Navajo community recognizes Di’Orr Greenwood for positive contributions

FORT DEFIANCE, Ariz. — Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren honored a young Diné woman today for having her skateboard art with a Navajo design placed on a U.S. Postal Service "Forever Stamp" to share across the country.

The President spoke about the “Art of the Skateboard Forever Stamp Dedication” to thank Di’Orr Greenwood of Fort Defiance for being such a positive example to Navajo kids who have someone close to their age to look up to.

“Thank you on behalf of the President’s office for just being such a wonderful role model to all of us,” he said at the Fort Defiance Office of Diné Youth Skateboard Park. “It’s an amazing feat.”

He said he keeps a sheet of stamps with her design in his office to show visitors as well as a skateboard with another of Di’Orr’s designs on it.

The “Art of the Skateboard” stamps are part of the “Forever” stamps category. They will always be equal to the current First Class Mail one-ounce price. The collection became available on March 24, 2023.

President Nygren said Di’Orr was an example to Navajo youth to not quit on their dreams because wonderful things they cannot imagine will happen for them if they keep trying.

“She’s on the right track to be recognized all over the country and the world with her stamp,” the President said. “Her designs and just her good heart and her good spirit represent us as Navajo people. I feel like our Navajo people are just doing such, such wonderful things out in the world. I’m wishing for that to continue.”

Struggling to hold back tears of joy, Di’Orr said it meant a lot to her to be honored, to be introduced by her grandfather Dave Bowman, to have her grandmother Lucy Bowman attend, to be welcomed by her community, and to be recognized for her art on a federal stamp with Navajo designs.

“These designs don’t belong to me,” she said. “They belong to this community. They belong to the people here. The designs are older than our grandparents. They belong to the artists in Virginia, Alaska, Bogata, Columbia, and those on Navajo.”

Fort Defiance Postmaster Genevieve Cooley said she and her staff have been encouraging people to buy sheets of the stamps since they were issued.

“I am very, very proud to be the postmaster for the Fort Defiance Post Office,” she said. “I consider myself extremely lucky to be appointed five years ago and to come out to be a part of this community. We have been pushing the stamps.”

Miss Navajo Nation Valentina Clitso said she has the best reason of all to be happy to see Di’Orr’s designs on stamps.

“I’m a stamp collector,” she said. “To be able to collect stamps from one of our own, that’s very impactful. This came from our homelands. This came from one of the communities that thins like us, that pray like us, that sing like us, that walk among these lands like us.”

Information provided by Navajo Nation OPVP