Trail of Tears National Historic Trail Trail News 20th Trail of Tears Association Conference to be Held in Missouri The 20th Annual Trail of Tears Association Conference registration includes a field Celebrated Cherokee orator Dennis Jay Conference and Symposium is set to take trip on Wednesday, lunch on Tuesday and Hannah will deliver the keynote address on place October 6 – 8, 2015, at the Drury Thursday, and a box lunch and a traditional Tuesday, October 6. Lodge in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Hotel Cherokee/Choctaw hog fry as part of the reservations include breakfast and a light field trip on Wednesday. The price for a Other presentations include: readings from supper for each day of stay. To make a 2015 TOTA member is $125. The price Moravian missionaries’ correspondence reservation, call 1-800-325-0720 and ask for for a non-member is $175 and includes by Moravian archivist Richard Starbucks; the Trail of Tears group rate of $89.99 (plus a TOTA membership through 2016. tax). Registration onsite goes up by $100. (Find a See TOTA CONFERENCE, page 3 registration form on page 9.) TOTA Staff and Members Take Part in PNTS Conference in Tennessee by Deloris Wood Trails Conference, hosted each year by the Deloris Gray Wood, TOTA Missouri Partnership for the National Trail System chapter president and national board Trail of Tears Association members and (PNTS), held June 27 to July 1, at the member, represented TOTA in the PNTS Native Americans were very much a part Embassy Suites Hotel in Franklin, Tennessee. strategic planning and was a member of the of the 15th National Scenic and Historic PNTS conference planning committee. Because the Franklin area is in the Chickasaws’ ancestral homelands, Kirk Perry of the Chickasaw Nation’s Division of Historic Reservation, Culture, and Humanities Department gave the opening welcome. TOTA board member and See PNTS, page 3 INSIDE THIS ISSUE • Cherokee Garden........................Page 2 • Chapter Building Workshop.........Page 2 • Mahr Award................................Page 3 photo courtesy of Deloris Wood • TOTA Chapter News.................Page 4-7 (L-R) Joy Montgomery, Deloris Wood, Alice Murphree, Anita Finger-Smith, Melba Checote-Eads, Ryan Spring, Steve Burns (kneeling), Cleata Townsend, Troy Wayne Poteete, and Aaron Mahr attend the PNTS • TOTA Conference Registration.Page 9-10 conference this summer. Newsletter of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail Partnership • September 2015 – Number 25 Cherokee Garden Dedicated at Green Meadows Preserve UPCOMING EVENTS Article and photos by Tony Harris The Cherokee Garden at Green Meadows SEPTEMBER 19, 2015 Preserve in Cobb County, Georgia, was Grave Marking of Trail of Tears Survivor by the Oklahoma Chapter dedicated on August 29. The garden was Time: 2:00 pm recently designated an interpretive site on Location: Russell Cemetery, Oaks, OK the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. SEPTEMBER 26, 2015 Green Meadows Preserve is owned and Oklahoma Chapter Meeting operated by the Cobb County parks system. Time: 10:00 am The garden features plants that the Location: Helmerich Research Center at Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK Cherokee used for medicine, food, shelter, Signs from the National Park Service make the Speaker: Brett Riggs, Ph.D. tools, weapons, art, and ceremonial Cherokee Garden easily identifiable as a certified site along the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. Open to the public purposes. Fourteen Cobb County master gardeners spend one day a week expanding OCTOBER 5, 2015 and maintaining the garden. In addition, Cherokee used. A future orchard is planned Sign Dedication of the Bettis Ford members of the Georgia Native Plant with fruit trees that were found in Cherokee and Old Greenville Sites Society help locate and bring these plants orchards prior to the Trail of Tears. Time: 10:30 am Location: Greenville Recreation Area, in from the wild. The garden also features a US Route 67, Wappapello Lake, MO Tony Harris, a citizen of the Cherokee vegetable garden with heirloom plants the Reception and auto tour through Nation and the originator of the idea for the Mark Twain National Forest to follow garden, said it is an interpretive site that tells the story of what the Cherokee had to give OCTOBER 6 - 8, 2015 up after relying on these plants for survival 20th Annual TOTA Conference for hundreds of years. Location: Drury Lodge, Cape Girardeau, MO Registration fee applies (See p. 9) County and park officials were on hand DECEMBER 5, 2015 for the dedication along with a large public North Carolina Chapter Meeting attendance. Troy Wayne Poteete, executive Time and Place TBA director of the Trail of Tears Association, was the guest speaker during the ceremony. OCTOBER 4 - 6, 2016 Traditional vegetables the Cherokee