Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (April 28, 2005)
Spilyqy Tymoo, Wqrm Springs, Oregon April 28, 2005 Spcchtrum: youth earn Champ Stamps (Continual from page 3) Nike has nix employee net works, and one of them is the Native American employee net work. "So they let me speak to them, and I shared what we were doing. They've been a strong supporter ever since, and they'll support us on every reserva tion." The Spechtrum opened April 1 with a concert by Bruiha War Bebe, a Native American Chris tian rap artist. That was the start of something Burton said can be great in Warm Springs. "W'c had another 1 50 kids on the following Saturday night," he said. "It's just a tide. You just don't know who's going to show up. It's not about numbers, but if wc get somewhere around 100 to 250 kids a day and serve them, and serve them well, then that would be great." What's really encouraging, he said, is that a lot of the kids com i ing to the Spechtrum arc the same kids visiting more than ; once. "They come back and ; spend a lot of time here," said I Grant Poujade, a counselor at f the Spechtrum. "We're really just t getting to know them and t they're getting to know us." f ; Fully remodeled building j Inside the Spechtrum is a big room, where a stage and a wall big enough to project movies j against are located. In the ad j joining room are pool, air I hockey and foosball tables, and ! in the back room is a snack bar ' and displays of items one can 1 earn with enough Champ Stamps. These include evcry ; thing from compacts discs and I other paraphernalia on up to Nike basketball shoes valued at ' better than $100. Outside is an asphalt parking - area converted into a basketball court with a pair of moveable ; backboard-and-hoops standards. ! Burton said he has further plans for the area, such as taking the storage building out, turning the ; area into a seating place for the kids, and creating capacity to ! serve hundreds of local youth. "We're just looking at differ ent things to do," he said "It's kind of endless. W'c have plenty of resources, and we're doing t lot of futulraising. Resources are always an issue, but not nearly as big an issue as having good people and good programs. Someone can give you a million bucks tomorrow, but if you don't have the people, and you don't have any of those things in place, you can't really do any thing" Burton alternates between the Portland home base, Warm Springs, and Crow Agency, while Poujade, a student with youth work experience, is on staff until he heads to New York in July to work on his master's degree. "We've hired three local people fulltimc, and we're hir ing six total," Burton said. In addition, the Spechtrum also uses part-time and volunteer help. Jonathan Smith, pastor the Warm Springs Baptist Church, has lent his aid on a part-time basis. But Spechtrum isn't just a place where Warm Springs youth can hang out and have a good time. F.very youth who visits the Spechtrum earns points, or Champ Stamps. They can cam them by attending each day, sitting through Spechtrum's one-hour Lifeskills time each day, or even by having solid grades when report cards come out, and by helping clean up af ter an evening session. Lifeskills is a short talk by one of the adult leaders about moral or societal issues geared to hit home with the kids. Topics of discussion include things like vandalism and obeying one's par ents. When the youth are gathered for Lifeskills between 4 and 4:15 p.m., the doors and gates are locked. Kids who have commit ted to attend Lifeskills receive a snack and free run of the Spechtrum until 5 p.m., when the doors and gates are reopened. And the youths that attend Lifeskills earn the Champ Stamps. "It's going to be a huge en ticement for kids to get here early, and go through something that's going to help them. We're encouraging them to help them selves," Burton said. "We want to help the kids who are going i"1."'"1; '. i ' ' -""J ' " "-"' i., ). I ...,,.,,,. a. Bum MofttnMnSpilyay Matt Burton of Extraordinary Youth People, chats with Rolanda Williams, 10, center, and Misty Jensen, 10, at the center. to help themselves. They get their faith, but the best witness Champ Stamps for, so they can earn Nike stuff." As soon as the Spechtrum becomes more established, Bur ton said he wants to initiate pro grams like drug and alcohol pre vention and recovery, and sexual abuse prevention and recovery. I le said he would like to give youth the means to start their own starter businesses. "Once we really get going, we're going to start a micro busi ness program and actually teach the kids how to start running their own businesses," he said. Spechtrum, and Extraordi nary Youth People, are Chris tian organizations, but Burton said he wants that to be a steady underlying theme of the center, not an overbearing presence that offends. "Faith is a part of everything that we do, for our employees and our interns," Burton said. "We don't have scriptures spray painted on the basketball hoops. If you go into our building, you don't see a bunch of stuff all over the wall because it turns kids off, only because they don't understand why." "We have hip-hop church, where we're all about rap music and Christian music. We certainly are evangelistic, because that's who we are, but kids can come here for probably 10 years and probably not feel really weird and still hang out with us. We certainly want kids to get excited about what we're