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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (June 24, 2004)
Univeriity of Orerjon Library Received oni 06-29-04 Spilyay tytoo. SCO OrCoil E 75 .568 v. 29 no. 13 June 24 004 Tymoo Coyote News, est. 1976 June 24, 2004 Vol. 29, No. 1. tWb ..Mi5pnngs,0R97V 50 cent Spilyay !87ol v Housing keys taken during break-in $1,000 reward offered The Housing Authority building was broken into last week, and between 150 and 200 keys to the Housing units were stolen. All of the locks on the tribal, low rent and seniors units had to be changed. A $1,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people re sponsible for the break-in. The incident happened in the early morning hours of Wednesday, June 16. Two windows to the Housing Author ity building were broken. Entry was gained through the conference room window at the south end of the build ing. Four interior doors were also kicked in, and two pop machines were van dalized. The suspect or suspects were apparently trying to get money from the machines, but were not able to do so. The suspects used a Housing Au thority computer to download pictures from the Internet. The copy machine was then used to make several copies. Because of the content of the images that were downloaded, it seems that youth are involved in the case. Items such as a VCR were not taken, which may indicate the suspect or sus pects were traveling on foot. The most serious result of the crime was the loss of the Housing keys. Cost of changing all the locks will be in the range of $12,000 to $14,000, said Satch Miller, the acting Housing Authority manager. In addition to this cost, there are the costs of fixing the windows and doors, plus the personnel time it took to re place all locks and get the office back in proper order. Six workers from the Maintenance Department went around on the days following the break-in to replace the locks and issue new keys to the tenants. The $1,000 reward should be a sub stantial help in generating information leading to an arrest, said Miller. If there is a conviction in the case, then Hous ing would also seek restitution for the costs associated with this incident, he said. On the morning of the incident, police and fire crews responded to the scene when a smoke detector was acti vated. This happened when the suspects sprayed a fire extinguisher inside the building. MwA I'j D Yf ..;v , Kasheena Stevens is running for Lil' Miss Pi-Ume-Sha. See her statement on page 7. Dave McMectiaiVSpilyay Pi-Ume-Sha The 35,h Annual Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days celebration begins this Friday.June 25. The three-day powwow will mark the 135th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of 1865. Grand Entries are at 7 p.m. on Fri day, on Sjturd.iy at 1 and 7 p.m., and on Sunday at 2 p.m. The parade is at 11 a.m. on Saturday. Dance contests are throughout the weekend. For sports fans, the ball fields will be busy with the Pi-Ume-Sha Softball Tournament. The Kah-Nee-Ta Golf Course will host the annual Fry Bread Golf Tournament on Saturday and Sunday. The Warm Springs Boxing Club will be taking on challengers dur ing the Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Days Box ing event, starting at 4 p.m. on Satur day at the Community Center. Runners can participate in the Pi-Ume-Sha Run. The rodeo is Saturday and Sunday, starting at 1 p.m., at the Warm Springs Rodeo Grounds. The center of activity will be the Pi-Ume-Sha grounds, by the Commu nity Center, where the drums and the dancers are. The bleachers around the central field will fill with spectators. The vendors will have all kinds of food -Indian tacos are the specialty - for sale. Earlier this week the preparation work began at powwow grounds, fol lowing the Monday morning blessing. There are the bleachers and booths and teepees that need to be assembled, plus the lighting and sound systems that need to be set up. Former governor Vic Atiyeh and his wife are expected to attend, as has become their custom. Gov. Kulongoski is expected Friday evening at the banquet at Kah-Nee-Ta. Members voice concerns at Council gathering By Dave McMechan Spilyay Tymoo Members of the new Tribal Council heard comments on a wide variety of subjects at the General Council meeting last week. Some of the more heart-felt comments came during discussion of the Summer Youth Work program. Summer Youth is a tribal pro gram administered by Workforce Development, which is under the tribal Education Branch. This year summer youth has a standard for eligibility based on stu dent grade point average. The idea has been around for a while, and this year was implemented. The stan dard requires students to have at least a 2.0 grade point average in school to be eligible for summer youth work. Marcia Minthorn said the standard discriminates against children who may be in the most need of some help