used is part Everyone in attendance enjoyed touring the 21st Annual TOTA Conference of the newly dedicated Cherokee Garden at Green Meadows Preserve in Georgia. garden after the ceremony. Location: Northwest GA Trade and Convention Center, Dalton, GA TOTA Hosts Two-Day Chapter Capacity Building Workshop in June Twenty members from North Carolina, Murfreesboro and Rutherford County, Georgia, Kentucky, and Georgia gathered in in historic downtown Mrufreesboro. Brentwood, Tennessee, for an intensive two- Workshop participants were given a very day workshop on June 19 and 20. well narrated walking tour of the town square by Leigh Ann Gardner. The tour Meredith Benton of the Center for called attention to witness buildings and also Nonprofit Management in Nashville led includeed Civil War sites. an all-day session focused on leadership, board development, meeting skills, and On day two Carol Clark, park ranger communications within the Association and interpretive specialist from the National with outside stakeholders. Trails Intermountain Regional Office, Santa Fe, facilitated a workshop on external Carol Clark of the National Park Service’s National Trails System Intermountain Region facilitates Amy Kostine, coordinator and historian for communications and how the Trail of Tears TOTA’s June workshop on chapter capacity building. the Trail of Tears Project at the Center for Association presents itself to the public. The Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee session included a detailed discussion of the State University in Murfreesboro, hosted creation of a media kit. a reception at the Heritage Center of 2 Trail of Tears National Historic Trail News • September 2015 PNTS (continued from page 1) Mahr Receives Award from PNTS at Conference Cherokee citizen Bethany Rosenblum was chosen as one of 24 PNTS trail apprentices. by Deloris Wood In addition to the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, Aaron also The ”Extraordinary Trail Partner Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park oversees eight other National Historic Award” that Aaron Mahr Yáñez, Service, gave the keynote address. His Trails: California, El Caminon Real de superintendent of the National Park visual presentation showed over 50 Tierra Adentro, El Camino Real de los Service National Historic Trails, National Park Service sites across the Tejas, Mormon Pioneer, Old Spanish received at the recent Partnership nation. (co-administered with Rob Sweeten for the National Trails System trail of the Bureau of Land Management), conference details what Aaron’s A workshop titled, “Working With Tribes Oregon, Pony Express, and Santa Fe. colleagues and friends already know. and Engaging Native People to Help Make Reba Grandrud, Old Spanish National and Sustain Our Trails,” was presented Aaron was named historian at the Historic Trail, said it best: “he is by Trail of Tears Association Executive National Trail System-Santa Fe office remarkable in his successful oversight Director and Cherokee Nation Supreme in 2000. He was named to the position of not one but nine National Historic Court Justice Troy Wayne Poteete, TOTA he currently holds in 2007, which is the Trails, Route 66 Corridor Preservation North Carolina chapter board member superintendent for the Intermountain Program, and the 1930s iconic adobe Anita Finger-Smith, who also represented Region of the National Trails System Old Santa Fe Trail Building.” the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, program, with offices in Salt Lake City Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen Melba and Santa Fe. The award reads: Checote-Eads, and Ryan Spring, a cartographer from the Choctaw Nation In recognition of his years... Aaron began his career with the NPS of Oklahoma. Alice Murphree, president as Superintendent of the in Texas in 1990, working first at the of TOTA’s Kentucky chapter, and Cleata NPS Intermountain Region Spanish Colonial Research Center in Townsend, a TOTA board member, National Trails System office, San Antonio, and in 1993 became the also attended. Joy Montgomery, a Sam in personal availability, first historian and chief of resource Houston scholar and a new TOTA member, promoting public-private management at Palo Alto Battlefield declared, “This was a great opportunity to partnering, high standards National Historic Site in Brownsville. learn about trails.” for research and trail corridor Mahr holds degrees in Spanish and planning, completing on the Latin American studies from the Aaron Mahr, superintendent of the Trail of ground trail projects, strategic University of New Mexico. Aaron and Tears National Historic Trail, was honored planning, and strong support his wife Eva live in Albuquerque. with the PNTS Extraordinary Trail Partner for the Partnership. Award. (See related article to left) TOTA CONFERENCE (continued