Spilyay tymoo., March 09, 2011, Page 11, Image 11

More News from Indian Country
Page 11
Spilyay Tyrooo
March 9, 2011
Casino fuels Umatilla Reservation resurgence
PEN D L E TO N (AP) - A gi­
ant tower crane rising above the
Wildhorse Resort & Casino has
become an unlikely emblem for
eastern Oregon’s Umatilla In­
dian Reservation.
It’s part o f a $45 million, 10-
story upgrade o f the casino and
hotel east o f town scheduled for
completion in September.
The growing complex and a
handful o f Other tribal enter­
prises m ark the reservation’s
growing role as a regional eco­
nomic engine — a complete turn­
around from w hat locals call
“B.C.” (Before Casino).
“What’s going on at the res­
ervation is driving what’s going
on in Pendleton,” said Umatilla
C ounty businessm an Wesley
Grilley, owner o f Grilley Man­
agement Services in Pendleton.
“There is a hell o f a lot o f ac­
tion going on out there.”
Now one of the county’s larg­
est employers, the Confederated
Cayuse, U m atilla, and Walla
Walla tribes have taken a dra­
matic leap forward with 1,460
workers, a $35 million payroll
and a $190 million operating
budget.
That contrasts to B.C., when
the reservation’s work force was
159 with a $2.5 million payroll
and $7.5 million operating bud­
get.
T he yearlong, 184,000-
square-foot resort expansion is
expected to add 116 new jobs,
most o f them permanent, full­
tim e p o sitio n s, said tribal
spokeswoman Tiah DeGrofft.
Wildhorse encompasses an RV
park, 18-hole golf course and
Tamastslikt Cultural Institute in
addition to thé casino’ and ho­
tel.
“They call this the new “white
b u ffa lo ’ — gam ing,” said
Wildhorse general manager A1
Tovey. The rare white Ameri­
can bison sacred to many N a­
tive Americans is a fitting meta­
phor for the tribes’ newfound
prosperity.
The B.C. era ended Nov. 5,
1994 — the day Wildhorse Ca­
sino opened o ff Interstate 84
under the management o f Capi­
tal Gaming International Inc. o f
Atlantic City, N.J.
The tribes assumed manage­
ment after five years, and gam­
ing revenues have played a sig­
nificant role in the drop in res­
ervation joblessness from 37
percent in 1994 to the current
13 percent, according to tribal
Wildhorse’s gaming
revenues soared 50
percent above expecta­
tions in the first month
with almost no tribal
advertising.
figures.
While the tribes won’t reveal
the casino’s annual gaming rev­
enues to the general public, the
resort’s Wildhorse Foundation
donates 3 p ercen t o f casino
proceeds to worthy causes, arid
that am ount totaled $628,000
last year, D eG rofft said.
December unemployment in
Umatilla County, the last month
for which figures are available,
was 9.6 percent, compared to
10.6 percent statewide, said state
labor economist Dallas Fridley.
One reason may be the mul­
tiplier effect o f the reservation's
payroll, w hich is sp en t and
re sp e n t th ro u g h th e local
economy.
“The money is a new thing
for us,” said Tovey, whose heri­
tage is Cayuse and Nez Perce.
“For years, we never had any­
thing to spend.” ,
Athlete honored for tribal,
school achievement
REN O , Nev. (AP) - In
basketball, success is usually
celebrated with the ceremo­
nial cutting down o f the net
to mark a championship.
But on a recent Saturday
at the University of Nevada,
Reno’s Lawlor Events Cen­
te r, success on and off the
court was celebrated through
a traditional Native American
gifting ceremony seldom, if
ever, seen in a college bas­
ketball arena.
Tahnee Robinson, a senior
guard on the UNR women’s
basketball team, received a
Pendleton blanket from the
Pyramid Lake Veteran's and
Warriors Association in honor
o f her community service
with N ative Americans in
northern Nevada.
“I t ’s a tra d itio n ,” said
Michelle McCauley, univer­
sity intertribal higher educa­
tion coordinator. “I f some­
one is given one, th en it
m eans th a t they've done
something very special. It's a
very high honor.”
The ceremony Was a part
o f a celeb ratio n o f local
N ative Americans in con­
junction w ith the Feb. 26
W olf Pack w omen's game
against the N ew M exico
State University Aggies.
