14 NOVEMBER 15, 2008
Smoke Signals
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Dean Mercier
REMEMBRANCES continued
from page 13
they started understanding."
Mychal remembers making her
own regalia at the age of 18.
"That's when the culture really
came in," says Candy, "when they
started making Regalia."
Tribal Elder Dean Mercier came
on an interim Tribal Council as
vice chairman in the wake of Res
toration, late in 1983. Like many
others, he had moved out of the
area because work in Grand Ronde
had evaporated after Termination.
Back he came to serve the Tribe.
Dean Mercier was among the
community rainmakers, bringing
Elders and the community fish,
deer and elk during the lean years
after Termination. He also was
known around town and beyond
for his antics.
After Restoration, the Tribe
drafted a Constitution that was
approved in November 1984, and
the Tribe had two years from the
date of Restoration to develop a
Reservation Plan, which was fin
ished in November 1985.
Following the advice of Oregon
Legal Service's Native American
Program, the Tribe went after
lands owned and managed by the
Bureau of Land Management.
Among those lands was property of
the bankrupt Oregon & California
Railroad Company (ONC), but,
They said that the railroad land
was privately controlled and off
limits to the Tribe," recalls Kathryn
Harrison.
"Dean told them they could make
it public domain land, and give it to
us," Kathryn says.
Kathryn, who was chair of the
Early Tribal Council, credits Dean
Mcrcier's tenacity and unexpected
bluntness for the Tribe gaining
more land in the Restoration pro
cess than the federal government
initially had intended to give.
" 'By God, you better give me 10
good reasons why we can't have
that land!' Harrison remembers
Dean saying. "And in the end, we
got what we asked for."
Success in getting the reservation
land restored had a specinl meaning
for the Tribe, says Mark Mercier,
who served on Tribal Council for 15
years starting in 1981. For the last
12 years, until 199G, he was chair
man. 'The tim
ber land would
give the Tribe
discretion over
income gen
erated from
timber sales,"
he says. Fed
eral funds for
health care
and housing
had all kinds
of strings at
tached. For Mark,
the return of
that land to the
Tribe is his strongest memory from
the Restoration period. He had
hunted and fished and grew up on
this land.
"It took almost four years before
the Reservation plan was signed
into public law," he says. He re
members sending three copies of
the plan to Washington, D.C. Each
time, a bureaucrat in the agency
called to say that the plan had not
arrived.
"What the hell are they doing
with those plans?" Mark remem
bers another Tribal member saying.
"Eating them?"
"I told the Tribal Council that
we had sent them close to a dozen
of those things," Mark recalls. "I'm
going out there to make sure they're
alive and breathing."
This time, he personally deliv
ered the copies, marking down the
time and date, and the person who
received them.
Once the Tribe got the timber
land, some members on the council
said, "Let's set up a rainy-day fund
or an endowment fund, in case the
timber ever goes bad.' We could
keep the crucial programs going,"
Mark says.
In the wake of Restoration, the
Tribe has grown. From 862 mem
bers at Termination, from 1,101
on the Restoration rolls, the Tribe
now has more than 5,100 members,
most who joined after the hard
work of Restoration was completed.
But many of their contributions
have been significant as well.
"Restoration has allowed me to
give back," says Tribal Council
member Valorie Sheker, 46, who
grew up in Portland. "One of my
dreams was to get an education,
raise my children here and give back
to the Tribe.
It's impor
tant for me
to have my
here."
Pat Mer
cier, mar
ried to and
divorced
from Tribal
member
Bryce Mer
cier, began
working for
the Tribe
as finance Bryan Mercier
manager in 1989. She helped set
up trust funds for Tribal members'
many needs.
"She worked a lot of late nights,"
says her son, Bryan, now 34. "Chris
and I would make our own maca
roni and cheese." Bryan came home
this year, he says, to give back to
the Tribe.
Tribal members Bryan and Chris
originally came to the Tribe almost
as "strangers." The brothers count
Tribal Natural Resources' youth
crew summer work as their first
jobs.
"We didn't know anybody, but ev
erybody knew us, it seemed," Bryan
says. "We were either 'Winston's
grandkids' or 'Bryce's boys.' I was
just blown away by how they were
offering their friendship."
"It was kind of like coming to the
edge of the world because growing
up in Salem is where we spent
most of our youth. Coming out to
the country seemed like it was in
the middle of nowhere," says Tribal
Council member Chris Mercier,
now 33.
They remember their first Tribal
Council meetings.
"They were pretty contentious.
There were shoving matches and
almost fist fights and stuff. At the
time, that was part of the charac
ters on Council," Bryan says. 'They
didn't worry about what they said,
and that's good and bad. We miss
a little bit of the salt-of-the-earth-ness,
because they knew what was
right and they stood up for it."
"What's interesting," Chris says,
"is that we were raised by the non
Tribal half of our family, but we
were always involved. The Tribal
community is more than just Tribal
members. Mom is proof of that. This
is what I've learned: Once you start
caring, you can't not care."
Bryan was the Tribe's 2003 Hat
field Fellow who afterward also rep
resented Tribal interests for federal
agencies in Washington, D.C. Chris
is now serving his second term on
the Tribal Council, and before that
was an award-winning staff writer
for Smoke Signals.
"What the Tribe has done," Chris
says, "is help a lot of people improve
their lives. The Tribe is always go
ing to thrive. It will always provide
a lot of core services. The chal
lenge that I see is what's going to
happen to Indian gaming? Unless
we diversify, we're going to be at
the mercy of whatever happens to
Indian gaming nationally. I think
we're always going to thrive, but
there are some challenges that we
are going to have to deal with, and
I think we'll find a way to deal with
them."
"The future for Grand Ronde is
in flux for now. I'm convinced that
Indian gaming is not going to be a
long-term, sustainable model for
the community," Bryan says from
his experience at the federal level
that included traveling to Tribes
across the country.
"It's been a window of opportunity
for us to benefit from, and we've
been very smart by funding endow
ments to provide future revenues
from there, but still, the community
that we've been developing with
housing and all these other services
have brought people back."
June Sell-Sherer
The Sell family left Grand Ronde
when Tribal Council member
June Sell (now Sell-Sherer) was 12.
They lived in Kennewick, Wash.,
until 1995 when she returned to
Grand Ronde to give back with a
run for Tribal Council. In 1999,
June won her first term on Tribal
Council, and has served on the
Council in many years since.
"It's the
KainiT a hla f
to bring our
people togeth
er and share
blessings
and to have
a common
bond" that
she remem
bers about
Restoration.
'There were a
lot of family gatherings; we had our
own little mini-powwows and stick
games. I remember the eels."
"I remember the land where the
casino is now," says Candy Robert
son. "We said, 'Well, this would be
a good spot (for the casino).' It's all
so amazing how it grew."
"I remember for the longest time
when my grandparents (Abe and
Mildred Holmes) lived here," says
Tribal member Jim Holmes. "We'd
come over every Sunday for din
ner and I remember just coming
through by where the casino is now,
and there was nothing there. Scat
tered homes. It was almost barren.
How much it has changed and how
much economic development has
been created. I know it's something
dad was proud of."
"It was a fight every day," says
Kathryn Harrison, "and I wouldn't
trade it for nothing."
Tribal Elders Margaret Provost,
Marvin Kimsey and Merle Holmes
actively pursued Restoration from
the beginning. Their reputation
became "the housewife and two
truck drivers that passed a bill in
Congress."
"And our education was nil," Mar
garet Provost says.
But their persistence was infi
Chris Mercier