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Powwow special section
— pgs. 7-11
SEPTEMBER 1, 2017
Tribal Election
Day is Sept. 9
Delayed ballots are
affecting some voters
SUN
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
T
ribal Election Day is Saturday, Sept. 9.
This year’s Tribal Council candidates for
three open seats are incumbents Tonya
Gleason-Shepek and Chris Mercier, and chal-
lengers Mark Mercier, Michael Langley, Lisa
Leno and David Lewis.
Angela Schlappie withdrew from the race in
late July, but too belatedly to have her name
removed from the ballot.
The three winners will serve Tribal Council
terms through September 2020.
According to the Tribe’s Member Services De-
partment, 4,133 Tribal members will be 18 or
older on Election Day and eligible to vote.
Ballots were mailed to registered Tribal voters
on Wednesday, July 26. Candidate statements
appeared in the July Tilixam Wawa, which was
mailed first class to Tribal members in mid-July.
During the Aug. 9 Tribal Council meeting, the
issue of some Tribal members not receiving bal-
lots was discussed and it appears many of those
who were missing their ballots are members of
the Chief Tumulth family, who were designated
for disenrollment and provisionally disenrolled
until the Tribal Court of Appeals ruled last year
that the Tribe waited too long to revoke their
membership.
Russell Wilkinson, a member of the Chief
Tumulth family, said during the Tribal Council
meeting that he and his family members sub-
mitted about 58 signature verification forms and
about 25 percent of them had not yet received
ballots.
Tribal Attorney Rob Greene said he would
contact the Election Board regarding the issue
and added that he thought board members would
handle the situation “very expeditiously.”
See ELECTION
continued on page 23
SPOT
Composite photo by Michelle Alaimo
A composite photo of the total solar eclipse that occurred over Grand Ronde on Monday, Aug. 21.
A diamond ring effect photo is on page 28.
Skies clear for total solar eclipse over Grand Ronde
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
F
or 101 seconds beginning at 10:17 a.m.
Monday, Aug. 21, the temperature in
Grand Ronde dipped noticeably, street
lights in Tribal Elder housing activated and
the sun disappeared from the sky as totality
from a solar eclipse enveloped the area.
The Great American Eclipse saw the moon
move between the sun and Earth and cast a
60-mile-wide shadow that raced across North
America at 2,000 mph.
The total solar eclipse made landfall in Lin-
coln City, Ore., and ended its path across the
United States in South Carolina. It was the
first solar eclipse to traverse the continent
since 1918.
For Grand Ronde area residents and vis-
itors, totality – when the moon completely
blocks sunlight from reaching Earth – lasted
a mere 101 seconds, but it was 101 seconds
people will remember the rest of their lives.
The Shrestha family of Portland raced to
the intersection of Grand Ronde and Hebo
roads from Pacific City on early Monday
morning when they heard cloud cover might
not burn off quickly enough to allow them to
See ECLIPSE
continued on page 13
Congressman Kurt Schrader visits the Tribe
U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader,
left, talks with, second
from left, Tribal Council
member Jack Giffen Jr.,
Tribal Council Secretary
Jon A. George and
Tribal Council Chair
Reyn Leno during
his visit to the Tribe’s
Natural Resources
Department on
Tuesday, Aug. 15.
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
U
Photo by Michelle Alaimo
.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader
received a crash course in
the Tribe’s natural resourc-
es efforts during a one-hour visit
to the Tribe’s Natural Resources
Department on Tuesday, Aug. 15.
Schrader, who represents Ore-
gon’s fifth congressional district
in the House of Representatives,
has served in Congress since
2009.
He was greeted by Tribal Council
Chairman Reyn Leno and Tribal
Council member Jack Giffen Jr.,
who made a priority of thanking him
for his help in getting amendments
to the Grand Ronde Reservation
Act through Congress and signed
by President Barack Obama be-
fore he left office in January. The
Tribe worked approximately seven
See VISIT
continued on page 12