Smoke signals., August 15, 2000, Special Edition, Page 4, Image 4

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Tribal member Kathleen Feehan was the guest
speaker at this year's awards dinner. Kathleen earned
a degree in Environmental Biology at Dominican
College in San Rafael, California. For the past five
years, she has worked for the Tribe's Natural Re
sources Division as the Environmental Coordinator.
Her message to the audience was about the
importance of taking risks. She said, "Our Tribe needs
the kind of people who are willing to take personal
risks to risk speaking up for the values that they
believe in. We need people who don't go through life
thinking 'maybe another time I'll speak up' because its
too easy to slide through life saying to yourself
'maybe next time.' Your perspective and values are
more important to the Tribe than you know."
By Marion Merrier, Education Division Manager
The annual Education Honor & Recognition
event was held on Saturday, May 20, 2000 at
the Grand Ronde Elementary School. This event
is held each year to recognize the success and
accomplishments of our Tribal member students.
About 230 people attended this year's event.
We had a record number of graduates at the
event this year 12 eighth grade graduates
were present and recognized, 10 high school
graduates were present and recognized, one GED
graduate was present and recognized and 10
college graduates were present and recognized.
A total of about 75 graduates were recognized on
the event program. Our Tribal membership
graduates increase each year.
My hope is that each and every graduate
realizes how proud the rest of your Tribal mem
bership is of your personal accomplishment.
When we belong to a Tribe, each accomplishment
of a member is an accomplishment of the whole
Tribe. Each success is another measure of success
for all. You may not personally hear the con
gratulatory words, but you can bet that your
successes are taken to heart by every Elder who
reads your name, by every parent who knows of
your accomplishment and dreams of the day their
child will graduate, and by every child that looks
up to you in awe as you walk by in your gradua
tion gown and anticipates the day they will be
the one in the graduation gown. Be proud of
your accomplishment, as we are all so proud of
you. CONGRATULATIONS to all of you graduates.
Also recognized at the Honor & Recognition
event were 130 Tribal member students
elementary through high school who received
Achievement & Recognition Awards. These
students put a lot of work and effort into prepar
ing an Achievement & Recognition application
packet. Each student must write a personal essay,
get two letters of recommendation from their
teachers and send a copy of their Tribal ID.
Here, at the Education Program, we really enjoy
reading the student essays. This is our first
introduction to many of the Tribal membership
youth. The philosophy behind the creation of
the Achievement & Recognition program is to
allow our students the experience in completing
an application process. This experience will help
prepare students to fine tune skills needed in
their future to fill out scholarship and employ
ment applications. The more often our students
complete this application process the better they
get at it. Parent support in this endeavor is
helpful but, it is the student who will ultimately
benefit from the practice. GOOD JOB to the
students on all of those applications!
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