Check out my wife's art site at http://alliechaddlesone.com

Update

I recently attended the unvieling ceremony for the new KCA Reservation signs at the KCALUC office in Lawton along with several other KBC members. The event was attended by a number of KCA committee members and the Director of the Oklahoma State Department of Transportation. Pictured are KBC members (L-R) Committeeman Alva D. Tsoodle, Committeeman Richard Kuahquooh, Chairman Donald Tofpi, yours truly, and Vice-Chairman Charles Toyebo.
ODOT will erect the Entering/Exiting signs at 28 sites where state highways intersect the former boundaries of the KCA Reservation.

The boundaries of the KCA Reservation were established by treaty with the United States on October 21, 1867 containing 3,000,000 acres and covering approximately 1/2 of the southwest corner of Oklahoma. Our first treaty with the United States on May 26, 1837 established our first reservation boundaries which included a southwest portion of Kansas, a southeast portion of Colorado, a large portion of eastern New Mexico, most of western Texas, most of western Oklahoma, and contained an area of 78,000,000 acres.

The above event illustrates the seemingly endlesss procession of tasks, issues, and service requirements presented to the KBC on a daily basis. Some situations have origins with our distant ancestors, such as the reservation signage, while other issues of recent origin may have a profound impact on our descendents and require careful and diligent attention by our contemporaries. The "business" of Kiowa governance should not be dictated by traditional concept, nor should it be conveyed to proponents of radical change. The truth of the matter is, we have imposed radical change on ourselves from the time of our northern mountain residence to our present location as a plains warrior society. Conversely, while we have easily adapted to modern society and eagerly look forward toward future developments, we are oftentimes openly regarded by many other tribal people as a steadfast traditional culture.

These contradictions of Kiowa import must be a constant regard in decision making by the Kiowa Business Committee. I am congnizant of and pay homage to the historical contributions of my forefathers, but I also keep in mind that change is needed and inevitable in many areas and I strive for balanced and workable solutions beneficial to all Kiowas in my decision making tasks on the KBC.

As stated in a previous posting, this blog was started as a communication to all Kiowas of my desire to serve you during another term on the KBC by soliciting your votes in the upcoming elections of June 13th. I will post more info in the upcoming days before the election and please don't hesitate to contact me with your questions, or answers. Ah ho! O baw haw.

p.s.: Questioned Dwayne Davis, Chairman, Kiowa Election Board, about the election schedule and he informed me that absentee ballots must be received by the Election Board no later than 10:00a.m., Saturday, June 13, 2009, to be counted. Just a reminder.

Disclaimer

I must add here that all postings in reference to the Kiowa Business Committee within this site are not endorsed nor approved by the KBC, nor does this site claim to represent any official position or release-of-information of the KBC. The views and information entered here are my own as a member of the KBC and I, to the extent permissable by law, take no responsibility or liability for any direct, special, indirect, consequential or incidental damages of any kind arising from the use or misuse of this site.

With that out of the way, I wish to commend the many tribal employees who worked overtime to lend assistance to our tribal membership, and others, who were directly and indirectly affected by the recent tornado here in Anadarko. The damage occured mainly within the city boundaries and many homes and businesses experienced varying levels of damage and destruction. Luckily, there were no serious personal injuries or deaths and clean-up and repair will continue for several months to come. A number of our employees will continue to assist with that process and the KBC is committed to help the large concentration of our membership within Anadarko.

I attended a meeting yesterday of the revived Seven Tribes Consortium which is chaired by the Chairman of the KBC. The Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes were added(making it nine tribes) and represented by Chairman Darrell Flyingman. Anadarko City Manager Robert Williamson attended the meeting as the Consortium passed a supporting resolution to assist Anadarko's application for a FEMA disaster declaration and recovery assistance.

I am including a picture of the Grandstand at the fairgrounds which had the roof blown off. The Baldwin Bldg also has extensive damage to it's northeast corner.

Indian City USA

Good News! We brought Mr. Kevin Wahkinney on board yesterday as the new manager for our tourism enterprise at Indian City. He previously served several years as manager for the Comanche Nation Water Park in Lawton and has a background in tourism and economic development. His first order of business is correcting the water supply problem for re-opening the facility which should happen within a few days. Mr. Wahkinney expressed his eagerness to begin the task and he also recognizes the great potential for future developments at the facility.
I, along with KBC Chairman Don Tofpi and KBC Secretary Sharon Pena, have been selected as a sub-committee to oversee the operations and future development of Indian City and we have had numerous work sessions in planning for the re-opening and phased development. We have also contracted the services of Mr. Lynn Leasure of Leasure & Associates, a proven tour developer from the state of Utah, who has extensive experience working with tribal, state and local-government tour facilities across the western United States. Mr Leasure is pictured here conferring with Chairman Tofpi at one of the Indian City site features.
We recently met with Okla. State Rep. T.W. Shannon of Lawton who chairs the State Dept of Tourism and the Dept of Transportation, and he was very receptive to the development plans we presented and requested an on-site visit and follow up meet to plan for State assistance to our efforts.
We are taking a measured, well planned approach toward the accomplishment of our goals with Indian City and the end result should produce an enterprise which all Kiowas can take pride in. I will follow with later update postings as we progress.

Greetings To All

Initially, my postings here are to announce my candidacy as a committeeman on the Kiowa Business Committee in the upcoming Kiowa tribal elections, and to discuss my personal activity and contributions to Kiowa tribal governance.
I will later provide updates on current and projected KBC efforts and accomplishments and will welcome any questions and civil comments on any Kiowa related subject matter.
Apart from the KBC activity, I am multi-tasking on other interesting projects and will cover those in subsequent postings and photo imagery.
So, Kiowas, please remember the elections on Saturday, June 13th, and I will sincerely appreciate your vote of confidence and support. Aho!