The resulting film, “Smiling Indians,” was posted on YouTube in February. Although it hasn’t drawn the same number of viewers that videos by pop artists or antic cats might, the film did catch the attention of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” which ran a short feature on “Smiling Indians” recently.

What prompted NPR’s interest was the opening image – white letters on a black background stating “This film is dedicated to Edward S. Curtis.”

Curtis was a photographer who in 1906 began work on “The American Indian” – a series of some 1,500 images that have become iconic. In Curtis’ images, no one is smiling.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110323_11_A2_ULNSor155761

Preliminary symposium activities begin April 11, with the full schedule running April 13-16. This year’s theme is “Hands Across Nations: Smart Legacies – Strong Spirits.”

Confirmed speakers for the symposium include Dr. Theda Perdue and Dr. Craig Womack.

Perdue is Atlanta Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture at the University of North Carolina. She is an author of books on Cherokee and women’s history and was lead developer of the “Study Abroad in the Cherokee Nation” summer seminar at NSU in 2009 in collaboration with the CTS and the Cherokee Nation.

Womack is an associate professor of English at Emory University. He is an author and leading figure in Native American literary studies and argues that mainstream contemporary approaches to such studies need change.

Dr. Marcellino Berardo of the University of Kansas and Dr. Brad Montgomery-Anderson of NSU will lead the Indigenous Language Documentation and Revitalization Seminar co-sponsored by the Oklahoma Native Language Association.

Berardo and Montgomery-Anderson are linguists who studied under linguistics scholar Dr. Akira Yamamoto at the University of Kansas. They are highly skilled linguists who worked among Native language groups under Akira’s leadership. The entire group has experience conducting portions of the Oklahoma Native Languages Conference and the Annual Symposium on the American Indian seminar.

April 15-16 is the always popular NSU Powwow which will include the Gourd Dance, Grand Entry, contests and vendors. Hours are 7-10 p.m. Friday and 3-11 p.m. Saturday.

For more information about the 39th Annual Symposium of the American Indian and NSU Powwow contact the Center for Tribal Studies at (918) 444-4350 or visit the Symposium page.

When asked by an Arizona Republic reporter in 2001 about his legacy, Oliver was hesitant. “Am I a hero? I don’t know,” Oliver said after some thought. “Yeah. I’ll be a hero,” he finally said. “I’ll go for that. Yeah.”

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/03/18/20110318code-talker-lloyd-oliver-dies.html#ixzz1HRnxulBp

Sterlin Harjo’s new film Barking Water
Before Oklahoma was a red state, it was known as the Land of the Red People, described by the Choctaw phrase Okla Humma. In his sophomore film, Sterlin Harjo takes viewers on a road trip through his own personal Oklahoma, which includes an eclectic mix of humanity. Irene and Frankie have a difficult past, but Frankie needs Irene to help him with one task. He needs to get out of the hospital and go home to his daughter and new grandbaby to make amends. Irene had been his one, true, on-again, off-again love until they parted ways for good. But to make up for the past, Irene agrees to help him in this trying time.

Clarence Wolf Guts, an 86-year-old World War II veteran, was laid to rest in the Black Hills National Cemetery with the Lord’s Prayer and drum beat resonating inside the rock rotunda.

A procession of 30 vehicles — including one white Chevy Impala with the sign “We love you Grandpa Clarence, forever in our heart.” — followed a white van that carried Wolf Guts from a traditional Lakota ceremony in Wanblee to Sturgis. A crowd of over 60 traveled to pay their respects to the war hero.

“I knew he was an important man to people because of his activities in the Army, but I didn’t know this many people had so much respect for him,” said Don Doyle, Wolf Guts’ only son. “I’m very proud of him, and I’m very grateful to them coming all the way here to pay respects to my father.”

read the whole article, here >

The brochure was created as an educational and informational piece to inform local citizens and visitors of Tulsa’s rich Native American history and tradition.

The three Tulsa regional tribes featured in the brochure are Cherokee, Muscogee, and Osage Nations. The brochure highlights each tribe with a brief tribal history and information on local tribal establishments and landmarks.

For more information or to obtain a copy of the brochure, contact the Tulsa Convention and Visitors Bureau at 800-558-3311 or visittulsa.com.

For more information on a specific tribe, contact their tribal tourism office at:

• Cherokee Nation Cultural Tourism – 877.779.6977 or www.cherokeetourism.com

• Muscogee Nation Tourism and Recreation – 918.732.7992 or tourism@muscogeenation-nsu.gov

• Osage Nation Tourism – 918.287.5555 or www.osagetribe.com/tourism

Tickets for the event are $8.50 and are available at the box office, by phone at 585-3504, or on the Circle Web site. www.circlecinema.com

Hope you can join us on Saturday as we honor a great actor, Oklahoman, and member of the Cherokee tribe.

Young adult author Lorie-Ann Grover sez, “In 2008 and 2009, readergirlz, GuysLitWire, and YALSA orchestrated publishers’ donations of 20,000 new young adult books to hospitalized teens across the country.

For 2010, If I Can Read I Can Do Anything has joined forces with these three organizations to drop over 10,000 new YA books, donated by publishers, into the hands of teens on Native Tribal Lands. Nationwide, librarians, over 100 YA authors, YA lit lovers, and teens will drop YA books in their own communities on April 15th, 2010, to raise awareness for Operation TBD 2010 and Support Teen Literature Day.

They will participate further by purchasing books from the TBD Powell’s Wish Lists during National Library Week. Purchases will be shipped directly to enrich one of two Native American libraries. Everyone will join an online party that evening at the readergirlz blog.”

My five minutes of fame!  Thanks to the entire team at Ignite Tulsa, as well as all the sponsors, the fellow speakers, and everyone who came out and supported us!  It was a great night.  I was QUITE nervous (and sick!), but I made it through thanks to my wife and daughter who were there to cheer me on.

Huge shout-out once again to Andrew Bryant who was also there to support us, and of course his wife who also gave a GREAT presentation, and to the Arts & Humanities Council for all of their support and help through this entire process.  We’ve come pretty close to getting our final presentation and budget done, and ready to show to a few tribes and other groups.  We’re getting closer to start working on our pilot project!  I’m excited.

‘got a fresh new email newsletter setup and ready to rock, thanks to mailchimp (hey, subscribe please!), and we’ve got a project set up on indegogo (i won’t mention that we haven’t been accepted yet by kickstarter, or that they’re a great service and you should check them out…maybe even nudge them to say yes to the native language project… nope, i won’t talk about that).  …and we’ve got our links section up and running (more soon!) so that’s awesome.

what are we doing in march?
well, we’re going to be taking our show on the road!  …that is, we’ve got our presentation ironed out pretty well.  and we’re planning to get on the road and talk to organizations, tribes, and hopefully other nonprofits and sponsor companies about funding to launch the pilot program.

we start this thursday (march 4th) with our 5-minutes of awesomeness at ignite Tulsa, and we’re looking to basically hit the ground running from there.  this will be the first of may talks we want to give about the importance of language preservation, what others like rosetta stone are doing, and gearing up to film our pilot.