NATIVE BEAT

The new school year is in full swing everyone. They know things like new clothes and school supplies can be very expensive, especially if you have one, three, five, sometimes seven children. Maybe you'd like to start a college fund for your young scholar. If so, headed up to Coffeeville Cooperative Credit Union to see Lile Martin staff if you need some extra funds. They'll treat you right and help make your financial goals to success. Coffeell Cooperative Credit Union,

It's where you belong. Check them on Facebook or their website at cooperativecu dot com. Insured by NCUA. Native Beat would also like to thank you or listeners for your continued support and tuning in. Without you, we wouldn't be here. So there's been a lot happening this past month and

Cherokee Nation, both locally and across the reservation. In fact, Labor Day weekend, we celebrated the seventy second commemoration of the Cherokee National Holiday in Tahlequah that we've been celebrating that since nineteen fifty three, and it commemorates the original signing of the eighteen thirty nine Cherokee Constitution, which would

be the one hundred and eighty fifth anniversary. It was signed September sixth, eighteen thirty nine, for those that don't know, after contentious meetings between two Cherokee factions, the Eastern Cherokees or the Ross Party, led by Principal Chief John Ross, which I'm not sure if a lot of people are familiar with this, but kouy Skuy is actually the Cherokee

name for John Ross. I think it believes. I believe it means a little spring bird anyway, And the old settlers who settled Arkansas and what is now eastern Oklahoma in the early eighteen hundreds. A third faction, the so called Treaty Party, that in eighteen thirty five signed a way that what remained a Cherokee land in the southeast

for five million dollars, sided with the old settlers. Those led by Ross had just arrived in Indian Territory in the spring of eighteen thirty nine after being removed from their homes in the Southeast. So the Cherokee National Holiday it's grown to be one of the largest annual festivals in Oklahoma. In fact, they estimated over one hundred and fifty thousand visitors this in Ontahaquah each weekend that we have it. It's a focal point for our Cherokee heritage,

cultural awareness and the reunification of our families. And you know, it's funny because you reach out across the reservation and you meet make friends with fellow Cherokees, and generally down the line somewhere your cousins right, oh yeah, your relatives, somewhere down the line. You just keep searching long enough, you're going to find it. So that always kind of spoke to me was it really is like a reunification of families coming together celebrated cultural heritage. The festival. The

festival was jam packed. We had cultural activities events for all ages, traditional games, competitions in fact, we have a hatchet throwing was one. We had stickball, we have the cornstalk shoot. Got us a shout out to Harry Howard up at the Native American Fellowship in South Coffeeville. He won a gold medal in the hatchet throwing contests and

we kind of tease him a little bit. We are very competitive with our hatchet throwing and so we decided that we would have a Cooey Scooy commissioner for hatchet throwing, and Harry Howard was our commissioner. So it's only fitting that he brings home the gold medal. There you go. And the other events that we had. It was very family oriented. We had lots of stuff for the kids. One of the things they absolutely love is we have

an annual downtown parade that celebrates our culture. And of course we're throwing out candy left and right, and they're just going up out there and gobbling it up. Right, I've seen that parade. That is fun. It is fun, isn't it. Yeah. And we had some new exhibits at our museums and for those who don't know, admission to our museums are completely free year round, because that's really how we tell our story from you prehistoric times to

the true history of the tribe is making right now. Actually, we also had the Inner Tribal pow Wow, which is always a great event. We had just so many people from across the country come in and beautiful regalia, beautiful dancing that goes well into the night. We had about thirty five thousand dollars I believe in prize money this year at the pow Wow, which is a pretty impressive. I'm always amazed at power at the cultural ground where they have it just how they're able to get the

ground to be like a putting green. You walk out there on Oh, you're not going to trip over anything. It's like walking on carpet, right, Yeah, it's great. Also, during this time, our elected officials, they fulfill their countless duties as summer ceremonial others are at the heart of our constitution. In fact, the Chief delivered his State of the Nation address, which I had the privilege of seeing live on the Law of the Cherokee National Peace Pavillion.

