this is right where I belong. I think I have a lot of experience and knowledge to help share, not just in the newsroom but for the community.”

The Documenters Network is a nonprofit civic journalism lab created in 2018 by Chicago’s City Bureau. The nonprofit newsroom trains people around the country to attend public meetings and publish the results. So far, the organization has trained more than 2,200 documenters who have covered more than 5,000 public meetings across 11 cities.

Hegland-Thorpe, a citizen of the Spirit Lake Nation, started working as the Buffalo Fire’s Documenters Program Manager on March 18. She will be managing about 20 documenters and pairing them up with a topic or subject matter that appeals to them. Documenters, who are members of the community, are hired to strictly take notes and not participate in meetings.

These notetakers will be attending tribal, school, city commission and other public meetings. According to the network’s website, Documenters cover public meetings that occur within the local government. Those meetings typically receive no media coverage and produce minimal records.

Buffalo’s Fire was selected to participate as City Bureau’s first rural cohort – and first Indigenous cohort – in the country. Normally, The Documenters Network has taken place in big cities and populated areas around the country, such as Detroit, Atlanta and Chicago. Some cities even have as many as 200 to 300 Documenters.

The network is now expanding to cover meetings in more rural cities and towns across the country. The goal is to create transparency and provide accessible resources for the community. “We focus on equipping people to access and produce the information they need,” according to the Documenters Network. “We make our work, process and tools as open and useful as possible.”

For most of her life, Hegland-Thorpe has lived in North Dakota. She earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Minot State University. Growing up, she said she lived in different towns in the state. Back in 2005, she moved to the Bismarck-Mandan area. Since she’s been here, she’s worked as a community advocate for several initiatives.

She helped raise funds for student scholarships by assisting with “Win a Ride in the Batmobile” at United Tribes Technical College in 2016 and she also served on the Indigenous Parent Advisory Committee until her term ended in February. In addition, she has dedicated much of her time to Indigenous education.

The community organizer is also one of the main organizers of Walking for Our Relatives, a grassroots initiative by Orange Shirt Day North Dakota to honor Indian boarding school survivors and to also remember the children who never made it home.

Hegland-Thorpe is also currently a part of several community councils with Sacred Pipe Resource Center, including the Housing Council that’s organizing a Tenant’s Rights Association. Other work centers around the Civic Engagement Council, an initiative to get out the Native Vote for the upcoming 2024 election.

After spending nearly 20 years in the community, Hegland-Thorpe has come to genuinely care about the local people. “I feel like I know the community well, to make these networks and the connections for the Documenters to work,” Hegland-Thorpe said.

This first month for Hegland-Thorpe consists of thorough training and research. Though there is a lot of information for her to go through, Hegland-Thorpe said the work is needed to keep the public informed.

“I think the Documenters program is important because people want to know what’s going on in their communities and they don’t always have the resources to find out where to find that information,” Hegland-Thorpe said.

In addition to leading the Bismarck-Mandan Documenter’s Program, Hegland-Thorpe will occasionally report on Indigenous news for Buffalo’s Fire. She earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Minot State University. Her first gig started as an overnight radio DJ, which she did during her first couple years in college at the University of North Dakota-Williston and then the University of North Dakota-Grand Forks.

Hegland-Thorpe became interested in journalism because she wanted to be more involved in her community. DJ work proved a fun way to explore audio work, but she was working three to four jobs to stay afloat and ended up withdrawing from school. She left journalism for a while since she didn’t finish her degree, and began a career as a travel agent.

Eventually, she went back to school to finish her degree in broadcast journalism at Minot State University. By graduation, she had a contract signed to become the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. news anchor at KMOT in Minot, where she stayed for a couple of years. While working in broadcasting, Hegland-Thorpe developed big dreams. “I wanted to be the next Native Oprah and have my own talk show and discuss Indigenous issues,” Hegland-Thorpe said.

Most recently, Hegland-Thorpe was working with Prairie Public Radio, reporting on stories relating to Indigenous people and culture. At one point, there was an opening for a co-host and assistant producer of Main Street, a daily radio show. She applied for the role and got it. Since her time with Prairie Public Radio, Hegland-Thorpe has been eager to get back to reporting on news within her community.

“I want people to know that when I’m covering stories, that I’m doing it with an open heart,” Hegland-Thorpe said.