Mark Maryboy (born December 10, 1955) is a retired American politician for San Juan County, Utah, and a former Navajo Nation Council Delegate for the Utah Navajo Section of the Navajo Tribe. He is the brother of Kenneth Maryboy who currently serves as the Navejo Nation Council Delegate, in the positions he once stood. Mark is of the Navajo Indian Tribe.
Mark Maryboy was also the San Juan County, Utah Commissioner for District Three. He made history when he was elected in 1986 as the first Native American county commissioner in Utah's history.
Rebecca M. Benally along with the former Navajo Nation Council Delegate Mark Maryboy and protesters from the Aneth Chapter Blocked the main ExxonMobil corporate office for three days in Aneth, Utah.
Life and education
Mark Maryboy was born on December 10, 1955, at St. Christopher's mission near Bluff, Utah. He was the fifth of eight children, all of whom were raised in a Navajo hogan.
Mark attended BIA boarding schools in Kayenta and Aneth at varied times, even though it was hard for him to be separated from his parents during those periods. Government schools were difficult for him as there seemed to be a deliberate attempt to destroy the Indian person that he was.
Angry and resentful because of harsh treatment, he ran away from boarding school while in third grade. His parents then enrolled him and his beloved brother, Herbert, in the public school at Bluff. They were the first reservation Navajo students to attend public school in San Juan County.
Upon graduation from San Juan High School in Blanding, Utah he attended the University of Utah, majoring in history with a minor in business. He garnered a B.A. degree in 1978.
Political representative
Some time after graduation, he returned to the Navajo Reservation. Working as the Director of Education for the Utah Navajo Development Council, he supervised Headstart, Adult Education, and Vocational Education programs. He created teacher training programs and a class for teen mothers.
Maryboy married Rosylyn Johnson, who is also a Social Worker on the reservation. They have one daughter.
San Juan County Commissioner
One hundred and thirty years after Native Americans were pushed to isolated reservations, the Navajo people of Utah reclaimed a place in the American political process.
In 1986, Maryboy, then age 31 and politically ambitious, ran for San Juan Commissioner. This was the first election after the county was divided by Justice Department decree into commissioner districts. He was elected a San Juan County Commissioner and became the first Native American to hold such a position in the state of Utah.
An elected official, he realized even greater inequities in services given to his Navajo constituents. The Navajo people were bringing in more money for the county than they were receiving back in services. He mixed it up with the other commissioners, often battling the always capable right-wing former Commissioner Calvin Black, the undisputed kingpin of San Juan County politics, during hotly contested commission meetings.
Maryboy's four terms on the San Juan County Commission - particularly the first half-dozen years - were the subject of much press and the stuff of legend-making. His sword-crossing with the late commission chairman, Cal Black, spiked tensions across southern Utah as Maryboy fought for funding for roads, sanitation and water for Utah's Navajos.
In 1989 Navajo elders and other Democratic stalwarts determined to run a Navajo for every county post up for election. 56 percent of San Juan's population was Navajo at the time. The campaign aimed at getting tribal members to the polls was called "Niha-Whol-Zhiizh", meaning "It's our turn."
The Democratic-Navajo plan fizzled. Maryboy won a second commission term, but was the only Navajo Indian elected.
Navajo Nation Council Delegate
In November 1990, he was elected to the Navajo Nation Council as a council delegate from the Aneth area.
He sat on the advisory board of the College of Social & Behavioral Science at the University of Utah. He is currently the chairman of the Navajo Nation Council Budget & Finance Committee.
Maryboy met President Bill Clinton in 1992 at the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. Maryboy delivered a prayer in Navajo at one of the sessions. He was a delegate to the United Nations Conference for Indigenous peoples in Geneva, Switzerland in July 1992. He was appointed to serve on the Utah Advisory Committee for the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1993. He was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the National Advisory Council on Indian Education in 1994.