He gave a wonderful State of the Nation address, as he does every year. He outlined priorities for the coming year. He also briefly discussed the intention of Cherokee Nation to continue issuing vehicle tags even if no compact agreement is renewed between the tribe and the State of Oklahoma. The Chief stated, our Tag Compact agreement shares real time tag data with the state. Everyone is safe and accountable during

a traffic stop. It is the agreement that allows us to provide car tags to our at large brothers and sisters across the state of Oklahoma. At the end of the year, we'll either have a car tag compact or we won't but no matter what happens with our compact, come January first, twenty twenty five, we will continue issuing car tags and titles to Cherokee citizens within their reservation. And that's really good news for me and other Cherokees because we like paying that forty five dollars or so

for our car tags. You know, it's a wonderful benefit to us. The Chief said the Cherokee Nation will negotiate a contract with Governor kevinstead of aable, but he stressed the compact must be fair and then it depends on the governor if Cherokee Nation continues sharing its compact revenue with the state after twenty twenty four. And a lot of people don't realize, is the love of that money that we get back from car tags. It gets pumped

back into our public schools. It does, It does, and I believe it is over a period of ten years or so, we had around seventy five million dollars and we have pumped back into local schools just here in northeastern Oklahoma. That's pretty remarkable, it is. It's great. The Chief also said his administration would inroduce a sixty five million dollars Sequoia Schools capital improvement project. He wants to

make it a stay of the art campus. He's going to ask for an additional eighty six million in loan support to help cheroche own small businesses, and a proposal that the Cherokee Nation take over the Claremore Indian Hospital, which is currently operated within the Federal Indian Health Services, and he wants to do that by the end of twenty twenty five. He stated, where a nation committed to historic resources and helping the education well for our people.

This means the generation of Cherokees coming up can be a generation of Cherokees that are healthier, better educated, in a better position to seize the great opportunities of this Great Cherokee century than any generation before it. It means that Cherokees in their twild can live with greater security and greater dignity. For all of us, it means our

communities keep improving. The Chief also cited one hundred and seventy five billion dollar gap in housing security over the next ten years, and to address that, he said that it's a crisis that commands our attention. He says, we're not a people who sit back and wait for others to come to the rescue. We're going to get up and do something about it. We are people meant to lead, and we must lead on housing and to help that

meet or to help meet that anticipated housing need. The Chief suggested bringing to the tribal council a permanent version of the Housing Jobs the Sustainability Communities Act. They would allocate forty million dollars to housing and community structures every

three years. And locally, that's what's interesting here is locally we're being impacted by the Chief's commitment to providing housing for our tribal citizens because next to the grounds of the Washington County Cherokee Association in Oceanida, which is just east of the Kouyskui Health Clinic, I'm please to report construction as underway which will ultimately result in eleven for

plexes for local families. We not only see this is a great thing for the local Cherokee citizens, but it's great for the washingtonk and Cherokee Association since we will have an actively thriving community of Cherokees living adjacent to our community building. Our association is currently taking bids or not our association, I'm sorry Cherokee Nation is currently taking bids to complete our community building thanks to the Chief and Cherokee Nation. Once completed, we'll have a state of

the art facility with a full kitchen, classrooms. We're going to have expanded parking lights for our parking lot, which has been an issue here lately, and finished bathrooms, and it's really going to be a great venue space for everyone. If they want to use it, they can rent it out. It's not limited just to Cherokee citizens. Anyone can rent that space if they'd like to. Basically, everywhere you look

across Cherokee Nation, we're building, building building. I know we have billions of dollars in construction projects going on, and I think it really speaks to the commitment the Chief and his administration has securing the future of this tribe. I think it's just it seems almost like we're going

a Cherokee Renaissance at this moment in time. The theme of this year is Cherokee Nashville Holiday, which I think was a fitting one, was weaving our future, and everywhere you look across Cherokee Nation, this is exactly what we're doing. We're building stronger communities for sustained future for our people, but also the greater communities which we resign, which include

