State-of-the-art defines just about everything the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians builds these days.

Gorgeous architectural lines, native mountain building materials, energy efficient green design — with price tags to match — are hallmarks of everything from a $140 million K-12 school to a $630 million expansion of its casino complex.

But even when it comes to tribal functions that are typically “back of the house” the tribe hasn’t wavered its high standards. A new emergency operations center — which houses dispatch for 911, emergency management and the IT department — may serve a utilitarian function, but the exterior suggests anything but. It is even an environmentally LEED-certified building.

It also serves as proof that the Eastern Band has big plans for its technological future.

“The chief issued an edict to say we had to be energy efficient, but also that we had to be smart about the way we plan our buildings,” said Brandon Stephens, who was the tribe’s construction manager at the time the project began.

Stephens said the most unique component of the building is that it brings the tribe’s emergency operations –– dispatch and emergency services –– under the same roof as the tribe’s IT department, which functions as the nerve center for 100 tribal programs and administers a 27.5-mile fiberoptic broadband network.

The idea is that if a disaster struck the reservation, the building could become a command center for all types of emergency operations, allowing multiple agencies to have their finger on the pulse of the tribe’s communications and data network. The building has a backup diesel generator that can keep it running for seven days.

“We’ve never had a facility to be able to handle that type of situation,” said Bob Long, the tribe’s IT manager. “This gives us that.”

The building has an emergency office for Chief Michell Hicks and several meeting rooms that can double as command centers for cooperating agencies in the event of a disaster.

But the new emergency operations center also accomplishes a more mundane goal –– providing a home to a number of important programs that were dealing with less than ideal conditions.

The 20 employees in the tribe’s IT department, for instance, were scattered among three buildings at a time when their work is becoming more and more central to the tribe’s structure.

With the growth to tribal coffers from gambling revenue over the past decade, Cherokee’s government has grown from 50 to 200 tribally operated programs. The tribe now has 70 buildings connected to a 27.5-mile broadband fiber optic network with a 10-gigabyte capacity.

“We’d been trying to get the council’s ear to get us a better place to work, because we’re becoming so dependent on our data,” Long said.

The Tribal Council heard the appeals and authorized the expenditures for what Long called “a focal point of technology” on the Qualla Boundary.

Ray Stamper, director of emergency operations, said the new setup is a vast improvement for his team. Dispatch shares the second floor of the building, about 10,000 square feet, with Emergency Management Services.

“We were in a 10-by-12-foot room stacked in like sardines with three consoles,” Stamper said. “Now we have so much room, we’re having a hard time knowing how to act. It’s a high-tech environment, and everybody’s happy.”

The building achieved LEED gold certification for its energy efficient and worker-friendly environment. State of the art HVAC and wiring give the building good bones, but the building also features an automatic thermostat and lighting that conserves energy.

“A couple of the girls have gotten scared, ‘cause if they sit still too long, the lights will go out,” Stamper joked.

Stamper said the tribe’s dispatch department has had to ramp up its operations to deal with the high call volumes that are now part of day-to-day business.

“We have a million plus visitors from the [national] park alone, so we needed an upgrade, and we needed more dispatchers to deal with the heavy call volume,” Stamper said.

The building also houses classroom facilities that can be used for community training. Long said the facility lays the groundwork for the larger goal of bringing high-speed wireless to every home on the boundary.

Having played an integral role in bringing cable television to Cherokee in the 1980s, Long said the tribe’s newest digital revolution is still yet to reach about two-thirds of the homes on the reservation.

In the meantime, though, the tribe’s government is hardwiring for the future.

When the Bryson City and Sylva ABC boards hammered out a profit-sharing agreement for liquor orders from Harrah’s Casino, there was widespread speculation the new revenue source would bring in big money.

But the reality, so far, has been different.

“It’s not doing anywhere near what people thought it was going to do,” said Bryson City ABC store manager David Maynard.

The Bryson City store does the ordering and records the revenue on its books, then passes along a share of profits to the Sylva ABC board since the Cherokee reservation lies in both Swain and Jackson.

Harrah’s Cherokee opened its first full service bar in May, placing a start-up order with the ABC store that bumped its monthly sales numbers up 50 percent from the year before.

But since then, mixed beverages sales to the casino have averaged between $6,000 and $8,000 per week.

“That sounds like a lot of money, but the state takes a good chunk of it. We thought it was going to be a whole lot more money as far as sales. I think everybody did,” said Maynard.

With the state, the Sylva ABC board, and the tribe all involved in the formula of alcohol sales to the casino, sales don’t exactly turn directly into profit.

“It has help us make an increase from last year as far as sales, but it hasn’t helped out the profits yet,” Maynard said.

By the numbers

A spike in the volume of liquor passing through the Bryson City ABC store is a direct reflection on the bottles of booze headed for Harrah’s Casino since alcohol was legalized there.

