Alfreeda Doonkeen has announced her candidacy for Chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.

Under Chief Kelly Haney, Doonkeen was chair for Wewoka IHS Service Unit, the Seminole Nation Health Board Chair, and was on the executive board for OKC Inter Tribal Health Board (now the Southern Plains Health Board).

She spoke up for the IHS/ Seminole Nation Health Board to keep the diabetes health care and wound care program when all other IHS regions did not have the continued wound care program.

Doonkeen brought the first dental mobile unit to Seminole Nation Days for cleaning and emergency extractions for the Seminole people and started the 5K Run for the Nation. She served on the Tribal Public Health Accreditation Board across Indian Country for six years, advised and consulted for the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota for their new hospital accreditation while it was being built from 2011-2012.

A Seminole foster mother to twin girls for 19 years in Oklahoma County, Doonkeen worked five years for law firms as an accountant, four years as a stockbroker, three years at two banks and 66 years as a jeweler/ salesperson. She also worked in the oil and gas and medical industries and served as executive assistant to the CEO and COO of Oklahoma City Indian Clinic. She also served as proofreader and grants writer.

Doonkeen is a birth mother of one, and a mother of seven more children (three generations).

“I am traditional, know my ways, and can stomp dance. I can get by with my language, can read and pronounce our language pretty well,” Doonkeen said, adding she has been around about 60 years and is from the Mekusukey Band and Wind Clan.