8 AUGUST 15, 2001
Smoke Signals
PART TWO )
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Continued...
to spend our money for our Tribal members instead of the federal government handing
us regulations say 'here, this is how you can spend it So if s been very interesting, but
a lot of hard work. I would like to add to the 10-year goals that one of my goals is to
buy back Spirit Mountain because I think that is important, that is part of our culture
and part of our heritage. I'd say the guiding principles that I feel like I've been prepar
ing my whole life to do this, to come out and speak to my people. When I submitted my
resume to different jobs, my objective was to work with and for Indian people. My end
goal was to always come back and help my people and work with them, for them. So
this Is my ideal job. It would be an honor for me to serve in this position. And I'd say
as guiding principles, I would have to say the same as everybody else and add to that
industry, teamwork and a lot of hard work."
LQREN HOLMES;
"I went to Willamina High School, didn't quite finish but I got a G.E.D (General Educa
tion Diploma). I had two years at Portland Community College and two years of corre
spondence school and then I served five and a half years in the service. I had two
years in the National Guard. My skills are automotive mechanic. I had my own busi
ness. I run that for about a year. My goals are to get back more of our reservation
land, including Spirit Mountain. If I was on council, I would treat everybody as equal as
I could, honest, if they need anything, come and ask. I'd either tell them 'yes or no' or
'whatever but I'd try to help them."
MARGARET PROVOST:
"My education started when I started working on restoration for the Tribe. There were
several of us that worked to get this Tribe restored and I don't believe anyone of us had
a real formal education. Our education came through the experience of working with
different state legislatures to get our Tribe restored. I worked at a rare metals plant in
Albany for 13 years while working on Restoration. I'm working on my external degrees
now; I have several college degrees that I accomplished while working for the Tribe. I
worked as a prevention counselor for three years and was on council for several years
and a lot of experience there. Well, my experience that applies to being on the council is
my past experience on the council. My experience as reorganizing the Tribe took a lot of
hard work and a lot of travel, met a lot of people, had to talk with a lot of people to even
get a meeting to get the Tribe restored. And that was my experience in organization. My
long-term goals I would like to see, I believe everyone has mentioned education for
our young people because education opens many doors and jobs. Everything is getting
harder and harder to get if you don't have an education. That's one of the priorities I
think should be for our young people so they could be educated college graduates be
cause we need these young people educated to come back here and take over the jobs
that people are in now, the leaderships and it wont happen without an education. These
young people need to be ready to take over these positions."
JACKIE PROVOST;
"I graduated from Lebanon Union High School in 1970, a class of 372 seniors, so it
was a big school and I had a lot of opportunities there I don't see the kids around here
have either available to them. I attended Linn-Benton Community College and Chemeketa
Community College. I'm close to an Associates degree, I originally wanted to go into
education to be a teacher, during my era, the funding wasn't there and the Pell grants,
financial aid grants was really devastating for me. I'd started a family and anyway I
went to work and I piece mealed my education between colleges and school. I worked
at Chemawa Indian Health Clinic for 10 years. I started there as a trainee in medical
receptionist and took classes at Linn-Benton and became a medical records librarian
and I continue to keep up my ICD9 (medical terminology coding) and different medical
classes you have to have to keep your certificate valid. I'm also a certified X-ray
technician. Two years ago I became an X-ray technician through Portland School of
Radiology. I work at the clinic here at Grand Ronde here at the Health & Wellness
center. I've worked here for six plus years. I think that what would help me, as a
council member would be my compassion for the Tribal people. When they come to
me at the clinic I do my best to get them in, I dont make them wait for three weeks or
some even a month. I work very hard for our Native American people to get them into
their appointments at certain times that they want. There is people that come in on a
regular basis that want that certain time with a certain provider and if s getting harder
and harder for that to happen for our Tribal members, there is just not enough room
for them. I think that we have to keep up our CPR, First Aid; there is a lot of things we
have to keep up. I can't even begin to think of all the classes continually to keep up our
education, our medical terminology the ways we do things in the clinic. Our new
scheduling program, we had to learn that, and different things with the computers,
printers and there is a lot, you just don't sit there an answer phones. You have to be
compassionate and listen to people to be a good listener and I take pride in myself in
being a good listener. I try to be a good listener, but some days it's just really hard. A
positive thing for me being on Tribal Council is knowing a lot of people. I know a lot of
the people. I can't make any promises but I can sure listen and get the information to
the right legal department, or to the E.O. or somebody that can help them if it wasn't
within my means. That's something I do at the medical clinic. I'm also a notary; we
have to keep that up. My interests are traditional things; dancing, painting, horses and
new interest is raising buffalo. I've been advisor of the Royalty; I was the first Miss
Grand Ronde for the Tribe when we were working on restoration and I met a lot of
people and represented the Tribe that way. I shook a lot of hands out there. I met a
lot of good friends during that time that I still dance with and have close connections
with, Warm Springs, Yakima and others. I just believe that I would be a positive role
model for the youth and different things that come up. I went to Washington, D.C. and
represented the Tribe there; I went and blessed some of the remains that were brought
back. There is a lot of things in the Smithsonian that weren't identified and I even
identified some and when we have a museum those things can come back to the
Northwest here. We would never own them but they would be on loan to us for an
indefinite period of time. I believe in the power of prayer, and teamwork with other
council people and the cohesiveness that needs to happen between general member
ship and Tribal Council to make things run smoother, more information so there isn't
negative things coming out or part answers that aren't fulfilling people's needs here
and what they want to know when they ask a question, that they get a good answer or
get into a good direction that they can get an answer."