Finding camaraderie can
be d ifficu lt fo r N ative
American students at UNR.
There are only 173 self-iden­
tified Native American stu­
dents out o f 16,681 students
at the school, according to
McCauley. '
McCauley she hopes that
events such as the ceremony
held Saturday can help in­
vigorate N ative American
students and forge links with
local Native American commu­
nities.
“It is a challenge finding com­
m unity because many o f the
students don’t know anything
about their songs, traditions, or
languages,” McCauley said. “I ’ve
heard the term o f Iwalking in
two worlds’ and that’s what N a­
tive Americans at UNR have to
deal with: adaptation.”
The pre-game ceremony fea­
tu red a perform ance o f the
“Shoshone Flag Song” by Gale
Hanson o f Bishop, Calif. The
Pyram id Lake V eteran’s and
W arriors A sso ciatio n , also
known as “Namu Tookwasa,”
perform ed an honor guard pre­
sentation.
‘“N am u Tookwasu’ means
people o f the black shirts,”
McCauley said. “It’s what the
Paiutes called the cavalry when
they first came to the area with
the settlers.”
N ative A m erican S tudent
Organization President Chelsea
O ’D aye also p erfo rm ed the
“T he Star Spangled B anner”
prior to the start o f the basket­
ball game.
D uring halftime, a N ative
A m erican hoo p dancer p e r­
form ed on the court and the
group E ch o Sky p erfo rm ed
pow-wow music.
For each game attendee, Wolf
Pack head coach Jane Albright
donated $1 to Nike N7, a pro­
gram that provides funding to
get American Indian and A b­
original communities in N orth
America involved in sports.
Nike produces special N7
products and the proceeds from
sales fund grants and sports pro­
grams in Native American com­
munities, according to the Nike
N7 website.
The first 500 children to
come to the marketing table
received a Nike N 7 T-shirt
and the team wore apparel
from the Nike N7 collection
during the game, A lbright
said.
Nevada is the only NCAA
Division I-A women's team
that has a partnership with
N7, she added.
Robinson was given the
P endleton blanket on the
court before the game, but a
more formal ceremony was
held afterwards.
Albright said the event to
h o n o r N ativ e A m ericans
started because o f a relation­
ship th e U N R basketball
team has forged with the lo­
cal Native American commu­
nity through Robinson.
Robinson is a Shoshone
trib e m em b er fro m F o rt
Washakie, Wyo., and is one
o f the few Native Americans
competing in NCAA basket­
ball.
“Our team is very diverse,
and we’re interested in the
progress o f all o f our play­
ers,” Albright said. “We learn
from all o f their unique ex­
periences what they have had
to ’offer.”
Robinson, a general stud­
ies m ajor, tra n sfe rre d to
UNR from Sheridan College
in Wyoming in 2009 and was
named Western Athletic Con­
ference N ew com er o f the
Year and first team all-WAC
last season, according to the
N evada A thletics w ebsite.
She also is a current semi-fi­
nalist for the Sullivan Award
for the 2010-2011 season.
The casino’s initial success
“was a big surprise for a lot o f
us,” said Wildhorse CEO Gary
E. George. “Who was going to
come to eastern Oregon?”
But within the first m onth
and a half, 25,352 people vis­
ite d th e W ild h o rse, w hich
opened in a m odest m odular
building while the larger 40,000-
square-foot casino was built
nearby. The gaming initially was
limited to cards, bingo and slot
machines, and the absence o f
Las Vegas-style gaming, glitz and
glitter drew chuckles from some
gamblers.
T h e la u g h ter died w hen
W ildhorse’s gaming revenues
soared 50 percent above expec­
tations in the first month with
almost no tribal advertising. Slot
m achines alone 5 p aid o u t
$488,500 in the first 14 days.
T h e m o st re c e n t ann u al
count showed 750,000 patrons
last year. M ost visitors come
from a radius o f ab o u t 100
miles, many from Yakima and
the Tri-Cities, Wash. '
The casino’s success'has been
a shot in the arm for merchants
in Pendleton, population 21,000.