Washington County. We live here, we work here, we run businesses here, our kids go to school here, we pay taxes here, and that's what it translates to a stronger communities for everyone, not just the Cherokee people. So anyway, I wanted to mention a few things before we go today,

a few announcements. Don't forget to check out our Cherokee community Facebook pages for the latest events, news and meetings, Washington County Cherokee Association, Cherokee Cultural Community and 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. As with many organizations, and now I've mentioned this and I see this across the board,

the membership is aging. We really need younger folks to stand up, step up, take over some of these organizations and get them active and get them thriving. Because our elders are not going to be here where it's forever, you know, we need to ensure that these traditions are carried on and that includes our culture or language, whatever it may be. This is something a concerned to every

one of our Cherokee associations. Is something we at the Washington County Cherokee Association are addressing through attracting new members and inviting back old ones. If you haven't been there to a meeting in a while, we invite you to come on back. We'd love to see you. Also check out the Delaware website and O Sage Facebook pages. They

always have something fun and cultural and meaningful happening. I ask our listeners not to forget the Teton Trade Cloth Store located at one sixty Southwest Frank Phillips and the Johnstone Siah Building, or their location at the Eastland Shopping Center.

You can also shop online at Tetontradecloth dot com. Cherokee Nation now has two official offices open at the Cherokee Cultural Community and Dewey to serve the Cherokee People Career Services Office and Cherokee Nation Human Resources Office, which are both located at seven hundred easterm. The Career Services Office, I know, is open Monday through Friday from eight to five pm. The Human Resources offices is now open Monday,

Wednesday and Friday from eight to five. And so if you need any of those services, you know, if you need update your resume, if you need help planning a job, that's one great place to go. If you're an elder or a veteran, or somebody who needs help navigating a housing application or some help with some benefits of some sort, the Human Resources Department office is definitely a place that you'd want to go visit just to get better information.

The Cherokee Cultural Community will be having at September meeting Thursday at six pm. There will be a presentation about diabetes prevention, which is something that greatly affects Native communities, this Native as well as is Tom absolutely right, it's just the plague of our people basically. But anyway, anytime you can be a educate about taking care of your health,

that's going to help build destroyer community as well. The Washington County Cherokee Association September potluck has passed, but in October we'll have a special guest with us. We're going to have the Secretary of State for Cherokee Nation, Shella Bolan. Shelle was raised not far from here in Boland Spring, which is over in Craig County. That's where Venida is located in that county. Her great grandfather had settled there as a freedman, and she holds a Bachelor of Science

in Industrial Engineering and Management from Oklahoma State University. She began her career as an engineer in the airline industry and earned a Master's of Business from Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in Bloomington. In two thousand and four, she joined Cherokee Nation Businesses. By twenty twenty, she was the senior director of Strategy and Analytics for overseeing long

term growth planning. She helped mitigate the COVID nineteen pandemic impact on our gaming, which is one of the tribe's main business sectors, which we're actually kind of shifting away from so much gaming and shifting at more to traditional businesses. I think about forty percent of our revenue comes from gaming. So we wanted to just let everyone know that she's going to be there at our October meeting. We're looking forward to having her. She's going to be a great

guest for those who don't know. Were located just east of the Kouyskui Health Clinic on County Road twenty nine hundred and one and a half miles west of Highway seventy five. Be sure to catch our friends Chris Crean and Amy Dollar with Firebred journeys on our sister station, the mighty six ninety KGGF. Check out their Facebook page. Also, we wanted to give a shout out to the Native American Fellowship in South Coffeeville that's located two fifteen Oklahoma Street.

September twenty eighth. They're going to have the great unity gathering they have every year. It's going to have lots of fun, games, food, competitions, presenters. It's going to be wonderful. Tune in to catch the next edition of Native Beat August Night, I'm sorry, September nineteenth, the nine to forty five am. You can catch Native Beat on the Barsel Radio Facebook page or on demand through the Barsel Radio

app available in the Apple Store. The Big Waldoda, as we say in Cherokee wanishis the Delaware would say wansei, as the O s Age would say. And to all of you listening, do to do goha e until we meet again.