MARK MERCIER:
"First of all, my formal education is I have a high school diploma. Hopefully someday
III be able to say I have a BS Degree In Political Science, which means Bachelors of
Science, not the type you hear about a lot of politicians getting now days. The appli
cable work experience on the job is I was involved with the Tribal Council when the
legislation was formulated to establish the Tribes timberland and also the land for the
casino making it eligible for gaming. I was involved in doing the footwork for that as
well along with other members of the council. I guess the long-term goals is making
sure there is adequate health care and educational opportunities for all the member
ship. I believe it is possible to acquire Spirit Mountain, although that's going to take a
lot of hard work and careful planning to achieve that, since the majority of it is under
private ownership. I'm sure that they would put up a fight it the Tribe didn't have some
other type of land to maybe make a trade with them or something like that. So, it is
doable, but it isn't going to happen over night."
CANDY ROBERTSON:
"My education, I graduated from Willamina High School in 1964. I began working for
the Tribe in the late 1970s; I came on as a Senior Transportation driver, which I really
enjoyed, I got to visit with the Elders and haul them all over and we had a lot of fun.
From after that I started serving on council, served about 10 years on there. From
1995, 1 started working at the casino when it opened. I started out as a Player's
Service representative working the floor, working the desk, helping the customers out.
I took customer service classes for that. From there I kind of worked my way into
being bus coordinator because thaf s what I like to do, coordinate. When it was asked
of the Players Representatives because we were all so new at this, a lot of us that were
working and starting out in those positions hadn't done it before. So, our director then,
Chuck Gilford (Galford), asked the representatives if there were any volunteers for
certain projects that he had in mind and coordinating the busses was one of them. So,
I volunteered for that position and started coordinating the busses. It later turned into
a Transportation Coordinator title because the job started calling for more that just
coordinating the busses as they came in. I was coordinating with the other depart
ments about the groups that were coming in for banquets or any other activities or
events that are going on at the casino. I was responsible for coordinating with RAZ
through our group sales. If a bus was late getting somewhere or did not show up, I
would call RAZ, find out what was wrong. In my job at the casino there were other
courses and training that I did take regarding our computer training. I had to have a
certain program that I used for keeping track of the routes, how many people, just
reports that we had established during my course of taking on this job. The marketing
director at the time introduced me as Candy Robertson, who developed the busing
program. I had never thought of me at the capacity of developing that program. Julie
Morrow had it before me and she set the format and all I did was come in and just the
extra things I'd like to see added for the reports and I had help doing that. Steve
Nokleby was my supervisor at the time helped me doing that. In the end it really
worked out with information that was needed. The work experience that would apply
to my serving on the council I believe not only the past experience serving on council,
but my customer service and relationships in communications I've had at the casino
with our customers, our internal customers, the employees, departments and RAZ
Transportation. I coordinated with tour operators from Canada, California, just with
other states, Washington, just the surrounding areas and Canada. Guiding principles
to achieve these goals falls under what everybody else has said how we want to serve
that's will honesty and integrity, be a good role model for everyone."
VAL GROUT;
"I probably have the least education; well I know I do, out of everybody that is
running. I quit school in my sophomore year. Education is really important to me
because I didn't get educated and the reason I quit school is because we went from
Grand Ronde, here where I grew up with everybody into Willamina. The names I was
called and the harassment I took as a Native American just from moving into Wil
lamina, I couldnttake it, I would get physically sick. I was called names and I couldn't
handle it and so my Dad said 'if you can't go to school he said 'then you have to work
So, my first job was babysitting for my sister. I had four kids by the time I was 24 years
old, so I waited until my youngest was three years old and I went to work in the fish
canneries and that's what I done for the last 25 years. But I always worked my way up
to the floor lady or the manager of my crew. So, education is really, really important to
me and I don't know if kids now days have the prejudice against the Native Americans,
but I feel for them. It really hurts and some people just cant cope with it. That's what
I want to do, give our young people - make them strong enough so they can hold their
own in school. But I've been challenged by my nephew, he said if I go back and get my
GED hell quite smoking. So, I guess I'm never too old. But I have 12 years of experi
ence on Tribal Council and I think that alone is an education if you can handle that. I
took several things that we had to go to as Tribal Council people. I guebb I kii id of tame
from the school of hard knocks cause that's how I learned. If I don't understand
something, I always go to our legal or people that have the knowledge and ask them.
That's the way you learn is if you don't understand, ask the people that know and can
tell you. I guess that's what I have is 12 years of experience on Tribal Council. My
long-term goals I guess that Jack (Giffen) challenged me to get my GED and I too
would like to get Spirit Mountain back. Another goal is to see that we get as many of
our young people in school as we can because it's hard out there in that world if you
don't have an education."
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