MEET THE COMMODORE
LCDR Shelby Dawson-Tallchief, USNSCC, is the founder and Commodore* for the Bataan Military Academy. He serves as the Commanding Officer of the local United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps Bataan Battalion RMR-15-2 (USNSCC), holding the official rank of Lieutenant Commander in the USNSCC. The Commodore was influenced by his father who was a decorated Army Air Corps B-24 pilot in the Philippines and flew forty-four bombing missions over Japan during World War II.
Born in Oklahoma he grew up on a small farm on old reservation land. He attended public schools and holds degrees from several universities including Central Oklahoma University, Texas Christian University, Claremont School of Theology and the University of New Mexico. He is a proud tribal member of the Great Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Professionally, he served as an assistant pastor, prison correctional counselor, school teacher, school counselor, school administrator, hearing officer and nationally certified administrative law judge. His USNSCC experience includes service as Training Officer, the Executive Officer for several training commands, USNSCC Regional Training Officer, the Commanding Officer for the USNSCC Fitzgerald Squadron, and presently the Commanding Officer for the Bataan Battalion and Associate Regional Director for Arizona and New Mexico.
Having studied charter law in the early 1990s, he began creating the Academy by visiting the Delaware Military Academy, the nation’s first military charter high school located in Wilmington, Delaware. The creation and development of the Academy was a project that required hundreds of hours of writing, engagement with the state authorizer and support of the greater Albuquerque community.
The Academy was officially authorized in November 2006. Following the official recognition by the State of New Mexico Public Education Department, as the school’s administrator, he began ‘physically’ creating the high school by writing and monitoring a federal grant and the state budget, hiring an assistant principal and business manager, overseeing an advertising project, interviewing prospective students and their families, interviewing and hiring teachers and staff members, locating and remodeling a building, ordering furniture, books and supplies, monitoring the purchase of science laboratory equipment, computers and other technology, stocking a military supply with uniforms, and developing sports and military style activities.
During the years 2004-06, the Commodore negotiated a lease for a portion of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center, that, it is hoped, may eventually serve as a permanent location for the Academy. These plans continue with the City of Albuquerque. As other possible permanent locations, the school has made a request for land on nearby Kirtland Air Force Base, continues considering commercial properties in the geographic area, and is exploring state-owned land.
The Commodore reminds us that unlike most military academies with costly tuitions, and because the Academy was created as a public school, Bataan Academy is tuition free. This characteristic is a reflection of the Commodore’s determination to reach out to all high school age, hard working young men and women in the greater Albuquerque community. Dedicated to providing a world-class education for Cadets, the Commodore continues his dream repeating that the Bataan Academy is truly “the right thing, at the right time and for the right reasons.” For him and all of us at Bataan, it is a "dream come true."
*) The term commodore is a positional authority, Navy-related title referring to the principal of the school. The U.S. Navy discontinued the official rank of commodore in 1946.
HONOR, COURAGE, COMMITMENT