May 2010

Walk-in customers    $124,192

Sales to retail outlets    $91,857

Total Sales    $216,049

May 2009

Walk-in customers    $129,134

Sales to retail outlets    $11,965

Total Sales    $141,099

Just over a year ago, the members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians voted to allow alcohol sales at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel while the rest of the reservation would remain dry.

The controversial ballot measure pitted economic development proponents who saw alcohol sales as a necessary step in developing a world-class resort against opponents with moral qualms about alcohol, believing it would lead to social ills.

While the social impacts of alcohol sales at the casino are impossible to quantify, the effect on the casino’s bottom line has been instantaneous.

Meanwhile, Harrah’s Cherokee is in the midst of a massive $600 million expansion project that aims to position its brand as an international resort destination.

For general manager Darold Londo, the business’s aspirations made the addition of alcohol sales almost a requirement.

“We never really would have gotten to a resort definition without certain amenities,” said Londo. “Although it’s arguable whether alcohol was totally necessary, it’s brought us in line with our competitors.”

Londo also said the fears of alcohol opponents haven’t come to fruition.

“It has not created the problems that were anticipated by some tribal members,” Londo said.

To Jessica Nifong, 23, a tourist who stopped in to the casino while visiting Cherokee last week, alcohol is indeed necessary.

“I expect it. I think it’s part of the environment because it helps people relax,” said Nifong, who is from Winston-Salem. “I just assumed it would be there.”

So far this year Harrah’s Cherokee has recorded $1.3 million in alcohol sales, serving nearly 200,000 drinks to around 15 percent of its guests. The casino’s management estimates that guests who consume alcohol have contributed $5 to $10 million in gaming revenue during the same period.

The sale of alcohol has provided a quick revenue boost and evened the playing field, but it hasn’t brought in as much money as the management predicted.

See also: Casino impact on ABC sales not a windfall yet

Rolling out in a harsh environment

“The alcohol sales have been less than expected, and there are a number of reasons,” said Norma Moss, an enrolled member of the tribe who served for 10 years on the Tribal Casino Gaming board and recently took on the role of assistant general manager of resort operations.

Moss, who pushed hard for the ballot measure, said the casino’s slower-than-expected alcohol sales have to be seen in relation to what’s happening at all casinos around the country. The casino business is down like many other sectors of the economy, and alcohol sales in particular have dropped off.

Londo said that has to do with the consumer mentality.

“People out there, including me, aren’t buying that second glass of wine or that extra dessert,” Londo said.

Also, Harrah’s Cherokee spent 13 years attracting customers who didn’t need alcohol.

“By definition, we were serving a customer base for whom alcohol wasn’t a requirement,” Londo said.

Lastly, the rollout of alcohol sales has been gradually phased in, and it’s still not fully integrated into the business model.

At first, the casino introduced only beer and wine sales and only at its restaurants in October 2009. Beer and wine made it to the casino floor in December.

Liquor became an option in January, but mixed drinks didn’t really hit the floor until May of this year when the first bona fide bar opened.

In July, an entertainment lounge with a full bar, televisions and a stage came online. The lounge offers patrons the first environment designed with alcohol consumption in mind, a place you can listen to music or watch football only 20 feet from the gaming floor.

Roger Clarke, 74, of Ft. Myers, Fla., was shopping in downtown Cherokee last week. He’d been to the casino the night before and appreciated the new bar.

“I prefer having the option myself,” Clarke said.

At the same time, the gaming floor and casino entrance have been totally renovated. The new design scheme feels clean and modern.

Moss said the new HVAC system could handle the 100 percent transfer of circulated air, which means that even when people are smoking right next to you, you can still breathe.

In the meantime the gaming floor went from 3,400 games to 4,700 — 160 of the new additions are table-based.

Londo wants to see all of the casino’s features operating before he guesses at the impact of alcohol revenue on the business model.

“The whole process is still in its infancy. It’s still developing, but for the customer’s, there’s the impression of a full-service alcohol environment,” Londo said.

Gamers and walk-ins

The casino business serves two distinct client segments, casual walk-ins that form the retail customer market and loyal “gamers” who spend their money playing the odds.

According to Londo, the recession has cut deepest into the number of retail visitors the casino gets, but “gamers” are the ones who tend to drink, according to industry stats.

“It’s not 20-year-olds or 30-year-olds or 60-year-olds who drink,” Londo said. “It’s not females or Asians or anything else. But if you’re looking at gamers, they tend to be more likely to consume alcohol.”

The recession has unsettled gamers as a group too, because they were used to amenities like free drinks on the floor as long as they were gambling.

Londo said the Harrah’s Cherokee model didn’t support alcohol as a freebie.

“Some gaming customers have been used to getting the product free or at cost, and it was incumbent on us to introduce the product at closer to market price,” Londo said.

He believes the shift away from free drinks and food may be a broader paradigm in the industry.

Londo, sees alcohol sales as a defensive measure that will help the business hold its ground as the recession grinds on.

