Good morning, good morning, good morning, welcome, welcome, welcome time Now for Native Beat.
John Weston is in studio. How are you well.
I'm a lot better than I have been over the past month or so. O Cio Nagata, Hello everyone, hostasun aali and happy Monday, or as we say in Cherokee, Bhuna dad quad nassi. It's been a while since I've been behind the microphone, as you well know, Tom, and like many of you out there, I've been battling an upper respiratory infection.
In fact, for the past month. I think I've had two of them.
So I lost my voice for about a week or so, and I could barely speak for another week. And losing my voice was a blessing for some since they were able to enjoy the silence I have a tendency to fill. For just a few days, I thought the coughing and everything that goes with the respirator infection was settling down to a point where I could function, but not so.
The second wave hitting I was right back to square one. So, as I told you when I came in this morning, I am glad to be back among the living and I'm over it, and I refuse to get it anymore. I'm done with it.
Amen.
So just a brief programming note here. This edition of Day of Beat is being record and presented on Monday of next week. I'll be a guest on mighty six ninety kggf's program for I've Read Journeys, hosted by someone well known to the station in KGGF and really well known everywhere, Chris Crane. I've known Chris for a couple of years now and it's always a delight speaking with her, and you generally walk away having learned something useful, and I've discovered that is a valuable thing.
To have in a friend.
Before we begin, I'd like to thank our sponsor, Coffeeville Cooperative Credit Union.
What can I say about CCCU.
One of the things that impresses me most about them is the hometown feel you get when you walk in the door. You're not treated like another customer but a friend. While Martin, president of CCCU, is one of the nicest and thoughtful individuals I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. If you're in the market for a car loan, financial planning, or needing a little extra cash after the holiday, head
on up to Coffeeville Cooperative Credit Union. It's where you belong, insured by NCUA, and just as with Coffeeville, we're absolutely blessed in Bartswel to have wonderful people who live here and support our community. I know several local business owners here, and I encourage everyone to buy locally when you can, because that money goes right back into our local economy and it stays here. Those dollars have a ripple effect and they improve the quality of life here for everyone.
And I've read, actually I saw a meme online and it said, you know, when you buy from a local business, you're not only buying from a local business, you're supporting singing lessons or ballet lessons, or supporting events or you know, for the children of these people who own these businesses. I mean, this money is spent here in this community, and that's where I'd like for her to stay. So Naty B would also like to thank you our listeners
for your continued support and tuning in. So something happened personally to me during the time I was away. I was elected the president of the Washington County Cherokee Association, and I'm like to say I'm honored the disassociation with place. They are faith in me and there was a unanimous election, which was just I was thrilled to see that. I was thinking about my story with regard to WCCA, and it all has to begin somewhere, right.
So the the first contact I had.
With this organization was the staging area for the annual Barsel Christmas Parade as a member of the Kawanis Club. Shout out to my friends in the Kawanis Club of Barnesville. I know Nate Thompson, he's a member of it.
Here.
We've done a great job of organizing the parade and making sure it all goes smoothly on.
The big night.
You are very aware of that, Tom, and you having covered that for the radio station for a number of years. I saw the banner on the float and for the Cherokee Association, I would have to introduce myself, and at that time the only words I even knew in Cherokee were o ceo, which means hello in Wadeau, which means thank you. In fact, we were just talking about that before we went on the air. But my first contact
was with the outgoing president, Steve Brewer. And this man is one who's been dedicated and his leadership has really brought w C to where it is today. And he has a servant's heart. When I say a servants heart. He has taught classes, he is always willing to talk about culture history, very knowledgeable man. I think he's US an engineer one point. So he's really a brilliant person. He did an amazing job as president, and I have
some very big shoes to fill. I walked up to him one at first encounter with this association, and I stuck my hand out and I said, oh, ceo when he responded back with how are you, but it was to heat you in Cherokee, And of course I didn't understand what he meant, so he immediately realized I was limited my language skills, and he saved me the embarrassment, and he was.
He gave me a very kind and warm welcome, and he.
