Former Ak-Chin chair Leona Carlyle-Kakar dies

Kalle Benallie
ICT

Leona Carlyle-Kakar is considered one of Ak-Chin Indian Community’s greatest leaders and the chairman of the southern Arizona community will forever know her as “Leona Legend.”

Carlyle-Kakar was the first woman to serve as chair of Ak-Chin. She was known as a fierce leader in Arizona tribal water rights and agriculture. She served her community for decades.

Carlyle-Kakar died April 14 at the age of 88.

Ak-Chin Chairman Robert Miguel affectionately called her “Leona Legend.”

“Leona is a person we cannot explain to our tribe, the direction she’s given us moving forward. She has a lot of history,’ Miguel said. “She’s just an overall great person. One of the great leaders of our community from our beginnings to today.”

Carlyle-Kakar helped lead Indian Country’s first water settlement that was authorized for agriculture use in 1978, re amended in 1984 for any use. It wasn’t until 1988 when Ak-Chin received its water. The landmark helped open the door for other tribes. Notably, she helped Ak-Chin take back the leases of their farms from non-Native farmers who were gaining large profits.

It was Carlyle-Kakar, working at a grocery store at the time, who noticed how much money the farmers were getting and that’s when Ak-Chin leaders and her brother Richard Carlyle began to work on farming their own land.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs didn’t support the effort but Ak-Chin went ahead with the process. They formed their tribal government in 1961 under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Ak-Chin’s farming enterprise eventually grew from a 4,000-acre operation to 15,000 acres, which made them the most successful Native and non-Native farming community in the Southwest.

Miguel said other tribes in Arizona and beyond the state have inquired with Ak-Chin about how they were able to get their farming enterprise started.

Miguel ultimately credits Carlyle-Kakar for all the community has become from enterprises, farming, housing and gaming. Carlyle-Kakar was involved in the opening of Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino in 1994.

He estimates that there are a total of 1,500 to 2,000 people employed. Miguel said the casino is the No. 1 employer in Pima County.

“Just about every aspect of the community that we moved forward on since the 1960s, she’s been the epitome of that. She’s helped out that progress. Her name is always going to be etched in our history when we look at things as far as our enterprises,” he said.

Carlyle-Kakar grew up in Ak-Chin Indian Community, 37 miles south of Phoenix. In an interview in 2020 with ICT , she said there were no cars or electricity. People would have to walk to a nearby town called Maricopa if they needed to go to the hospital.

She remembers her two older brothers Richard and Wilbert “Buddy” Carlyle and how she always wanted to play board games with them or play with rifles or slingshots. She also had a sister JoAnn (Carlyle) Hulse.

“I always wanted one. They say you don’t need one, girls don’t play with that, just boys. They wouldn’t get one for me then I would talk to my dad. I was a daddy’s girl. I say I want one of those and they won’t let me have it. He stopped at the BB guns, he said you can’t have one of these. But he did make me a slingshot. I could use that,” Carlyle-Kakar said.

Her childhood consisted of watching the women’s club make mattresses, going to dances on the weekend, catching horses and getting bucked off.

“He bounced around and he ran. There were two of us on there and he threw both of us by the well. We had our breath knocked out. We were both scared and we were crawling around there trying to breathe,” she said. “But usually we get that horse and ride and he was just fine. I don’t know what was wrong with him that day.”

When her brother Richard died in April 1965, who served as the Ak-Chin Farm Board chairman, she was asked to take his place.

“I was bawling and everything else. But they said ‘somebody has to do it, you’re the only one that knows what’s been going on and we need someone to lead the farm board right now, there’s nobody that wants to do it.’ So I said, okay, I would,” Carlyle-Kakar recalled.

She served for 51 years until her retirement in 2016. Carlyle-Kakar also served on Ak-Chin's tribal council for 40 years as council secretary, council member, vice chairman, and as chairman several times.

Carlyle-Kakar visited Washington D.C. many times to lobby for Ak-Chin. She said people looked up to her after two of her brothers died prematurely.

“I said. well. I hope I don’t die when I’m 47. So it worked out fine. I went as farm board chairman when I could so we could just spend one person’s airfare. Then when I wasn’t, I would go ahead and take whoever the chairman was. But they want me to go because I knew all the fighting we’ve done,” she said.

She said she was scared the first time she went to Washington D.C. in January 1969 with her brother Richard.

“Then it got to where I could speak to 20 people or 100 people and it didn’t scare me anymore. But I was scared the first time, to speak to a big group. And they ask you questions, especially the ones that don’t want us to get the water. They would ask questions, what we were going to do with it,” Carlyle-Kakar said.

Miguel considered Carlyle-Kakar like a grandmother. He’s known her daughter, Raychel Peters, since preschool and his grandfather, Jonas Miguel, former chairman of Ak-Chin, worked with her.

He remembers when he worked his first year on tribal council and Carlyle-Kakar was working her last year as chairman. He would often visit her since his office was two doors down from her.

“Every opportunity I had to go and sit with her and soak in the history of Ak-Chin and her thoughts has been really meaningful and has developed me into becoming a leader and hopefully get close to her as far as leadership. I know that’s a long shot,” he said.

Miguel added how approachable, smart, calm and collected Leona was.

“Her legacy will live on forever in my mind and in my heart. There’s probably not enough that we can do to repay her for who we’ve become as Ak-Chin people,” he said.

But Miguel said Carlyle-Kakar would not have said it was just her. It was the community.

With her husband, Joe Kakar, they raised a blended family that included 16 children, over 110 grandchildren and great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren.

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