“It gives us a hook or a stickiness that from a defensive standpoint has allowed us to hold customers or keep customers,” Londo said. “It’s hard to quantify that because year after over year, organically, all businesses are off, including us.”

While revenue is up at the casino compared to last year, it is still down compared to pre-recession levels. Tribal members who supported alcohol sales hoped the new revenue stream would offset losses stemming from the recession.

Fifty percent of the casino’s profits go back to the tribe’s membership in the form of per capita payments. After years of growth, per capita payments dropped 11 percent in late 2008, and proponents of alcohol sales were hoping alcohol sales at the casino would help reverse that trend.

Creating a new brand

“If you look at Harrah’s casinos east of the Mississippi, the properties that continue to update and invest in the future seem to be holding up better than their peers to weather the storm and position themselves,” Londo said.

According to Londo, the Harrah’s operations in Hammond, Ind. and Atlantic City, N.J., have out-performed their peers, precisely because they’re still trying to grow at a time while industry giants like Mohegan Sun, the nation’s second largest casino, are still off.

Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel planned its expansion before the recession hit, but it began in earnest last year. By January 2011 the resort will boast the largest hotel in the state, 21 stories offering 1,108 rooms, 68 suites and 8 premium suites.

Moss called the new hotel tower, which sits in a valley surrounded by high peaks, the “miracle in the mountains” during its topping off ceremony in April.

In addition to the hotel, the newly constructed 3,000-seat concert venue opening Labor Day weekend will bring in acts like Hank Williams Jr. and Crosby, Stills and Nash. A 16,000-square foot spa will be the last element in the expansion to open in 2012.

The new amenities are all designed to create a resort feel for patrons. Cherokee already boasts a championship golf course and trophy fly-fishing water.

Londo said by expanding and including alcohol, the casino has been able to pursue branding partnerships with Paula Deen’s Kitchen and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

Londo said so far, it’s been hard to track the impact of alcohol sales separate from the other pieces of the expansion on the business.

“It’s hard to say this one area is responsible. They’ve all helped us improve the package,” Londo said. “If it was an excuse not to come before, we’ve satisfied that.”

The customers’ experience

“The bottom line is customers expect to have alcohol in a casino environment, and it’s gratifying to know we can offer it,” Moss said.

But after more than a decade operating without alcohol, Harrah’s Cherokee has had to implement a whole new business model in the midst of a recession. If the climate wasn’t ideal, at least the expansion afforded the opportunity to create a building with the distribution and delivery in mind.

“The property was never set up to accommodate alcohol from the distribution standpoint so all of that had to happen, and it was timely because we were in the midst of an expansion anyway,” Londo said.

Now everything from distribution loading docks to plumbing to multi-game consoles in the bars make it possible to keep the drinks flowing. Londo said because most Harrah’s casinos have alcohol, the model was already there.

“The processes, the procedures and the know-how to implement it in the business model were readily available to us,” Londo said. “It has its uniqueness, but it’s not as challenging as you might think.”

One of the most unique elements of the business model is that it took a referendum of a sovereign nation to get the green light.

“The message of the referendum was that the membership wanted it and they believed it was necessary to the casino’s success,” Moss said.

Londo is less worried about alcohol sales than with how the overall economy is looking. He said there could be worse things than running a casino in a mountain valley situated between Charlotte and Atlanta.

“You take the good with the bad,” Londo said “There’s not a more beautiful place to operate a casino.”

After nearly eight months of wrangling with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Swain County leaders and a vocal citizens group, Duke Energy agreed to relocate an electrical substation from a controversial location — one that would loom over a Cherokee spiritual site and mar views of a rural farming valley.

Despite putting money into the site work and grading, Duke announced this week it would move from the location.

While Duke and the tribe have hailed the move as a sign of cooperation between the two entities, a citizens group fighting the substation and a major upgrade to electrical lines associated with the project stopped short of calling it a victory.

In November 2009, Duke Energy began work on a knoll in the picturesque valley located between Ela and Bryson City as the site of the new substation, which incidentally overlooked Kituwah, a sacred Cherokee site that historically served as the tribe’s political and spiritual center.

Swain County leaders imposed a moratorium on new utility projects in March of this year, partly due to the public outcry and partly because the county was miffed Duke had started grading the site without informing the county of its plans.

Along the way, citizens filed a complaint before the North Carolina Utilities Commission while lengthy negotiations played out between Duke and the tribe, which had hinted at the possibility of legal action.

Throughout those negotiations, Duke maintained that one of the principal reasons for the line upgrade and, consequently, the substation was the need to provide more power to Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, which is in the midst of a $600 million expansion project.

Duke’s announcement that it will move the substation to one of two alternative sites by the end of the year solves the point of conflict with the tribe over the cultural impact on Kituwah.

Michell Hicks, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, used Duke’s announcement as an opportunity to reinforce the tribe’s intent to vigorously protect Cherokee cultural sites.