Told me all about the association, told me about their membership, the cultural activities where they were located, invited me to a meeting and he really took the time to make me feel like I'd be welcome there. And I think that's the secret of building any organization. In great leadership, it's your people that you have and if those people feel welcome, and then in turn, if those people my brothers feel welcome, you can really build a strong and successful organization.
So I think it's.
Important that we take the time to make those who come into contact with feel welcome because they are special and I think they feel did you feel that way? Because oftentimes we just kind of dismiss people in our daily lives. So without members who care, you don't have
much of an organization. And that level of dedication as always, seems to be there with WCCA, And that's why I'm proud to be the president of the newly appointed president or elected president of the Washington kont of Cherokee Association.
Because our members care.
They care about helping others, They care about our community, preserving our language, history and culture. But we also care about one another. I was reminded of that when I attended the funeral last weekend for one of our elders.
Anne Sheldon.
Anne was a wonderful person and she loved everyone she encountered. Everyone who stood up at her funeral just had just great things to say about her and about her time as a piano teacher and how she embraced her culture and just a wonderful lady, and she did it for a lot of great things the WCCA.
She was the secretary for a number of years, and.
That's one of the reasons I've grown to care a lot for our members. They really become like your family. You see these people.
Monthly, day in day out. They come to you.
Sometimes they have needs, sometimes they just want to know where they can turn to for help. And you know, it's really one of our jobs as leadership of that community to direct them in the direction they need to go.
We celebrate together, we work together.
Sometimes we disagree, as families often do, and we warn together, which was evident Inspire funeral last weekend. And we're lucky enough to choose our family at times, either through church or organizations. And I'm proud to say the members at WCC are very much my family to me. They've given me a sense of purpose and belonging that I didn't even know I needed. I will spend the rest of my life in service to these folks and the Cherokee people.
If I can make a difference for anyone to me, that would be a life well lived.
We're looking forward to having our building.
Renovations completed at our community building progress is coming along. We were happy to receive a four hundred thousand dollars grant from Cherokee Nation for completion of these renovations. And for those who don't know, you know, we are yes associated with the Cherokee Nation as a community.
We're also an independent community.
It's called the Cherokee the Community and Cultural Outreach Department who we're affiliated with, and we are technically nonprofit entities who receive a lot of our funding from Cherokee Nation, but we also raise funds through fundraisers. But technically Cherokee Nation doesn't have a lot of authority over what we do because they want us to be independent. They want us to be boards because they feel that a lot of the things that we can do culturally can be
done at a local level. But we are very much in partnership with Cherokee Nation, very much dependent on their help, you know, and just very thankful that we have their help. It's an amazing partnership and they're always looking to make our communities better because they realize that if we have.
Strong communities, we can build a strong nation that way.
And it all starts with the family and it just goes on up from there. So as part of that grant I mentioned the four hundred thousand dollars grant, we are having additional heights installed in the parking lot. We're having our parking lot extended our facility, and then we'll now have an office, a storage room, conference classroom, and
a full service kitchen. The addition to being able to get drop ceilings now put in and the walls have been finished, we also received one hundred thousand dollars grant from Cherokee Nation recently for a storage building on campus, and that will allow us to move our equipment such as our tractor, our mowers, and stuff like that out of our back room and other material materials and open
that space up for a classroom. It's climate controlled, so instead of heating and cooling the whole building, we can.
Focus just on that space.
And the other cool thing I like about is if we're decorating a parade float, we could just back the trailer right up in there because we have access and garage to the outside, and we can not have to worry about the elements exactly.
It makes it easy. So I was just in Tahakua yesterday and sign.
An immorandum of agreement with Cherokee Nation for a seventy five hundred dollars CATTA Grant and COTTAGE just stands for our community Organizing and Technical Training Assistance, and that's to help the cost of things like contracted services such as the Internet and supplies we need for things like publishing our newsletters, a surround sounds PA system, which is something I put in for, and other things necessary for a successful operation of our association.
Another grant we're.
