Oregon Flags Fly Half-Staff Honoring Warm Springs Chief Delvis Heath Sr.

Governor Tina Kotek ordered flags at all Oregon public institutions to fly at half-staff March 31 and April 1 to honor Chief Delvis Heath Sr., the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs' hereditary chief known by his traditional title "Witusa," who died March 29 at age 87.

The flag order aligned with Heath's public funeral in The Dalles and his sunrise burial in Simnasho. It followed a parallel directive issued first by the Tribal Council of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, which ordered tribal properties to lower flags on the same days. State buildings, municipal offices, and public institutions across Oregon observed both dates.

Heath assumed the role of hereditary chief in 1984 and held it for 42 years, becoming the tribe's most visible voice on sovereignty, cultural preservation and intergovernmental relations. Born September 26, 1938, to Nathan and Lilly Heath on the family ranch near Simnasho, he had initially declined the chieftainship when his father Nathan died in 1969, taking it up 15 years later at his community's request.

He built working relationships across party lines, befriending Republican Governor Vic Atiyeh and Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski alike, while centering the same message in Salem for decades. A fluent Sahaptin speaker who opened tribal meetings with prayer and served as Board Member Emeritus of the Museum at Warm Springs, Heath also competed in the Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days Endurance Horse Race well into his later years. On one trip to the state Capitol in the 1990s, he told The Oregonian his purpose directly: "We are a nation within a nation."

In her condolence statement, Kotek wrote that "his loss will be felt deeply by the Warm Springs community and is felt far beyond Warm Springs, including by all Oregonians who benefited from his leadership, his counsel, and his lifelong commitment to his people."

That reach extends into Lane County through a concrete institutional connection. The University of Oregon's Native American Language Institute has partnered with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs' Culture, Heritage and Language Departments since NILI's founding in 1997, training teachers and developing curriculum aligned with Oregon Senate Bill 13, the 2017 law requiring all K-12 public schools statewide to teach American Indian and Alaska Native history and sovereignty. That mandate places Warm Springs history inside Lane County classrooms, and Heath spent four decades insisting that history was not separate from the present.

He married Shirley Stahi, from Celilo Village on the Columbia River, in 1960. They raised four children together over more than six decades of marriage.