“It is my honor and responsibility to protect our land base and our Cherokee culture,” Hicks said in a release prepared by Duke and the tribe. “The land of Kituwah, our mother town, is central to our identity as a tribal nation and I will do everything in my power to ensure this sacred site is protected.”  

But Hicks also reinforced his appreciation of Duke’s efforts to work with the tribe regarding the issue.  

“I appreciate Duke Energy’s understanding of these sensitive issues and their hard work to identify alternate locations for the electrical station,” Hicks said. “We are pleased that through the cooperation with Duke Energy, we will continue to have reliable electricity and the landscape around Kituwah will be protected.”

New substation site

Duke Energy has offered Swain County $400,000 for a 13-acre site in the county industrial park. In addition to the $400,000 price tag, Duke Energy would give the county $1.1 million  to help defray the cost of relocating the county IT building, which has been in the development stages for nearly a decade.

Swain County commissioners voted unanimously on Monday to grant Duke a six-month property option on the site for $15,000.

Duke has another site under consideration as well in the Sheppard’s Creek area. Duke announced that it would decide between two alternative sites by the end of the year.

Should Duke move forward with the purchase of the site in the industrial park, the company would have made up for its lack of communication with the Swain County board that led to the imposition of a county-wide moratorium on utility projects.

Line upgrades still at issue

With the county and the tribe appeased, Duke still has the citizens group to deal with, however.

Katy Travitz, spokesperson for Citizens to Protect Kituwah Valley, said her group will continue to pursue a complaint before the North Carolina Utilities Commission that alleges Duke Energy broke the law by not filing the proper paperwork for their line upgrades.

“I don’t see it as a victory,” Travitz said. “I think they made a smart decision, and there’s still work for them to do.”

The new substation is part of a massive upgrade of Duke’s West Mill transmission line, which serves parts of Jackson, Swain and Macon counties. The upgrade entails replacing the existing 66kv line mounted on wooden poles with a 161kv line mounted on 120-foot steel towers and constructing new substation facilities to accommodate the increased amount of power.

A complaint filed by Citizens to Protect Kituwah Valley is still playing out before the state utility commission. It essentially alleges that Duke Energy intentionally misrepresented its project as an upgrade when it is actually a new infrastructure project that should have triggered a long list of requirements including public hearings.

“We believe Duke broke the law, because they didn’t file for the certificate to do the work,” Travitz said. “Moving the substation doesn’t satisfy the complaint, and we intend to stay the course.”

The citizens group represents both enrolled tribal members with a cultural interest in protecting Kituwah, as well as Swain County residents whose properties are directly affected by the line upgrade.

But other citizens have been a part of the discussion, too. Nate Darnell, a farmer in Swain County who appealed to the board of commissioners to implement the moratorium, said moving the substation from the site near Kituwah to an alternative location over the hill in Shepard’s Creek doesn’t solve the problem that drew him into the debate.

Darnell saw the issue from the perspective of the impact it had on the environment and the agri-tourism businesses in the valley.

“I like the idea that they’re looking at the industrial park,” Darnell said. “You got to have this stuff and if you’re going to have it, you need to localize it so you can regulate it more easily and consolidate the impact it’s going to make.”

Cultural site views saved

If there is a clear winner in the scenario, it’s the Eastern Band, which preserved its cultural legacy without jeopardizing the supply of power to its growing casino complex.

The tribe’s historic preservation officer, Russ Townsend, said Duke’s willingness to negotiate over a cultural viewshed sets an important precedent.

“I hope it’s an example to other agencies that we deal with that our concerns are legitimate and there are often alternatives to finish a project without undermining our cultural concerns,” Townsend said.

Townsend said the concept of viewscapes and cultural landscapes have been a part of regulatory discussions dealing with the way federal agencies approach cultural sites like the Gettysburg battlefield, but they’ve never been a part of discussions with private companies.

“I think if there’s a precedent set it’s that there wasn’t a federal agency that made Duke come to the table,” Townsend said.

Duke’s narrative of the events in the release announcing the company’s intent to move the substation acknowledges the cultural issues raised by the tribe, but it also defends the line upgrade as a necessary attempt to meet the needs of its customers.

“Initially, a new electric tie station was planned at a site within view from Kituwah, an ancient and sacred gathering place of the Cherokee people that is adjacent to the Tuckaseegee River, east of Bryson City, N.C.,” the company’s statement read. “After hearing concerns from the Cherokee people about the initial site, the company worked for several months with tribal and other community leaders to identity alternate locations.”  

Brett Carter, president of Duke Energy Carolinas, stated the company’s position succinctly.

“Our customers expect and rely on Duke Energy to provide the electricity that powers their homes and businesses,” said Carter. “Finding a new location for this important infrastructure allows us to deliver on our commitment to customers, without impacting the landscape around Kituwah.”

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is urging the state to formally license Cherokee language teachers, enabling Cherokee courses taught in public schools off the reservation to count toward a student’s foreign language requirement.