Working on is a twenty five thousand dollars Health and Wellness Grant, which we will use to help pay for the cost of gym memberships for our members, equipment which may need which people need to remain healthy, if they need some exercise equipment, or even maybe physical therapy something like that, because sometimes people need to help defray the cost of that. We're talking about putting in a cultural ground where we can host dances and classes, something that
might seem a little odd to a few people. I thought it was kind of unique when I first heard about it, but we've had tai Chi classes here in Cherokee Nation, and it's just to help keep our seniors healthy and other people. It's not just limited to seniors, but to help keep everyone healthy, you know, and try to promote a more active lifestyle.
As many know, crime diseases.
Like diabetes and heart disease are prevalent throughout native populations, and a key manage factor in these diseases is trying to stay healthy through exercise and diet and things like that, which are things that are really hard for us to manage.
Tom and I both know that.
Well, we spend so many centuries without all this stuff, and the.
Stuff tastes good, It does taste good, and the next thing, you know, our bodies just start ready for it. That's right, exactly right.
So within the next month, we'll be implementing a food sovereignty program where tribal members who are not receiving SNAP benefits or commodities, we'll be able to pick up fifteen pounds of meat from our eighteen thirty nine Cherokee Meat
company that's going to be distributed to our local community buildings. Elders, veterans, Cherokee speakers will receive preference, but families who are in need of assistants and who don't qualify for SNAP benefits or the commodity programs we'll be able to help feed their families every month. It's just sort of a sort of it serves as a gap program really, and it's lad to run for a year and they will gauge his success and the termit its continuation after this period.
A lot of exciting things are happening at WCCA along with our other communities. And before we go today, I'd like to mention that we should check out the Cherokee Community Facebook pages for the latest events, news and meetings. Cherokee County Cherokee Association, the Cherokee Cultural Community in Dewey, Nouita, Cherokee Community Foundation, and the Native American Fellowship in South Coffeeville. I encourage everyone, whether Cherokee or not, to find a
community and get involved. Also check out the Delaware website at Osage facebook pages. I ask our listeners not to forget the Teton Trade Cloth Store located at the Johnstone Sarah Building or their location at the Eastern Shopping Center. You can also shop online at Titantradecloth dot com.
Cherokee Nation now has two official offices.
Open at the Cherokee Cultural Community in Dewey to serve the Cherokee people. A career Services Office and Cherokee Nation Human Services Office, both located at seven hundred East Durham There in Dewey. The Career Services Office is open Monday through Friday from eight to five. The Human Resources Office this is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from eight to five.
The Washington Kuty Cherokee Association here OCHILTA, which is what I'm president of, will be hosting free Cherokee language classes every Saturday from ten am to noon by Matthew Church. He's a wonderful instructor and graduate of the Cherokee Language program. In fact, he is a kindergarten teacher down in the immersion school, and it's really great because that's about the level of Cherokee we understanding and can use right now is at the kindergarten level.
So they've really paired us up with the right teacher.
So we're located just east of the Kuiskui Healthful Clinic located on County Road twenty nine hundred. Friday February sixth, at six pm, we'll be hosting our Cherokee Delegate to Congress, Miss Kim Teh. She's a great speaker or very much looking forward to her presentation.
For those who don't know, one of.
The treaty stipulations when we moved from the eastern side of the country to Oklahoma was that we would be a point we would be given a delegate to Congress who didn't have avoting doesn't have a vote, but it simply has a seat at the table. Well, that part of the treaty has never been fulfilled by the US government, so we've been trying to make sure that we get her seated in Congress, but just as our delegate to Congress.
And so she was designated as the delegate to Congress by the Chief a couple of years ago, and she's going to be with us, like I said, February six at six pm. Also, be sure to catch our friend Chris Crane on frib Red Journeys on the mighty six ninety KGGF. Check out their Facebook page. A program I will be on today Monday at nine ten am, which is why we're recording this edition of Native Beat on Friday. You can catch a Native Beat on.
The Barcel Radio Facebook page.
You're on demand through the Barcel Radio app available in the Apple Store.
A big wadeau, as we say in Cherokee, Juanishi is the Delaware, would say, Wanzi is
The O Sage would say, And to all of you listening, do to de goha e until we meet again.