doing and we want to do the same thing with is just being yourself and then going from there. Let the light shine. Let your light shine and let them see what they think." Burton said he sees the Spechtrum as an equal part of the array of choices for youth in Warm Springs. "It's a not a competition," he said. "So many kids are at high risk for a number of different reasons, there's plenty of room for these kids to go anywhere." Through Burton's initiative and connections, the Spechtrum could be one of the better funded resources for youth at Warm Springs. The Spechtrum holds its first fund-raising ban quet Saturday, and along with a number of tribal officials and local businessmen, a number of businessmen from outside the area will be on hand. "The guy who owns Pendleton Woolen Mills is go ing to be at our banquet," Bur ton said. "Along with Alaska Air lines and all kinds of people we're connected to who are in terested in helping. Lots of people want to help Native people and have a real heart for 'Native people. They just don't know how." Burton said he is looking to start a youth center on the Fort Belknap Reservation in central Montana, but first he wants to get the Spechtrum in Warm Springs established first. "We're long term. We don't go anywhere we're not planning on staying, period," he said. Tour: plan is to involve younger tribal members ' (Contniued from page 1) Those rights are still alive and ' available to tribal members, for ; gathering traditional foods, like ; roots and huckleberries, for the ,' annual feasts and for hunting of game animals. ' Though tribal members ask private landowners for permis sion to gather food on those ; lands, Suppah said the tribes and J tribal members must assert ; themselves on public land within the Ceded Lands, i One of concerns, he said, is the management of deer hunt ing within the Ceded Lands. "In 1982, Tribal Council implemented the policy of sal vaging big game on the reser vation, and we began to recog nize that deer herds were being depleted," Suppah said. "And they started the concept of 'cer emonial hunting,' to take out a percentage of animals per hunt ing unit." Since 1982, he said, the herds in those units have diminished to the point where it would cause the tribes to "negotiate for a higher percentage of the take or exercise our treaty right." On average, in the past 130 deer were taken each year for cer emonies, such as First Kill cer emonies, naming ceremonies, and funerals. The average num ber of deer taken by the tribes has dropped from 130 to 82 per year, he said. The tour began March 24, leaving Warm Springs and head ing for a location on Boundary Skyline Road north of the res ervation. Along the way mem bers of the Tribal Culture and Heritage Committee spoke about huckleberries, bear grass and mushrooms. "Emily Waheneka pointed out some of the campsite ar eas," said Jacob Frank, of the Natural Resources Branch, "We found out what the Indian names were. It was really a good experience, listening to stories of families that traveled. It would be a great thing for our young people to hear." The group moved to Hood River to meet the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commis sion staff, and representatives from the Bonneville Power Ad ministration. They heard infor mation on ceremonial fishing, and visited the soon-to-be tribal casino site at Cascade Locks. After lunch the caravan, in three vans, moved to the Mosier Mounds in east Wasco County. The group later went back to the The Dalles area to see 15-Mile Creek and lamprey fishing sites. They traveled to Celilo Vil lage where the topic of discus sion was the redevelopment of the village and Celilo Park. Last year, Congress passed the Native American Technical Corrections Act, which provided the federal government, thor ough the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, $11 million to rebuild homes for the nearly 100 resi dents of Celilo Village. The funds are also to help with in frastructure work at the 31 -acre village, which was moved in the 1950s following the construc tion of The Dalles Dam which inundated Celilo Falls. A new longhouse will soon be built in Celilo Village. Youth involvement Starting in Pendleton, the group on Friday, March 25 trav eled to Willow Creek in Mor row County and met with mem bers of the Umatilla tribe. They discussed tribal history and back ground of the Ceded Lands of the area. The group moved to Ukiah, in Umatilla County, to visit campsites and talk about tribal life before the 1855 treaty. On the final day of the tour, the caravan visited Heppner, Prairie City and John Day. They then left for ceded ar eas on the Middle Fork of the John Day River before heading back to Warm Springs. "It was a good tour," said Frank. "We moved around a lot out there. It's good to get out, because you're looking at a place first-hand where your people can go to gather differ ent kinds of foods. It would be very educational for our young people." Suppah said his aim, through inviting young tribal members on future tours, "is teach them about the lands and our way." "If we ever give that up," he said, "it's hard to get it back. It's important for the kids to get involved." He said most of what young tribal members learn about the culture of the tribes comes from the home. "My goal would be to teach them how to hunt and gather roots and berries," he said. "And recognize the food that's out there." As 40 percent