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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 2005)
JULY 1, 2005 Smoke Signals 3 Hew Gxegom OarteE1 BeEmtfs State passes up opportunity to recognize Indians on state coin. By Ron Karten The new Oregon quarter ar rived on Wednesday, June 15, a beautiful, sunny day on the park block in front of the Oregon Historical Society in Port land. The winner was Crater Lake. Thousands of folks enjoyed the spectacle as they spilled over from the nearby farmers' market, stood in the little maze set up for those wishing to purchase some of the new quarters, and just milled around munch ing on the choco lates, the jerkys and other goodies pro vided by sponsors who were also thinking about the event's eco nomic development opportunities. Grand Ronde .Tribal Elder Kathryn Harrison, the Tribe's former Chairwoman, provided the invocation for this ceremony held within Grand Ronde's ceded lands. Sue Shaffer, Chairwoman of the Cow Creek Band joined Klamath leaders in welcoming the new quar- fc-AT.;-,? Lr . ""ft' "A I -' " . . J and the Columbia River as well as teepees that recognized the part that Indians played in the state's history. The final design honored rural Oregonians without a mention of Oregon's Indian history. A Grand Ronde booth gave out more than 200 Spirit Mountain Casino tote bags, along with countless promo tional pieces about the Tribe and its history, according to Tribal member and Management Mentee Jocelyn Kirk, now working in the Tribal Tourism office. Oregon's quarter is the 33rd to be issued in the U.S. Mint's 50 State Quarters program. The Mint has been releasing the new quarters since 1999 at the rate of five a year, and will continue to roll out new state designs through 2008. The quarters are being minted and released in the order the states were admitted to the Union. Or- bwi" " iYTTH fTTn'j : i 1 . it. v . 3 Vision Klamath Tribal member and Queen of the Klamath Restoration Pow wow Katerra Hicks listens to the speech given by Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski. ter. Klamath Elder and Tribal Council member Bobby David, Tribal member Billy David, and Tribal member and Public Infor mation Specialist Taylor R. David presented, with Taylor retelling some of the oral history about how the star of the show, Crater Lake, came to be. Crater Lake will forever grace hundreds of millions of Oregon quarters - to be minted and distrib uted in the ten weeks following June 15 for time immemorial for ward, as the Klamath, Modoc and Cow Creeks have lived on the lands of Crater Lake for time immemorial backward. The quarters, costing the Mint a nickel each to make, are produced according to demand, said U.S. Mint Spokesperson Jana Prewitt. Early designs of the Oregon quarter included pictures of salmon egon follows California and Minne sota among this year's releases. Kansas and West Virginia quarters will follow later in 2005. Errors in some releases of some of the quarters make them potentially valuable additions to the rest of our pocket change. Some Wisconsin quarters, for example, have an ex tra leaf coming out of the corn stalk, according to Clint Humbert, owner of Alpine Coin Company in Port land, making these potentially worth hundreds of dollars each. In fact, he said, the Wisconsin quarter has two mistakes with those leaves, one with the second leaf below the original leaf, and another with the second leaf even lower, into the cheese part of the coin. "I don't know what they're worth," said Humbert, "but I know what they're selling for. A guy in Arizona paid $1,000 for a set of three (one nor- ( - l v"xr "X g Respected Elder Thousands of people attended the unveiling of the new Oregon quarter held outside the Oregon Historical Society building in Portland on Wednesdayjune 15. Members of Klamath, Cow Creek and Grand Ronde Tribes welcomed the crowd and shared cultural perspectives of Crater Lake. Tribal Elder and former Tribal Chairwoman Kathryn Harrison posed for a photo with Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski shortly after she provided the invocation. mal, one with the miscast first leaf, one with the miscast second leaf). Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Delaware quarters all have coins with one side reversed, upsidedown you might say. (A normally minted quarter will have both heads and tails facing straight up when re versed vertically.) The www.statequarters.com website, recommended by Prewitt, who would only describe errors as "very rare," cautions against pay ing too much for coins with minting errors. "In reality the price for a 180 degree rotated state quarter in mint state (uncirculated) condition is in the $50 range," reports the website. Soren McAlister and Wayne Chulik represented the Grand Rondes as Honor Guard posting the colors, accompanied by the Eagle Beak Drum Group featuring Tribal members Bobby Mercier, Travis Mercier and Quinelle, along with Yakama Tribal member Richard Sohappy, Siletz Tribal member Lonnie Havernak and Nez Perce Tribal member Rich Harris. Grand Ronde Veterans Royalty members Halona Butler, Junior Queen and Leland (Brother) Butler, Young Warrior, also were in attendance, as was Tribal member Elaine LaBonte, once a Mentee in the Tribal Mentorship program, and now a Mentor in the program. The Oregon Historical Society nor mally has a $10 entrance fee. For the day, the state's historians lowered the entrance fee to a quarter. : til TNs ll 7) ff Band Hillsboro's Liberty High School Marching Band strutted their stuff along the park blocks after the Governor addressed the crowd in Portland. II