Earlier this month, tribal and school officials met with representatives from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to finalize the steps in the process.

The move is part of tribe’s push to revitalize the language and preserve the Eastern Band’s cultural identity.

“Salvaging the language salvages our tribe. It continues to identify us as a unique people, and it continues to protect the sovereignty of who we are as a nation within a nation,” said Principal Chief Michell Hicks.

The tribe’s language efforts include everything from street signs in Cherokee to language emersion programs for infants — as well as required Cherokee language classes for grades K-12 school on the reservation.

However, not all enrolled members of the tribe live in Cherokee and attend school on the reservation, so the tribe hopes to offer language courses in public schools in neighboring counties as well.

Cherokee language and history classes are currently taught in the public schools in Graham County, where a small satellite portion of the reservation lies. The tribe foots the bill for the instructors’ salaries, but the classes do not fulfill the state’s language requirements.

By creating a teacher certification test that meets the standards of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, the tribe hopes to get Cherokee included on Department of Public Instruction’s list of languages for study.

“We want the language to be recognized and credit to be given in all North Carolina schools,” Hicks said. “Right now in Swain County, you can get credit in Spanish and Chinese but not in Cherokee. That’s what we want to change.”

Dr. Hartwell Francis, chair of Western Carolina University’s Cherokee language program, has taken the lead role in creating a teacher certification test that meets ACTFL as well as state education standards. The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma went through a similar process and has proven a useful model for Francis to draw from.

Renissa Walker, director of the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program, which oversees the tribe’s language revitalization efforts, said the Eastern Band feels it’s important for the tribe to develop and administer the test themselves.

“We want to maintain ownership of the test,” Walker said.

Walker has helped organize a panel of fluent Cherokee speakers who will be trained by ACTFL and DIP to administer and grade the tests for language teachers. Once that is done, the tribe will start the work of testing its first round of 25 or more Cherokee language teachers, most of whom speak Cherokee as a second language.

Walker said the tribe hopes to have the certification process wrapped up by the end of the school year.

But there is another hurdle in the process: the status of the Cherokee language in American culture. DPI considers Cherokee a foreign language for administrative purposes, but the tribe objects to the classification.

“We’re not a foreign language like the other languages taught in the high schools,” Walker said. “It’s ironic that the oldest language in North Carolina would be the last one to get recognized by the schools.”

Walker said the tribe doesn’t blame the state, however.

“It’s not their fault. The responsibility lies on our shoulders. We’ve been aggressive over the past five years, but if we’d started this process 20 years ago, there would be fluent speakers of child-bearing age today,” Walker said.

Swain County schools have expressed interest in introducing a certified Cherokee language program in the future, and they’ll offer a language and history course this coming year that’s similar to the one offered in Graham County.

Hicks said the tribe would pay the salaries of Cherokee teachers in neighboring counties where a critical mass of enrolled members go to school once the state has approved the teacher certification process.

Walker said her department is working to get the project finished by the start of the new school year.

“We’re moving quickly,” Walker said. “The fall is our goal.”

Once the certification test is created and approved and an oversight panel is created, the process will have to be verified by a state specialist in education research methodology before being submitted for final approval to N.C. DPI.

Thanks to a collaborative project called WNC EdNet, high-speed Internet will become a reality for all public and charter school classrooms in Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain Counties, along with the Qualla Boundary.

WNC EdNet recently got the go-ahead to connect The Highlands School — the last remaining school to join the regional network.

As late as 2000, schools in Western North Carolina could only transmit 1.5 megabyte per second. Now, schools with fiber can enjoy 100 megabyte per second connections.

Once these high-speed connections are in place, star pupils from far-flung schools can join together in a virtual classroom to take advanced courses that aren’t normally offered at their own schools. Live video will allow for face-to-face interaction between students and teachers.

“It’s not like an online class,” said David Hubbs, CEO of BalsamWest FiberNET, which implemented the WNC EdNet project. “You’re speaking to or interacting with a teacher in real time.”

Linking up to the state network creates access to The North Carolina Virtual Public High School, which already offers 72 courses including Advanced Placement and world language classes.

The widespread reach of fiber across North Carolina to even the most rural schools holds the promise of creating a level playing field for students, according to Bob Byrd WNC EdNet project manager.

“That’s our big push now, to narrow that digital divide,” said Byrd.

Moreover, fiberoptic technology makes professional training more readily available for teachers. Once colleges are hooked up to the statewide K-12 network, student-teachers at Western Carolina University or other colleges may observe teachers in actual classrooms without interrupting lessons.

Being on the same fiber network also decreases overhead for school systems, which only have to pay one Internet bill for all their schools, Hubbs said.

Jumping hurdles

The WNC EdNet project has traveled down a long road to get to where it is now.

Nearly 60 schools have been hooked up to their central office in the county via a fiberoptic line, which makes broadband Internet possible and also provides an important backbone for communication between the school district office and individual schools.

