Edward Lone Fight Cagaaga Cagic (Good Bird)

May 28, 1939 – Nov. 1, 2025

Edward Lone Fight passed away peacefully at age 86, surrounded by family. Born on the Fort Berthold Reservation to Maybelle Good Bird and Theodore Lone Fight, he lived his entire life in service to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation: an educator, tribal chairman, language keeper, and elder whose quiet strength guided generations.

As Tribal Chairman from 1986 to 1990, Edward fought for his people’s rights with the same careful determination he brought to everything. In 1988, he met with President Ronald Reagan, a meeting that became the catalyst for the Just Compensation Bill, which was the culmination of decades of struggle for fair compensation for lands lost to Garrison Dam. Under his leadership, the tribe established the reservation’s first dialysis center and comprehensive diabetes program, founded Mandaree Electronics and LCM Company to bring jobs home, created a solid waste disposal system across the reservation’s scattered communities, and began repatriation work to bring ancestors home. He testified before Congress, articulated the case for justice with precision and force, and helped secure resources the tribe still depends on today.

But Edward’s work extended far beyond those four years. He spent over two decades in education, earning his biology degree at Dickinson State University–among the first tribal members to do so–before completing two master’s degrees, one in education, one in public administration. He worked to transform boarding schools that had once sought to erase Indigenous identity, including his time as superintendent at Chemawa Indian School in Oregon. Later, he helped implement the Tribal Colleges Act and develop equitable funding formulas for Native schools nationwide. He returned home to guide Mandaree School, first as guidance counselor, later as superintendent, retiring in 2000 after decades of investing in young people.

Edward spoke Hidatsa fluently, opened meetings with traditional blessings, and carried himself with the dignity of someone who understood where he came from. Descended from Buffalo Bird Woman (Waheenee), the renowned Hidatsa historian and culture keeper, and from Chief Four Bears and Sheheke, prominent leaders of the Mandan people, he honored that legacy not through words but through action: language preservation, cultural revival, the quiet work of teaching anyone who asked to learn.

Those who knew him remember his warmth most. He had a way of making you feel like the most important person in the room, whether you were a tribal elder or a child asking questions. His humor arrived regularly and warmly, delivered with laughter that filled rooms. He never rushed off the phone without making you laugh. He moved between worlds with ease–traditional regalia and business suits, ceremonial grounds and congressional hearings–because he never saw them as separate, just different expressions of the same commitment.

From 1994 to 1998, Edward guided the Tribal Programs office through expansion, nurturing initiatives he’d seeded during his chairmanship. Retirement changed nothing essential as he continued arriving at ceremonies, answering calls that mattered, moving through the community with that particular gravity people had come to trust. Even from New Town in these later years, he traveled to gatherings that needed his voice, carrying forward what four decades of leadership had taught him to hold.

When his health declined, family gathered close. Prayers and songs surrounded him as he prepared for the journey home to the ancestors.

Edward Lone Fight is survived by his children, Lisa Lone Fight, Anthony Lone Fight, Karen Lone Fight and Megan Lone Fight; grandchildren Darren Lone Fight, Eliza Yellow Bird, Spencer Lone Fight, Reed Lone Fight, Aleeya Lone Fight, Edward Schilf, Adrian Schilf, Circe Clunie; great-grandchildren Amaria Lone Fight, Elias Lone Fight, Uriel Lone Fight, Liam Thomson, and Alorah Lone Fight; siblings, Sharon Lone Fight, Pete Lone Fight, Tana Lone Fight, and Ted Lone Fight III; and countless other relatives and friends across Indian Country.

We carry him forward in the language being learned, in the programs still serving our communities, in the way we greet each other with warmth and care. Edward showed us how to lead by serving, how to honor tradition while building toward tomorrow, how to walk through this world with both strength and gentleness. He has gone home to the ancestors, but he remains with us in every young person learning Hidatsa, in every gathering opened with blessing, in the continuing work of justice and care he championed.

His service to his people will echo for generations.

Wake: Tuesday, November 4, 2025, beginning at 5 p.m. at the new Mandaree High School, Mandaree; Funeral: Wednesday, November 5, 2025, at 10 a.m. at the school. He will be laid to rest at the Lone Fight Family Cemetery, Mandaree. (Langhans Funeral Home, Parshall www.langhansfuneralhome.com)

Published by The Minot Daily News, November 5, 2025.