‘A true visionary’: Longtime Coeur d’Alene Tribe leader David Matheson dies at 71

Coeur d’Alene Tribe councilman David Matheson died suddenly Tuesday morning, the tribe announced, calling it “a profound loss of a revered, accomplished and visionary leader.”

Matheson was the head of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs under George H.W. Bush, the youngest chairman in the tribe’s history and a driving force behind the Coeur d’Alene Casino and Circling Raven Golf Club. He was 71.

“When you talk about the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, you have to talk about Matheson,” said Chief James Allan, the tribe’s chairman. “He had a heart for serving our people.”

Born the third of seven children in Moses Lake, Matheson’s family moved around the Northwest as his father looked for work.

At a high school in Tacoma, he was teased for being one of only two Native American students.

“Teachers didn’t have the same expectations for me as other kids, but I learned to ignore it,” he told The Spokesman-Review in 1993. “I knew I had to be smarter. I had to work harder and run faster if I was going to succeed.”

When he graduated, he had no money for college. But as an honor student, he received a scholarship from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

He attended the University of Washington, where he majored in political science. After graduating in 1974, he returned to the Coeur d’Alene Reservation.

In 1980, he was appointed director of planning and material resources for the tribe.

“The planning position put me in the middle of what the tribe is all about,” he told The Spokesman in another interview. “That is what got me started in tribal government.”

When Matheson was elected to the tribal council at age 30, the council members selected him as their chairman.

“Our people can’t sit around and dream about the old ways forever,” he said at the time. “Although we are and always will be proud of our heritage, we must learn to apply our acquired knowledge to the ways of the future.”

In 1982, he wrote a pointed letter to Ronald Reagan, protesting budget cuts for the Indian Health Service. Apparently, that letter caught the president’s attention, because Reagan soon appointed him to the Commission on Indian Reservation Economies.

As CEO of Puyallup International, Inc., of the Puyallup Tribe from 1985 to 1989, Matheson negotiated an international trade agreement with China, arranged financing and management for a 2,500-seat bingo palace and participated in settlement of a $160 million land title dispute.

Matheson moved to Falls Church, Virginia, with his family in 1990 when he was appointed as a special assistant in the U.S. Department of the Interior. He was soon promoted to direct the Office of Construction Management.

The next year, Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan appointed Matheson as deputy commissioner of Indian Affairs. Prior to 2003, the title “deputy commissioner” was used to denote the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the largest bureau in the Department of the Interior.

At 39, Matheson oversaw the day-to-day operations of more than 14,000 employees nationwide.

Immediately upon returning to the reservation in 1993, Matheson took the reins as the first CEO of the tribe’s new casino in Worley, known at the time as the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Bingo Hall. He touted the bingo hall’s 90 new jobs amid the reservation’s high unemployment rate.

He oversaw the expansion of the casino into a resort with a hotel and golf course until he was fired in 2006, when the tribe sued him for alleged breach of fiduciary duties. The tribe dropped its lawsuit in 2007 and he was rehired as CEO in 2011, serving five more years.

“Dave was my mentor,” Coeur d’Alene Casino CEO and tribal member Laura Penney said. “I learned so much from him about how to treat people, how to be a strong but kind leader. He is loved dearly and will be missed deeply.”

Matheson authored “Red Thunder,” a 2001 novel about a Schi’tsu’umsh family living in the Inland Northwest in the 1700s, before the tribe’s contact with Europeans. Schi’tsu’umsh is the name of the people of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in their native language.

He was elected to the tribal council again in 2018.

“Dave has left us a profound legacy,” Allan said. “He was a true visionary who had the foresight to see the great possibilities for the Tribe and Native Americans. He was the architect behind much of our enterprises, endeavors that have enabled us to thrive as we stride forward in the 21st century.”

Matheson is survived by his wife Jenny, five children and more than two dozen grandchildren. His favorite pastimes were riding and training horses, spending active time with his children and grandchildren, and hunting, fishing and enjoying the outdoors.

His personal philosophy, quoted on his website: “The Great Creator promised no one a tomorrow, or an easy time … no one. When the new day comes, greet it with great thankfulness. It is a time not used by anyone. Use it for something good, even great. It’s the one life we have. Leave no dream unfulfilled, and no good deed undone.”