A separate project by a nonprofit called MCNC is in turn connecting these school district offices to a statewide fiber network, the North Carolina Research and Education Network. Now, MCNC is also working on linking colleges up to the state network.

WNCEdNet piggybacked onto the larger BalsamWest project, which has installed hundreds of miles of fiber underground to promote economic development in the Western North Carolina.

The mountainous terrain was a major obstacle BalsamWest had to overcome while installing equipment underground.

“The very things that we love about our rural area create challenges for technology,” said Hubbs.

Constructing in the remote area between Cashiers and Highlands was another challenge. BalsamWest had to speak individually to every property owner to get permission to build.

“We had more private easements between Cashiers and Highlands than we did everything else put together, over 300 miles,” said Hubbs. About 15 grant applications had to be submitted to lock down funding for the $6.1 million WNC EdNet project. The project was partly funded by the Golden LEAF Foundation, which chipped in $2.2 million, and the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, which contributed $1.7 million.

Even with 12 different partners — including Southwestern NC Planning & Economic Development Commission, the Western Region Education Service Alliance, seven school districts and three colleges — WNC EdNet was smoothly coordinated.

A similar project in eastern North Carolina had failed due to infighting, according to Leonard Winchester, chairman of the WNC EdNet technology committee.

WNC EdNet coordinators were asked to come to Raleigh and explain how their particular project ended in success. Winchester said cooperation was key.

“We had a group of people that trusted each other,” said Winchester. “That trust, you can’t give to somebody else.”

Witness the arresting culture of Apache, Totonac, Aztec, Crow, Navajo and Cherokee through ancient wisdom, song, dance, legend, arts and regalia all in one place. Indigenous tribes will gather for the 6th Annual Festival of Native Peoples on Friday, July 16, and Saturday, July 17, at the Cherokee Indian Fair Grounds in Cherokee.

Gates to the festival will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. with performances throughout the day. The Art Market Preview will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on July 16.

Considered the finest showcase of native dance, song and art in the Southeast, the event honors the collective history, customs and wisdom of some of the oldest documented tribes from across the Americas, including the 11,000-year-old Cherokee civilization which hosts the weekend’s revelry.

“The tribes are so different, and when we come together to celebrate our collective native heritage, we gain a better understanding of our own history and customs,” said Mary Jane Ferguson, director of marketing for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Daily admission is $10 per person; children six and under free. 800.438.1601 or visit www.cherokee-nc.com.

The Hoop Dance

Four-time world champion Hoop Dancer Tony Duncan will create many designs and images from “The Circle of Life.” By weaving these hoops through his body the dancer creates designs such as, the eagle, a butterfly, the sun, the moon, a snake, and Mother Earth.

Laguna

The Laguna Youth Group dancers share various traditional dances that are both a means of prayer and personification of the animals the Pueblo people hold sacred.

White Mountain Apache

Centuries ago, the Apache believed that there were mountain spirits living in the highest mountains near a cliff or a cave. If sickness came among the people, the mountain spirits’ medicine man had to call these spirits down from the mountain to dance during the night hours of darkness for the people, in order to bless them and keep evil spirits away. Today, there are but a few Crown Dance medicine men among the younger generation, who know the Crown Dance songs and prayers.

Totonac

The spectacular Totonac dancers, known as the pole flyers, will hurl themselves from the top of a 90-foot pole in a spectacle of swirling color in honor of the sun and the Totonac calendar.

The Danza de los Voladores (Dance of the Flyers) represent 57 tribes in Mexico. This sacred ceremony is dedicated to the sun and is similar in intent to the sun dance of the Plains Indians of the United States.

Yurapik

The Yurapik Dance Group of Alazka performs two common styles of Eskimo dancing, Yuraq and Yurapik, a prayer dance and an inherited dance that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Navajo

The Pollen Trail Navajo Dancers have been the featured dance group in the Grand Canyon area for more than eight years. They will perform: the Navajo Basket Dance, in the spirit of Hozho “Blessing Way;” Bow and Arrow Dance; The Dancing Ye’iis; and The Weaving Dance.

Aztec

The Tezcatlipoca Aztec Dancers from Mexico City will perform colorful dances representing the sun, the eagle the earth ad other symbols from their land.

Estun-Bah

The band Estun-Bah combines the traditional melodies of the Native American flute with the contemporary sound of the acoustic guitar, creating a musical journey of traditional and contemporary songs.

Cherokee

New to the festival is one of Cherokee youngest dance groups, the Dora Reed Child Care Center Traditional Dancers. See this energetic group of dancers, ages 3 to 5, doing renditions of Cherokee dances such as Friendship, Quail, Bear, Buffalo, and Eagle. Performer Paula Nelson will share contemporary songs written in the Cherokee language.

The Tribal Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has passed a new enrollment ordinance that requires DNA testing for new applicants to the tribe’s rolls. The DNA testing will be used to verify the applicant’s parental lineage.

