OK Choctaw Tribal Alliance, Inc.

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Halito! Chim achukma? This is the page where we will post general news. If you have an interesting item to report, send it to us by email by clicking on the Contact Webmaster link at the bottom of the page. Or, tell Stormy Bryant at the regular meeting, the board meeting, or wherever you can catch him.

We should have plenty of room, so we invite you to also include personal news such as anniversaries, births, deaths, graduations, marriages, attendance at meetings, recognition by other organizations, or other important events in your life. This is your web site, but we can't show it unless you tell us about it. Plus, everybody likes to see their name in print. The more stuff we have about people, the more people will visit the web site.

  ◊◊◊  We are going to enter a float again in this year's Edmond Libertyfest 4th of July parade. Ken Jacobs and Walter Chrysler will do the framework on the trailer and take it to the parade assembly point on the University of Central Oklahoma campus. We need to meet there about 7:00 a.m. on Friday, July 4th, to finish decorating the float. Click HERE for a map of the assembly point and the parade route.
We need lots of riders, so put on your Chahta (or Mohawk) regalia and head for Edmond on the Fourth of July. Don't miss the chance to ride behind our fancy new Choctaw pickup.
The Chickasaws are going to enter a float again and you don't want to be outdone by them, do you? Neither group won a prize last year but 2008 is a brand new ball game. The Chickasaws are going to have Cmdr. John Herrington, the astronaut, with their float, so we need to fix up a nice one with lots of riders.

  ◊◊◊  We are going to take the Indian Taco Trailer to the Indian Hills PowWow on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 25, 26 and 27, 2008. We will take the trailer to the PowWow grounds and set it up on Thursday, July 24. We will sell tacos on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and pick the trailer up on Monday. Myrtle King's family has volunteered to run the trailer on Saturday, so we need volunteers to work on Friday and Sunday. We will discuss final details at our regular July meeting on Monday, July 14th.
Click HERE to see the flyer with all the PowWow details.

    ◊◊◊  If you have read the Home page you will know that we now have that big, shiny pickup to pull the Indian Taco Trailer to Tushkahoma. Start making plans to attend the Labor Day Festival and volunteer to work in the trailer. We are going to try to secure a place to stay at night for those who work in the trailer. We will also try to get a Choctaw Nation bus as usual on Saturday. Also, everyone should start thinking of other places we could take the trailer. The proceeds from taco sales are the lifeblood of our organization.

    ◊◊◊  The Annual Trail of Tears Walk was held on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at Wheelock Academy near Millerton, OK. The Choctaw Nation provided us with a bus and driver. Everyone enjoyed the trip, even though we had to get up in the middle of the night to travel all the way to Wheelock. We will soon post photos of the trip on the Photographs page.

We had a very good and very pleasant bus driver, Stan Goolsby. He has a questionable sense of humor, though. When we asked him how to spell his name he said G-o-o-l-s-b-y, not Goldsby like a rich Chickasaw!

   ◊◊◊  The OCTA membership and the Choctaw Language Classes participated once again in the Oklahoma City St. Patrick's Day parade on Saturday, March 15, 2008. You can view photos of the parade on the Photographs page. Thanks to Ken Jacobs and Walter Chrysler for rigging up the trailer and to everyone who participated in the event. Mark St. Patrick's day on your next year's calendar because we will probably do it again. The parade organizers appreciated us, the spectators enjoyed us, and everyone who participates had a good time.

Fittingly, on the very morning of the parade The Oklahoman published an article on its editorial page remembering the famine relief donation by the Choctaws to the Irish during the Great Potato Famine. The following link will take you to the story on their web site. **THE CHOCTAWS' GIFT TO IRISH** We thank The Oklahoman for its recognition of our ancestors' act of humanity.

In case you have never read it, The Long March by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick is a wonderful book about a Choctaw boy in 1847. He wonders why the adults want to give a bunch of money to the Irish even though the nahullo have taken their homeland and forced the Tribe to move to Oklahoma under brutal conditions. The Irish author came to Oklahoma and worked with the Nation in her research for the book. She illustrated it herself. The drawings are not only very good, but they are also historically correct. It is a child's book, but it carries an adult's message. You don't even have to buy it because The Oklahoma County Library has copies of it.

   ◊◊◊  At the March 10, 2008 meeting we decided to encourage people to register and vote by making Oklahoma Voter Registration Application forms available to our members and guests. The forms, along with several informative pamphlets provided by the Election Board, are located in the lobby of the OCTA building.

In Oklahoma we use just one form, the Oklahoma Voter Registration Application, for most purposes. You can use it to register to vote, to change your address for voter registration, to change your name, or to change your political affiliation. Just be sure to read the instructions and fill out all of the information it calls for. You should fill it out and mail it in as soon as possible, for voter registration closes 24 days before an election, and you cannot change your political affiliation between June 1 and August 31 in even-numbered years.

You can also find the forms at county election board offices, tag agencies, public libraries, post offices, and the State Election Board. You may also download a copy of the form from the State Election Board's website at www.elections.state.ok.us.

Please, please, please, just remember one thing. Your civic duty does not end when you register to vote. Many people get excited about the idea of registering to vote and forget that the whole purpose of the drill is voting. If you register to vote, be sure to vote. If you know that you cannot make it to the polls on election day, contact your county election board and make arrangements for them to send you an absentee ballot. You can also vote an absentee ballot at your county election board from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on the Friday and Monday before every election. In federal and state elections, you can also vote at the county election board from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on the Saturday before the election.

  ◊◊◊  The Wild Onion Dinner on Saturday, February 23, 2008, was a great success. Thanks to everyone who attended it, to everyone who worked and donated goods, and especially to Myrtle King, the pehlichi (boss). We have some photos of it on the Photographs page.