Topics include Indian Boarding Schools as Recruitment Centers and Comanche Code Talkers of World War I. Additional speakers will discuss the Choctaw Code Talkers and Osage involvement during the war.

The symposium is free and a light lunch will be provided. Teachers can earn up to four (4) professional development hours through attendance. Afternoon entertainment will feature songs of World War I by the Conway Women’s Chorus. At 1:45pm, the grand opening of the companion exhibit will take place.  Registration is limited. The deadline for registration will be Friday, October 27, so be sure to register soon.

Associated with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Sequoyah National Research Center maintains the largest collection of Native American expression in the world and works to acquire and preserve the writings and ideas of Native North Americans.

For more information about the symposium or to register, contact Erin Fehr at ehfehr@ualr.edu or call  501-569-8336.

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Little Rock, AR—The Sequoyah National Research Center (SNRC) received $3,500 from the Shakopee Mdewakaton Sioux Community to fund a student in the Center’s Native American Student Summer Internship Program. The Center chose Desmond Hassing to receive the award.

SNRC director Dr. Daniel Littlefield states, “The Center has made working with students a priority since we began in 1983 and has been fortunate to have some outstanding students come through the Center in that time. Desmond is a hard-working student, who is eager to learn and apply that knowledge to future projects.”

Hassing is a graduate student at San Diego State University in the Department of Theatre working towards a Master of Arts and a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He will work in the Center this summer doing archival processing, working to prepare collections to be used by scholars and make them searchable in the Center’s online catalog.

“I am honored to receive the Shakopee Mdewakaton Sioux Community Internship,” says Hassing. “The education on archive methodology I am receiving at the Sequoyah National Research Center will help me distill and archive my own research in a manner that will allow it to be accessed by both scholars and interested parties throughout Indian Country. It is my hope that the tools I learn at Sequoyah will lead to a broad discussion both throughout my own tribal community and Indian Country at large about how Indigenous people have traditionally, and continue to be, depicted within the medium of comic books. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn these skills and hope that it will lead to a greater understanding among mainstream audiences that many of the representations presented by the media of Indigenous people are simplistic, inaccurate, and harmful.”

About the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is a federally recognized, sovereign Indian tribe located southwest of Minneapolis/St. Paul. With a focus on being a good neighbor, good steward of the earth, and good employer, the SMSC is committed to charitable donations, community partnerships, a healthy environment, and a strong economy. Out of a Dakota tradition to help others, the SMSC has donated nearly $300 million to organizations and causes since opening the Gaming Enterprise in the 1990s.

About the Sequoyah National Research Center

The Sequoyah National Research Center is the world’s largest assemblage of Native American expression. Located at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, SNRC is a unique facility dedicated to the collection, preservation, and dissemination of all forms of Native North American expression and has served as an archive for Native Americans since 1983.

Contact:
Erin Fehr
ehfehr@ualr.edu
501-569-8336

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In May 2015, the Sequoyah National Research Center received a $56,000 grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council to hire a project archivist for one year and buy the necessary archival supplies to properly house the Garrard Ardeneum Collection acquired in 2014 from the City of McAlester, Oklahoma, through Francine Locke Bray, a member of the Choctaw Nation. SNRC hired Zachery Whitaker, a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, in August 2015.

The collection was created by Francine’s cousin Allece Locke Garrard (1909-1999), a Seminole/Choctaw, who was the granddaughter of Alice Brown Davis (1852-1935), the first female chief of the Seminoles. Garrard established the Ardeneum, a combination arboretum, garden, and museum, as a philanthropic effort to promote the arts and culture in southeastern Oklahoma.

The collection contains records of Allece Locke Garrard and her husband, Thomas E. (Tom) Garrard (1904-1984). Allece’s records highlight her time at the University of Oklahoma, her career as a speech and drama teacher in Oklahoma City public schools, and her term as a Director in the US Army Hostess Service, where she opened three servicemen clubs—one at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, and two in occupation Germany. Tom’s records include materials related to his time at the McAlester Fuel Company, a company begun by his uncle, Jay G. Puterbaugh, where Tom served first as vice president and director and then as President in 1963. Allece and Tom’s philanthropic endeavors are well-documented, including the establishment of the Best Play Prize at the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1974. Additionally, correspondence and other materials can be found of both Allece and Tom’s family members and personal friends.

The collection is substantial with over 130 cubic feet of material and is now open for research. The finding aid may be found in our archives catalog.

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