The new enrollment ordinance also creates a process for disenrolling those who don’t qualify as Cherokee.

The Tribal Council’s vote earlier this month paves the way for non-Cherokee to be purged from the tribe’s rolls as soon as a month after Principal Chief Michell Hicks signs it into law. It is not clear when he intends to do that.

The council passed the new measures with a unanimous 12-0 vote on June 3.

The enrollment ordinance also puts a stop to new people enlisting as tribal members, with the exception of infants and 18 year olds, until an on-going audit of the tribe’s roster of nearly 14,000 tribal members is complete.

The updated ordinance is the result of months of debate on the Tribal Council floor about how the Eastern Band will implement its expensive and lengthy enrollment audit and avoid repeating the process again in the future. Tribal members voted to conduct the audit — designed to weed out people who don’t meet the tribe’s minimum enrollment requirements — in an intensely contested 2002 referendum.

Finally in 2007, the tribe hired an outside firm, The Falmouth Institute, to do the audit, which has cost $746,000 to date.

The audit turned up 303 tribal members with no direct link to the Baker Rolls, the 1920s-era document that served as a census of sorts of who was Cherokee at the time. Tribal members must be able to prove that they have an ancestor on the Baker Roll and have a blood quantum of at least one-sixteenth Eastern Cherokee. The audit revealed another 50 members who lack the adequate blood degree.

That last group is in the crosshairs of the new ordinance. According to the newly adopted policies, members in question will be informed of their status by certified mail and granted the right to a hearing before the enrollment committee within 30 days. If they don’t appear at that hearing, they’ll be automatically disenrolled.

For decades the story of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians wasn’t their own.

Tourists flocked to see Cherokee men dance in the streets dressed as Great Plains Indians, arrayed in long feathered headdresses. The tribe’s history play, “Unto These Hills,” which was supposed to tell the story of the Cherokee nation, was written and acted by whites and riddled with historical inaccuracies.

Meanwhile the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, built in 1976 as the repository of the tribe’s recorded history, didn’t have an exhibit that could communicate an impression of the Eastern Band as a people.

“There were artifacts everywhere, but you wouldn’t know anything more about the Cherokee when you left than when you’d come in,” said Ken Blankenship, the museum’s longtime director.

This weekend, when the Cherokee Voices Festival arrives on the museum’s doorstep, that will all have changed.

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian will have opened its brand new $2 million Resource and Education Building, a project that will share its archives with the tribe’s members and signal the culmination of a decade of effort to recraft the tribe’s historical narrative. That work began with the 1998 update of the museum’s permanent exhibition, which turned the information held in tens of thousands of documents and thousands of artifacts into the story of a people.

At the same time, “Unto These Hills,” now in its 60th year of production, will feature a script written by the Cherokee for the Cherokee, and some of its leading actors will come from communities like Yellow Hill and Big Cove instead of Nashville and Asheville.

In short, the effort to re-cast the story of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and present it to people from outside the Qualla Boundary has reached maturity.

“For years, Native Americans –– Cherokees too –– have been followers,” Blankenship said. “They’ve wanted the Bureau of Indian Affairs to lead. But now we want to lead.”

For Linda Squirrel, program manager for the Cherokee Historical Association and scriptwriter for “Unto These Hills,” the change was a long time coming.

“It’s a breath of fresh air,” Squirrel said. “It’s such a great nation, and there’s nobody better to tell the story and present the culture than the people themselves.”

Turning the

museum inside out

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian opened its new permanent exhibit in 1998. Blankenship had learned museums had to be in the storytelling business, so he went to Los Angeles and spent time and money working with architects and designers associated with Universal Studios. The result of that effort was a building that looked like a part of the landscape and a permanent exhibit that was historically accurate but had a driving narrative and flow that left people with a story in their heads.

“We had to create that storyline over there, and we did that using what we have over on this side,” Blankenship said, referring to the archives.

Blankenship noticed the return on the investment immediately, as visitors began to leave comments that showed their understanding of the Cherokee.

“If you read the comment book, it shows people are starting to get it,” Blankenship said. “What we’re doing is educating them without them knowing it.”

Educating tourists is only one part of the museum’s mission. The other part is to foster a dialogue with the community of Cherokee about its own history. Until now, that effort has been carried out in makeshift spaces by Barbara Duncan, the museum’s education director; Bo Taylor, its archivist; and by the many knowledgeable elders and leaders in the community.

But on Friday, June 11, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian will celebrate the grand opening of its new Resource and Education Building. The centerpiece of the $2 million project is a new archives facility and digital reading room that will open up the tribe’s historic documents to its membership.

The new building also has a multimedia classroom and a community arts center, two spaces that will integrate the knowledge of Cherokee history with the practice of Cherokee culture in a way that brings the museum to life. The project was funded with help of grants from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, the N.C. Arts Council, the EBCI, and individual donors.

