Clarence Atwell Jr., who served as chairman of the Tachi Yokut tribe for 42 years, has died. He was 67.

Mr. Atwell, who retired from the position in 2009, died Thursday of cancer at Adventist Medical Center in Hanford, family members said.

He is credited with raising the standard of living at Santa Rosa Rancheria near Lemoore.

"With the arrival of Indian gaming, it gave Clarence Atwell an opportunity to give members of the tribe a better life," U.S. Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said. "He was a good man.

News of Mr. Atwell's death traveled fast through Indian country. Indian dancers from Bishop and ghost dancers from Arizona will be performing traditional ceremonies at the Tachi property, his wife, Jeanette Atwell, said.

Beginning in the 1970s, Mr. Atwell joined the Indian movement and traveled to Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to push for Indian gaming as a way out of tribal poverty. During those visits, he met Presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton, family members said.

He helped other tribes in California, Canada and the rest of the U.S., said Jerry Jeff, who grew up with Mr. Atwell at the rancheria and played with him in The Redbloods band.

"He'd take off any time just to go help," Jeff said. "That's how he got all this respect."

Starting in 1995, Indian gaming came to the Tachi tribal lands and led to better housing, a medical clinic and an elder center.

"He wanted to make sure it helped everybody," said daughter Kimberly Brown.

Mr. Atwell was born under a tree on Indian land in 1945, family members said. He was raised by his grandmother who knew the "old ways" and taught them to him.

"His grandmother only spoke Tachi," Jeanette Atwell said. "When he went to school, they had to teach him to speak English."

As a boy, Mr. Atwell hunted rabbits and caught fish, and unselfishly gave the food to elders, she said.

"He was a caring, compassionate person," Jeanette Atwell said.

In that era, Tachi members were "dirt poor" and lived in shacks, cars and on the ground, Brown said.

"He had only one new toy growing up, a red fire truck" that was donated by a grocery store, she said.

For fun, he and other children would run through dust devils and get covered in the white alkali-laden soil of the area.

They also would have "alkali fights and throw piles of dirt at each other," she said.

Like others, he went to the "Indian store" -- the county dump -- "to find clothes, toys and shoes," she said. He found a discarded Stella guitar that he put old strings on, she said.

Mr. Atwell was an original member of The Redbloods band, which he joined as a teenaged guitarist and played with until recently.

His late father was a medicine man and Mr. Atwell followed in that tradition, conducting sweat lodges and bear dance ceremonies up and down California, family member said.

In 2004, at a dedication ceremony attended by dignitaries to mark the finish of the Lake Kaweah enlargement project east of Visalia, Mr. Atwell sang a prayer song to honor the ancestors buried in the area.

His first wife, Audrey, died in 2000. He remarried two years later.

CLARENCE ATWELL JR.

Born: Nov. 30, 1945

Died: Feb. 28, 2013

Survivors: Wife Jeanette; daughters Kimberly Brown of Visalia and Cheryl Atwell of Porterville; sons Curtis McCormack, Aubrey Atwell and Rufus Atwell of Lemoore; brother Les James and sister Mary Johnson of Mariposa; numerous nieces, nephews, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Occupation: Chairman, Tachi Yokuts tribe

Services: Visitation, Monday, 4 to 7 p.m.; Mass, Tuesday, 10 a.m., St. Peter's Catholic Church, Lemoore.