Comanche Nation Names Lloyd Heminokeky National Treasure

Comanche Nation Fair continued its events on Saturday, September 27, with a three-on-three basketball tournament and a parade before the powwow.

Lloyd Heminokeky Jr. received the National Treasure award after the grand entry for his work in preserving the Comanche Language and Culture.

“Being a language consultant and a teacher, we've had individuals come in with our immersion classes and just had a few, maybe a year or two with this, and seen them speak, left us speaking, left us knowing,” he said. “And not only that, I've brought everything that I could bring to that department for us, for the community, to share it. Some of them will accept it, some won't. Our language, our customs, our culture, and traditions, they all go hand in hand. There's meaning to our language. There's meaning to this and how we do things.”

Heminokeky said he doesn’t want anything back, but for people to have results from what he’s done.

“For them to get healed, for them to get well, for them to get what I had, they've come to me in a lot of ways mentally, having a hard time mentally,” he said. “Females and males, they come that way. ‘How can I do this?’ or ‘Can you help me with this? Through it?’ ‘Yes.’ My friend, I've done a lot. I've done a lot and I'm not done yet.”

Heminokeky said it was overwhelming to receive the award, but he had always wanted to be a helpful person and didn’t want to get into trouble.

“A lot of things have come to my life, have been in my life, that it showed itself,” he said. “Not really realizing what it was about, but my sister told me…in the past, she said, ‘Brother, you're different. You're different from others.’ She said, ‘I see that. Our mom sees it too.’ Knowing that good things are coming my way, were coming my way, have come my way, it's not surprising. It's not surprising. It was just me realizing what I had and what I had to offer. I don't ask of anything. I've been given so much that I want others to share it and to be uplifted, to be encouraged, to not discourage for themselves. But this right here, it's just to add on to all that I've come through.”

Heminokeky said that not many people can receive the award.

“To me, for this national treasure, it's given to individuals or entitled to individuals that what they contribute to, not only their communities, but too such as what we have, our tribe,” he said. “You contribute to them, and you do for them, and it's on a positive side of things.”

Heminokeky made sure to do his research before accepting the award and went to the sources of the award.

“I feel like I'm unworthy in some parts of it, but yet I know that I'm okay with it,” he said. “Because I look around, and if you look up the ‘What does it mean to be a national treasure?’ It identifies me. It identifies me right down to the T of it, so I accepted it. If it wasn't that way, I wouldn't have accepted this when it was said to me, when they told me that ‘This is what we've done for you.’ And I had to look it up and make sure that I was okay with it to accept it, because that's how I am. I'm not listening to whoever grabs something that I'm not worthy of.”

Heminokeky said that family was his most significant source of support, especially his sister, O’Neda.