# Mark Maryboy

Mark Maryboy (born December 10, 1955) is a retired American politician who represented San Juan County, Utah, and a former Navajo Nation Council Delegate for the Utah Navajo Section of the Navajo tribe, of which he is a member. He is also the brother of Kenneth Maryboy, who currently serves as the Navajo Nation Council Delegate in the positions he once held.
Mark Maryboy was elected as the San Juan County, Utah, Commissioner for District Three, and served three terms in that position. When elected in 1986, he became the first Native American to be elected as county commissioner in Utah's history.
In 2013, Maryboy, Rebecca M. Benally, and protesters from the Aneth Chapter blocked the main ExxonMobil corporate office for three days in Aneth, Utah.

## Life and education

Mark Maryboy was born on December 10, 1955, at St. Christopher's Mission near Bluff, Utah. He was the fifth-born of eight children, all of whom were raised in a Navajo hogan. Mark attended BIA boarding schools in both Kayenta and Aneth.
Upon graduation from San Juan High School in Blanding, Utah, he attended the University of Utah, majoring in history with a minor in business. Maryboy graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Arts in 1978.

## Political representative

After graduation, Maryboy returned to the Navajo Reservation. Working as the Director of Education for the Utah Navajo Development Council, he supervised Headstart, Adult Education, and Vocational Education programs. In 1986, Maryboy ran for San Juan Commissioner. He often clashed with the Republican former Commissioner Calvin Black during commission meetings.

### Navajo Nation Council Delegate

In November 1990, he was elected to the Navajo Nation Council as a council delegate from the Aneth area. He sat on the advisory board of the College of Social & Behavioral Science at the University of Utah. He is currently the chairman of the Navajo Nation Council Budget & Finance Committee.
Maryboy met former President Bill Clinton in 1992 at the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. He was appointed to serve on the Utah Advisory Committee for the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1993. He was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the National Advisory Council on Indian Education in 1994.

### Navajo Tribal Council Assault

In April 2006, Navajo Nation Council Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan faced a charge of criminal battery when he struck Council Delegate Mark Maryboy in the chest after Maryboy made a complaint to the speaker that Morgan did not help Maryboy bring up legislation that had been skipped over earlier that day. The item—formal condolences to the family of late Council Delegate Curley John of Aneth, whose family was in the gallery—was skipped because Maryboy was out of the Council Chambers speaking with constituents. Maryboy tried later to put the item back on the agenda but was ruled out of order.

## Utah Navajo Commission

The Utah Navajo Commission manages revenues derived from mineral development on the Utah portion of the reservation for the Utah Navajos. The population of Utah Dine' is nearing 10,000 enrolled members. Mark Maryboy serves with this entity as well seeing to the deployment of monetary funds and the Navajo energy issues in San Juan County.

### Navajo water rights issue

In 2002, he and the Utah Navajo Commission urged the Navajo Nation to reassert Colorado River water claims the tribe waived in the late 1960s to help facilitate a power plant near Page, Arizona. In 2020, the Senate unanimously passed the Utah Navajo Water Rights Settlement Act, which would recognize Navajo's right to 81,500 acre-feet (100,500,000 m$^3$) of water from the Colorado River.
According to the Utah Navajo Commission, the tribe could claim between one and 2,000,000 acre-feet (2.5 km$^3$) of Colorado River water. The council waived at least a portion of its rights in a 1968 agreement with the federal government and the Salt River Project, which planned to build a coal-fired power plant near Page. The council agreed not to demand more than 50,000 acre-feet (62,000,000 m$^3$) of Colorado River water so that 34,100 acre-feet (42,100,000 m$^3$) could be diverted to the plant.

## Utah Navajo oil

In 1997, local residents began a protest against Exxon-Mobil's Utah Navajo community policies. Protesters from the Aneth Chapter blocked the main ExxonMobil Corporation's office for 3 days at the McElmo Oil Plant near Aneth, Utah. The protest was made up of local Navajo people. Former Navajo Nation president Albert Hale was also mobilized to the northernmost corner of the Navajo Nation where the protest was initiated. Mark, along with members of the Aneth community, helped create a new standard for the Navajo workers working in the Aneth area as well as the hiring process.

## Life after politics

Heeding to his father's wishes, he did not seek a fifth term on the council. Maryboy established Utah Navajo Health Systems in 1999 along with Donna Singer. Then he ramrodded tribal legislation that allows the agency to keep its profits rather than return them to Window Rock.