Parley Pearce, co-owner o f
the 106-year-old Hamley & Co.
saddle shop and western store
dow ntow n, vividly recalls a
beautiful and flamboyant Las
Vegas card player sweeping into
his store, flush with winnings
from one o f Wildhorse’s three
annual high-stakes poker tour­
naments.
“‘She laid down several thou­
sand bucks,” Pearce said.
A n unex p ected upside to
W ildhorse’s success has been
a return o f Native Americans
to the 273-square-mile reser­
vation. Tribal enrollm ent now
stands at 2,787, up from 1,492
in 1994.
Many live on or around the
reservation, which also is home
to 300 native people enrolled in
other tribes and 1,500 non-In­
dians, reservation statistics indi­
cate.
“P eople are m oving back
home,” said Marcus Luke, vice
chairman o f the tribes’ govern­
ing General Council. Luke is o f
Umatilla, Walla Walla, Cayuse
and Yakama descent who has
lived near the reservation all his
life.
Among those coming home
is 46-year-old Lisa Ganuelas,
who was raised on Washington’s
sprawling Yakama Reservation,
w here h er fath e r grew up.
G anuelas’ m o th er spent her
childhood on the Umatilla Res­
ervation.
Wildhorse “provided employ­
ment and made it possible for
me to move to my mom’s res­
ervation and get to know my
fam ily on th a t sid e,” said
G anuelas,
th e
U m atilla
Reservation’s public and legis­
lative affairs director.
W ithout W ildhorse, sh e’d
probably be living and working
in Seattle or Portland, she said.
Still, enrollment remains well
below th e estim a ted 8,000
U m atilla, Cayuse and Walla
Walla tribal members who lived
on a 6.4 million-acre Northwest
homeland before the European
contact.
Iri the meantime, the casino
continues to thrive. It expanded
in 2002 and 2005, and the lat­
est renovation will add 202 new
rooms to the hotel and 24,000
square feet to' the casino.
The new hotel tower is de­
signed to soar above the rolling
Blue Mountain foothills where
the tribes once grazed thousands
o f Spanish m ustangs on the
wild ryegrass.
Decision favors tribe in casino dispute
PH O E N IX (AP) _ A federal
judge has upheld a decision to
designate land as a reservation,
possibly opening the door to a
tribal casino near Glendale's
sports and entertainment district.
The Gila River Indian Com­
munity, Glendale and state leg­
islative leaders had sought to
overturn the U.S. Departm ent
o f Interior's decision last year
to take 54 acres into trust for a
southern Arizona tribe.
The Tohono O'odham N a­
tion aims to build a casino, re­
sort, shops and restaurants on
54 acres near 95th and N orth­
ern avenues. -
It was unclear Thursday how
quickly the tribe would begin
construction. Glendale officials
and other opponents plan to
appeal th e ju d g e's d ecision
Thursday.
The Arizona Republic says it's
not immediately known if the
U.S. Interior Department would
take the land into the reserva­
tion system before all appeals
were exhausted.
Northwest American Indian
ART SHOW & AUCTION
during Julyamsh Powwow
Greyhound Park, Post Falls, ID
Thursday - Sunday,
July 21 ”-24*’, 2011
Thursday, July 21 st
Artist and Buyer's
Reception
For information,
contact Shaina Nomee
snomee@cdacasino.com or 800.523.2464 x7408
www. i u lya msh.com
Bill would allow video slot machines
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A
state senator has filed legislation
that would legalize video lottery
games, a form o f slot machine,
in Texas.
Sen. Juan Hinojosa, a Demo­
crat from McAllen, authored
the bill that would allow video
lottery terminals in race tracks
and Indian reservations.
As the state faces a $15 bil­
lion to $27 billion budget short­
fall, lawmakers are looking for
ways to bring in much-needed
revenue.
Texans spend millions on
gam bling in o th e r states.
Hinojosa said allowing the ma­
chines in Texas would pum p
millions o f dollars into a strug-
gling economy, drive job creation
and boost tourism.
He said the legislation would
create m ore than 77,000 new
jobs in 40 different industry sec­
tors. Many conservative groups
oppose expanding gambling in
Texas. Similar measures have
consistently failed in previous
legislative sessions.
Shriners Hospitals
for Children*
This auction is a fundraiser for Shriners Hospitals
J