Denny McAuliffe, project director for Reznetnews.org

Her "sunniness" defines not only her personality and outlook on life, but also her camouflage for the bulldog nature of her reporting. Her subjects don't know they're being grilled by a skeptical pro.

She also uses kindness and laughter to get to the head of the line. Here's an example. Sunnie was one of reznet's reporters covering the Indian Gaming '08 trade show last month in San Diego. On opening day, the Native American actor Adam Beach made a guest appearance. The name Adam Beach may not mean much to the majority of Americans. But in Indian Country, he has the star appeal and drawing power of Brad Pitt. Sunnie -- along with the other 5,000 Native women in attendance -- decided she'd like to meet him. In fact, she decided, she was going to interview him for a story, meaning she'd have to spend some quality time with him. One eye blink later, there was Sunnie sitting next Adam Beach at the table, interviewing away while he signed autographs between responses to her questions.

How'd she do that? It was a classic moment of Sunnie being Sunnie.

And the fact that she's Navajo and will soon become one of only about 285 Native American journalists working in the nation's newsroom is just an added bonus.

Larry Mondi, deputy chief of reporters for SI.com

Without actually meeting an applicant, you can’t really know who you’re getting. But once in a while you read someone’s resume and you just know things are going to click. You think you’ve found the right mix of interests and background and experience.  Fluency in Farsi or a fellowship studying in Central Asia, for example, will get our attention more quickly than an internship at a baseball weekly. 

So it was with Sunnie. The more we learned about her background, the more we were impressed: reporter for a national, online Native American college paper; stints at two daily papers; study at the American Indian Journalism Institute; teaching disabled children; fluency in Navajo. Most job applicants aren’t this accomplished.

Sunnie had a terrific summer with us [at SI.com in New York City]. She worked hard, handling both the interesting and mundane tasks with equal grace and efficiency. She was conscientious, thorough and accurate. Those are important qualities when you’re main duty is fact checking. After she got all the mundane stuff out of the way (and, believe me, there’s a lot of mundane stuff here during the summer), she suggested a story on a young man who creates Native American lacrosse sticks in the same way that his forebears did generations ago. She didn’t have time to write it for us last summer. I hope she finds the time to do it soon; I’m looking forward to reading it.

Bill Elsen, editor for Reznetnews.org

Sunnie, a Navajo, had never done journalism until she attended the freedom forum's three-week American Indian journalism institute in June 2005. She blossomed immediately. She has worked at her college newspaper and interned twice at the St. Cloud Times. This coming summer, she will intern at the Salt Lake Tribune as part of the sports journalism institute program, and she has been a stalwart on reznetnews, an online Native American student publication, since October 2005.

Source | AccessMyLibrary.com
Patrick Ortiz was born to run. As a child he spent countless hours running anywhere he could find a path.

Source | Reznetnews.org
Surrounded by a throng of women and other ecstatic fans, Adam Beach managed to outshine the casino lights enveloping him.

Source | Reznetnews.org
Her moccasins were wrapped in plastic bags. She held a knife in one hand and, in the other, the throat of a living sheep. The time had come for the most respected and highly praised part of the Miss Navajo Nation Pageant—the sheep butchering contest.