Mathew Holding Eagle III
Mathew Holding Eagle III reports on education and community life through the lens of Indigenous nations and rural Minnesota, focusing on how policy, culture and history shape everyday experience. His stories follow specific people, places and projects, showing how decisions about schools, energy, cannabis and immigration affect the communities that live with them.
Indigenous communities and self-determination
Much of Holding Eagle’s reporting centers on Indigenous nations and how they exercise self-determination in land use, energy and culture. He covers large-scale solar projects led by tribal governments, such as the Makwa Solar Array for Red Lake Nation and related initiatives that aim to deliver renewable energy and local jobs.
His work traces how Indigenous-led organizations train tribal members to build and maintain solar gardens, framing green energy as both climate action and workforce development within Native communities.
He reports closely on tribally owned cannabis businesses, documenting how the White Earth Nation’s dispensaries in Moorhead and St. Cloud expand adult-use sales beyond reservation boundaries while navigating new state–tribal compacts. These pieces track economic opportunity, regulatory detail and community response, treating cannabis not as a novelty but as a serious policy and business story for tribal nations. Cultural heritage is another thread: he has covered the construction of a traditional Dakota bark lodge at Prairie Island, the first permanent structure of its kind there in roughly 150 years, explaining its significance in village life and its revival in the present. He also writes about historical objects tied to Indigenous leaders, including a musket associated with Shaynowishkung (Chief Bemidji) that was returned to a local historical society after generations in a family collection. Across these stories, Indigenous communities are presented as contemporary decision-makers, not background figures.
Immigration enforcement and local activism
Holding Eagle covers immigration enforcement as a local story, following how federal actions reverberate through small towns and county institutions.
He has reported on an ICE surge in Pelican Rapids and the grassroots response it triggered, profiling an activist who left his job to organize food deliveries, financial support and transportation for immigrants afraid to leave their homes. In that piece, he details how community members form networks, work with nonprofits like Singing Resistance and ultimately receive national recognition for their efforts, treating awards as a window into sustained mutual aid rather than a feel-good anecdote.
He also examines how local officials respond to immigration crackdowns, including a conservative county attorney who used social media to condemn ICE tactics as an “embarrassment.” The story situates those statements within his long tenure in the office, outlining the authority he holds and how his views contrast with expectations tied to his political identity. Together, these articles show Holding Eagle’s interest in the friction between federal power and local values, and in the people who step into that space - activists, officials and residents - when immigration enforcement becomes visible in everyday life.
Rural culture, history and education
Holding Eagle consistently treats rural institutions - schools, museums, resorts - as central characters in his reporting.
In coverage of local education funding, he has shown how a major investment in a rural Minnesota community translates into concrete outcomes such as a new school building, band equipment and even a Zamboni, emphasizing the way educational and civic spending shapes shared spaces and student experience. His work on the Beltrami County History Center’s new library and archives tracks how a small museum expands its collections, builds a new wing and preserves unique records of regional history for public access. He connects the facility’s physical changes to the stories it can hold, underscoring that archives and libraries are live infrastructure for understanding a place.
He often uses culture and recreation to illustrate rural life. His feature on the Igloo Bar at Zippel Bay Resort describes a lakeside winter destination reached by an ice road, portraying it as an oasis for ice anglers, snowmobilers and other outdoor visitors. In arts coverage, he has followed Fergus Falls musician Chris Tungseth through “American Idol,” from early rounds to a Top 5 homecoming, showing how a national television contest ripples through a hometown, from celebratory signage to community events.
Across these stories, he treats rural communities as dynamic settings where education, history, leisure and national pop culture intersect.
On-air reporting and journalistic approach
Holding Eagle’s work includes regular on-air reporting, where he brings the same attention to detail found in his written stories. In a segment on snowkiting at White Bear Lake, he walks listeners through the mechanics and cost of learning the sport, narrating the feel of handling the kite and the practical steps involved in a first lesson.
In live coverage from a tribal dispensary opening, he reports from outside the facility as recreational marijuana sales begin, updating listeners on timing, operational hiccups and the broader economic context for tribal producers.
His author biography notes that he spent years in blue-collar construction before moving into journalism, followed by experience in documentary production and community newspaper reporting.
That path informs a style rooted in on-the-ground observation: he favors clear timelines, specific dollar figures, named projects and quotes that show how people talk about their own work. Across beats - from Indigenous energy projects and cannabis policy to immigration enforcement, local history and rural schooling - Holding Eagle’s coverage is driven by concrete detail and by the voices of the communities at the center of each story.
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Abril Preciado
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