of the land is open and unclaimed, Suppah said it is especially important for the Tribal Council to be involved with the government land-management agencies, and keep them aware of the tribal rights. "At some point, the tribal government needs to start ori entating the people as to what they have, so we can exercise our sovereignty," he said. The tribes have several por tions of land called domain al lotments, including ones on the Hood and John Day rivers and at Condon and The Dalles. "There are a lot of tribal-owned lands," Suppah said. Suppah said a tour of the ceded lands for younger tribal members would be scheduled next year. Suppah said the presence of six members of the Tribal Coun cil on the tour was a good indi cator that as a body "we care and know that we need to visit our country." He said he hoped, too, that the Tribal Council would be able to support such tours and budget for them, "and take the burden off the com mittees." He said he would ask that school curricula for tribal youth include information on the Ceded Lands, including the lan guages of their tribes, how their ancestors defended themselves and their homeland, and who their ancestors' neighbors were. Tourism: visitors to choose from variety of activities (Continued from page 2) The biggest concern commu nity members who attended the meetings had, Sahme said, was striking a balance between invit ing the vacationers to the reser vation and preserving the res ervation, both its land and its people's privacy. "That was probably the loud est outcry, and this goes back probably 30 years ago or longer. People want to protect the pris tine areas of the reservation," he said. "The idea of guided tourism would help protect and limit access, and really promote the values of our people, while providing economic opportuni ties to the tribal members." Clements said that what he and Sahme see is a "menu" avail able to prospective visitors to the reservation. Through use of the Internet, for instance, the tribes could offer a variety of activities. These might include an op portunity for bird watching or classes on weaving at the Mu seum at Warm Springs. Or it might include a visit with Lucinda Smith. "She was one of the ones who came to the meetings to share her experience of how she would serve her activities, be cause she was working out at Kah-Nee-Ta," Clements said. Greene has an expertise in tribal culture. "She knows the religion and the ceremonies," Sahme said. "That was kind of her re sponsibility at Kah-Nee-Ta." Greene, Clements said, will be "one of the stars of the show" when he and Sahme present their ideas to the Tribal Council on their tourism plan. "We've yet to get it approved and blessed by the Tribal Coun cil," Sahme said. "They are aware of it. We've been updat ing them on occasion over the last year or so, and we've heard from them that there is a need for this kind of effort. "It's probably been five years in the making as far as planning, so we've now seen the fruition of that and we'll get the bless ing of the Council and we can move on. There is a lot of ex citement for local business owners." Sahme attributed Jolene Atencio, Warm Springs' new Small Business Center Director, as "instrumental in our compre hensive planning." Clements said the form of the guided tourism menu would depend on how many exhibitors might be available. "If you were a person who is doing some ac tivity that could be considered tourism, and if you wanted to sell it, you could come to look at how to get on the menu," he said. "We could work with the person or group, and they can create a Web site." Pricing, he said, is key. Clements said a potential exhibi tor could work with the Small Business Department to deter mine a price. He said the menu would also provide a standard for the vari ous participants. This would be especially important when ap plied to matters of tribal culture, such as when regalia is worn and dances performed, Clements said he sees having a welcome center, an initial point of contact for visitors from overseas, as well as possibly a motel, in Warm Springs. "When those folks show up, we would make sure that all the right people are there to meet them," he said. The activities would be well planned out, such as a tour of the high lakes, or hiking, bird watching. "There are so many activities that are going to be available, we didn't want to try to put together a list. We just want to make these things available." Other attractions like van tours of historic and scenic sites on the reservation, or even a scenic route, could spring forth and become part of the array of available activities. Clements said he believes it is possible the Warm Springs Reservation could support an other hotel property besides Kah-Nee-Ta, as the reservation's tourism industry grows. Some people might be con cerned that there were another hotel on the reservation, "it's going to knock Kah-Nee-Ta in the head, but I tell them it's not," said Clements. "Kah-Nee-Ta is a destination property. If we do a good job, you're going to have families coming back to Kah-Nee-Ta year after year. That's been the story." 8320 11th St., Terrebonne, phone 504-9398 4 r ' o fk 1 -:HfV' r-i- 1 1 14 I A $10 haircuts by Cheryl, one week only. Call for an appointment, walk-ins welcome. We have tanning beds too! Sonny's Dinner House & Lounge Family style all new menu Soup and Salad Bar Try our nightly aljou can eat specials South Hvy 97, Madras