Sovereignty Speaks #34
Growing Culturally Significant Heirloom Seeds
Kent Sanmann
Sacred Seed Grower, Community Developer, GIS Analyst
Mr. Sanmann is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. His grandfather was an original Chickasaw Nation allottee, and his grandmother was an original Kiowa Tribe allottee. All of his grandparents, both Native and non-Native, were born before Oklahoma was a state.
He earned a BA in Political Science and two Masters Degrees, one in Teaching English as a Second Language from Oklahoma State University and one in Geography from the University of Oklahoma. He lived in Taiwan and Thailand for two years. He did his thesis research for his Geography degree on the Kachins. In 1996 and 1997 he worked on a crop substitution project among the Kachins in the Northern Shan State of Burma.
After returning from Thailand, Mr. Sanmann focused on Chickasaw traditions, and through a series of incidents, he began to grow traditional Chickasaw corn. Eventually he grew other tribal corn varieties as well as other traditional Native crops.
Since 2003, Mr. Sanmann has worked at the City of Moore, Oklahoma. He started as the Assistant City Planner and he is currently the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analyst for the city.