Turns out, it was part of a peculiar international sham. Mariner and the Samoan delegation subsequently rubbed elbows with county commissioners, tribal leaders, school leaders and even the sheriff, which all led to a public signing ceremony.
Coincidently, Mariner, who claimed he was the nephew of the Samoan ambassador to the U.S., and he arranged for the ambassador and high-ranking Samoan education, health and cultural affairs ministers to meet with local officials. When she learned that Samoa didn’t have access to web-based educational programs, Miller quickly offered to help. One day, he struck up a conversation about his homeland, some 5,600 miles away in the Pacific Ocean, with Ann Miller, executive director of the learning center at E. LeRoy Lafaialii Mariner, a Samoan living in Cortez at the time, was studying political science at Utah State University by taking online classes at the Unlimited Learning Center.
In April 2013, a Cortez-based online education center entered into a historic agreement to expand its reach to the remote Independent State of Samoa.
