SEQUIM — The Billy Frank Jr. Memorial Golf Tournament, a fundraiser for Salmon Defense, will be held at the Cedars at Dungeness Golf Course, 1965 Woodcock Road on Saturday.
A full roster of teams with a total of 144 players from different tribes and businesses are set to tee off in a shotgun start at 1:30 p.m.
Registration is closed. The public is welcome to watch, said Fran Wilshusen, executive director of Salmon Defense, speaking from Olympia.
Since 2005, Salmon Defense — which was formed by the 20 Western Washington tribes — had held the Salmon Defense Golf Tournament to raise awareness and fund operations.
Named for Frank Jr.
This year, the tournament has been renamed in honor of its founding board chairman, Billy Frank Jr., who died in May 2014 at the age of 84.
Starting in 2016, the annual tournament will be permanently named the Billy Frank Jr. Golf Classic.
Frank, a Nisqually tribal member and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, was an eminent tribal leader.
His arrest for salmon fishing as a Nisqually boy in 1945 led him on a long campaign for tribal rights, and he was arrested more than 50 times in the “Fish Wars” of that period.
The issue was taken to federal courts, and District Judge George Hugo Boldt found in favor of the tribes in 1974.
The Boldt decision established the 20 treaty tribes in Western Washington — including those on the North Olympic Peninsula — as co-managers of the salmon resource and reaffirmed the tribal right to half of the harvestable salmon returning to Western Washington.
Players in this Saturday’s tournament will include members of the Salmon Defense board, including the new chairman, Robert Whitener.
The tournament is supported by 33 sponsors both within and outside of Indian Country.
Sponsorships
Each sponsor donates $2,500, Wilshusen said. Team registrations are $500.
The Jamestown S’Klallam tribe is the title sponsor with its donation of the Cedars at Dungeness Golf Course and the banquet room.
Proceeds support the nonprofit formed to educate, advocate and litigate if necessary on behalf of salmon and salmon habitat, Wilshusen said.
The organization has developed educational videos, hosts tables offering information at festivals and works for improved water quality to keep toxics out of the fish food supply, according to Wilshusen.
“People are coming together from all across the state — the country — to raise money to defend and protect the region’s salmon,” she said.