from the tribes. It discriminates against kids who may come from troubled homes, "kids who had strikes against them when they were born," said Minthorn. Others who attended the General Council meeting agreed with Minthorn, saying the 2.0 GPA requirement was not fair. Wendell Jim, manager of the Edu cation Branch, said the decision to adopt the minimum GPA requirement was a difficult one, "but we have to make hard decisions," he said. The budget for Summer Youth is $146,000, said Jim. This is nowhere near enough money to fund a work program for all tribal youth of qualify ing age, he said. His branch was asked by Council to calculate how much it would cost to employ all tribal member youth be tween ages 14 and 18, for three months at $6 an hour. The cost for this would be about $1.9 million. "We have $146,000. We can only employ 60 tribal member youth," said Jim. "We have to make these hard decisions and set stan dards for the work force." He said that his branch places the highest emphasis on education. "The key that opens the door is education," he said. Some in the audience responded that a problem with the system never theless exists. "What about the kids who don't have the 2.0? What happens to them?" one person said. Another added, "So you hire 60 kids, and the rest are on the streets in trouble with alcohol and drugs. We need to find something for them." See COUNCIL on 14 Two sisters, two different worlds By D. "Bing" Bingham Spilyay Tymoo Half sisters Cecelia "Cece" Herrera and Marta Rubio, both tribal members, grew up in two different worlds - one on the reservation, the other in Ma dras. Growing up separately wasn't their choice. Court battles between parents and guardians, and other family prob lems got in the way. For these sisters 15 miles might as well have been five thousand. "When my Dad and Mom sepa rated, I was 6 months old and my step mother didn't like my biological mom," says Marta Rubio. "My Dad fought in court for 12 years and I had this bad image to not hang around the rest of my family." Cece and Marta knew each other was out there, but they couldn't do anything about it Communication be tween the separated families was spo radic at best. Occasional birthday vis its were supervised and filled with ten sion. Sometimes the girls could pass 1 :: "V I V J- -- ' - ti n -n . ,- . Marta Rubio and Cece Herrera Bing BmghatrvSpityay messages to each other through a mu tual friend. "I have a step sister who would com municate between us. She would say 'Cece said this' or 'Cece said that,'" says Marta. "I had to lie to my parents to see my sister and my brother and Mom. I was 12 and 13, so it's not like I could just drive out there and say 'Hi.'" Time passed, Marta got married. Along with the marriage came additional independence. Sometimes when her mother was stranded in Madras, she'd give her a place to stay or a ride home. Other times a few dollars from her waitress wages at Martina's Market helped her mother through a rough spot. Eventually, the young women's mother, atwai Helene Spunky" Authur, passed on in January 2003. It was a bad time for Cece Herrera. She was working as a literacy tutor in Boulder, Colorado. She lost her job, developed kidney stones and lost her mother in a short period of time. "I threw in the towel," she said. "I came home to the reservation to start over." She recovered from the kidney stones and got work as a teacher's aide at Warm Spring Elementary. But it wasn't enough. "I'd lost my mom and I needed my sister," she says. "She's the only sister I have. She's always going to be my only sister. I needed to get to know her. I don't want to wait until it's too late." Marta Rubio, due to a busy sched ule, had not been able to attend her mother's funeral. Cece was still trying to rebuild her life. Together they went out to visit their mother's grave. The estranged sisters won't say ex actly what they talked about at the gravesite that day, but it's probably a safe bet they covered a lot of ground - and a lot of intervening years - a deeply private and personal time be tween two sisters. "I took her out to the grave and we've been closer ever since," says Cece. Time passes after a death in the fam ily and the healing begins. "Even though I lost my Mom, I don't feel as lonely as I did before," says Cece. "We both comfort each other and are there for each other, it's just like the way sisters should be. I really like it." So Cece Herrera started hanging out at Martina's Market to learn more about her new-found sister. At first she was a little nervous. "I was glad I'd found my sister and I was nervous too," she says. "You know you're related, but we're strangers too. I was scared, but not anymore." She says, "It seems like we do ev erything together. I have more fun since I know her. We get to hang out. We bring out the best in each other. She makes me feels good about myself." See SISTERS on p,ige 7.