Yesteryears - Oct. 1, 2024

2019 – The Tribe sent 10 members to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of Native American activists takeover of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay for 19 months in 1969. The takeover is credited with helping to pave the way for Tribal self-rule and for leading to the return of several million acres of ancestral land.

2014 – The Tribe’s Emergency Management Advisory Council held its first meeting to discuss preparing for a Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake that could hit the Pacific Northwest at any time in the next 50 years. Help from outside would be unlikely to come for weeks or months, and the Advisory Council wanted all members to understand their role, and work to ensure that families have emergency kits and an understanding of what to expect.

2009 – With worries about the H1N1 swine flu circulating, the Tribe and Spirit Mountain Casino were preparing for a potentially severe flu season, with a separate entrance at the Health and Wellness Center for people with flu symptoms. They also provided reminders to people to keep themselves prepared with a two-week supply of medicine, food and cleaning supplies in their homes, to practice good hand-washing techniques, cover their coughs and sneezes, and clean and disinfect their work areas often. People were also advised to keep a balance of paid time off available to be able to stay home for a week to 10 days if they became ill.

2004 – A delegation of Tribal members attended the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., joining thousands of Native Americans from across the nation. Tribes helped to fund, design, curate and landscape of the 250,000-square-foot building on the National Mall. However, some criticized it for failing to adequately address how European settlers and later Americans treated the first peoples.

1999 – The Tribe thanked outgoing Tribal Council members Chips Tom and Mark Mercier for their service to the Tribe with cake, gifts and remembrances by friends and family members. Tom was presented with a Pendleton jacket and Mercier with a Pendleton blanket.

1994 – Three new Tribal Council members were sworn into office: Bob Haller, Ed Pearsall and Eugene LaBonte. Haller and Pearsall were new to the office, while LaBonte had served on council in an earlier term.

1989 – An outbreak of giardia in the West Valley was reported to have affected at least 12 people, with one person in Yamhill and one in Dayton also affected. The Yamhill County Public Health Department was unable to determine the source. The parasite is often found in river water.  

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