Yesteryears -- Nov. 15, 2019

2014 – The local food bank, operated by the Grand Ronde Community Resource Center, was planning to move to a new building closer to Tribal housing. Marion-Polk Food Share was to partner with the Tribe and operate the facility. Under Tribal Council direction, Food Share was to bring a new outlook with input from the community and experts in the field to meet local and ongoing emergency food needs. “We’re looking forward to having Food Share’s wealth of expertise as we open this state-of-the-art food pantry,” said Rick George, Tribal interim general manager.

2009 – Tribal Chairwoman Cheryle A. Kennedy traveled to Washington, D.C., for the White House Tribal Nations Conference. The event, held at the U.S. Department of Interior, included a range of issues in Indian Country discussed by President Barack Obama, most of his Cabinet members and 400 representatives of the nation’s 564 federally recognized Tribes. The meeting with President Obama was one of a whirlwind of endless meetings, Kennedy said, starting Monday night and running daily through Friday.

2004 – Housing Director Carina Kistler Ginter teamed with several volunteers in the construction of the new playground area in the family housing development, Chxi Musam Illihi. The project took four hours to complete and provided children in the area with a safe place to play.

1999 – The Tribe’s new permanent cultural site west of the powwow grounds was complete. Elders and Tribal Council members hoped the area would be home to circle talks, drumming, naming ceremonies, language teaching, storytelling, field trips and sweat lodge ceremonies. The 1.5-acre site included barbecue pits, a covered area for drummers, two fire pits and two sweat lodges. Tribal member Jan Reibach, who spearheaded the project, said the site was a valuable part of the community. “I’m thankful to Tribal Council for taking leadership in the area of Tribal culture,” he said.

1994 – The Tribe reached an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management regarding a survey error made in 1871 that neglected to add 84 acres near the Reservation called the “Thompson Strip.” For several months Tribal leaders negotiated for another 240 acres of timber land in exchange for the monetary losses the Tribe endured. In exchange, the Tribe agreed to relinquish its claim for the timberland, adjacent to the northeast corner of the Reservation.

1989 – Wilmadene Butler, Bob Mercier and Rick McKnight were new faces on the Tribal Council. The three were introduced to the community in a feature article in Smoke Signals. “For the future I would soon like to see some housing go in for our people and would also like to see a rec room built for the teenagers and maybe that might help solve some of the drug and alcohol problems that we have these days,” Butler said.

1984 – Tribal members were invited to attend the second regional meeting of the Commission on Indian Services at St. Michael’s cafeteria in Grand Ronde. The purpose of the meeting was to define and report activities, identify key issues and concerns, and to report on a human resources assessment. The Commission on Indian Services had recently decided to include the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in its membership.

Yesteryears is a look back at Tribal history in five-year increments through the pages of Smoke Signals.