For Blankenship, who has grown the museum through years of hard work, planning, and community building, the new wing is a bridge to the tribe’s vast cache of documents and artifacts.

“For the first time we now know where everything is, and we can find it with a computer,” Blankenship said.

The reading room in the new wing has eight computers that provide access to 25,000 image files, 12,000 pages of material from the 1830s and the Trail of Tears, 2,000 pages of Cherokee language material from the 1880s and much, much more.

For instance, with cooperation from the family of Will Thomas –– the white trader adopted by Yonaguska who was instrumental in preserving the Cherokee’s ancestral homeland –– the archives have landed 20 years of his diaries and papers, his writing desk and a valuable portrait of Thomas that dates to 1846.

Talk about bringing history to life, Thomas’s first trading post was located on a site where a Huddle House now sits near Soco Creek in downtown Cherokee.

Archivist Bo Taylor said the new facility makes the museum a national center for research on the Cherokee people.

“If you want to come do Cherokee research, you want to come here,” Taylor said.

The war dance

Taylor is not your average bookworm archivist. In addition to his duties keeping track of historical materials, he also teaches a 10-day Cherokee language immersion program for adults that has drawn visitors from China and leads traditional Cherokee dance classes in the schools.

“It’s about the museum teaching the public, but it’s also about Cherokees teaching Cherokees,” Taylor said, defining the museum’s education aims.

Taylor thinks the museum’s current temporary exhibit, “Emissaries of Peace: the 1762 Cherokee and British Delegations,” has gone a long way to changing the way both the tribe and the public view Cherokee history.

The exhibit is largely based on the memoirs of Henry Timberlake, an American colonial officer, and provides a seven-month window into Cherokee culture in 1762. It shows the Cherokee nation at the height of its power, negotiating with foreign governments and exerting an influence on the region. That’s a different view of history than the one learned in schools, which emphasizes the Trail of Tears and the dissolution of a nation.

“Now I have young boys wanting to learn the war dance. Their view is going to be different. They see us from a position of strength,” Taylor said. “I feel like the museum is doing this. The story we’re telling is giving our people the full sphere of who we are.”

The revival of the Cherokee war dance is a story emblematic of the effort to reclaim a distinct cultural heritage, separate from the pan-Indian movement of the 1970s.

Marie Junaluska, one of the tribe’s most influential translators and storytellers, approached Barbara Duncan about searching the records for a traditional Cherokee dance to welcome honored guests. Junaluska had the idea that the Eastern Band should perform the dance to welcome the members of the inter-tribal council held with the leaders of the Oklahoma bands.

In response to the request, Taylor worked with Cherokee elder Walker Calhoun and Duncan to breathe life into the Cherokee war dance, which was described as a welcome dance by Timberlake. They re-created the song and worked with dancers in the community to find the steps.

Since that first performance, the Warriors of Anikituhwa have been performing the war dance and teaching it to young people. Taylor said dancing the Cherokee war dance is a whole different feeling than the pow wow dancing the men of his generation grew up with.

“The warriors were pow wow people and now we’re bringing back the war dance. We’re researching the tattoos. Now it’s for real because we’ve researched it,” Taylor said.

A new kind of

community center

“When you’re an archive, you keep everything,” said Barbara Duncan, the museum’s director of education.

Duncan, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, believes the museum’s role is to present the information available in its rich store of records to the community in a way that they can breathe life into it.

She has already seen the revival of traditional Cherokee stamped pottery, a method that was nearly abandoned as a result of the popularity of the glossier Catawba pottery tradition.

But as a result of Timberlake’s descriptions, local potters took up the challenge of bringing their own tradition back to life. Stamped potters craft pots that can hold up to 20 gallons using coils of clay. They then use wooden paddles and stamps to smooth the clay to a remarkable thinness and pattern it before firing.

“The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has the longest continuous pottery tradition on its own land of any tribe,” Duncan said of the tribe’s 3,000 year-old tradition.

Duncan said as the potters returned to stamped pottery, they rediscovered its secrets. The paddles and stamps pressed air bubbles out and enabled the potters to obtain thinness in the pots that could fire at high heats. The stamps, it turned out, weren’t decorative; they were functional.

“This is Cherokee science really,” Duncan said.

The archives have also provided for the renewal of the tradition of making feathered capes on net backings. No longer the sole purview of the tribe’s chiefs, the capes are now worn by Miss Cherokees.

Duncan recently visited Colonial Williamsburg with a contingent of Warriors of Anikituhwa and Miss Cherokees to take part in a re-enactment of a Cherokee delegation there. She hopes the revival of traditional crafts and practices will flourish in the museum’s new wing.

“You can research all you want, but there has to be someone in the community who can actually make the things,” Duncan said. “And we have that here.”

A new old story

“Unto These Hills” has run as a history drama for 60 years, providing many tourists their first real look at the historical narrative of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. For most of those years, though, the production was a kind of caricature of itself, conceived with a white audience in mind.

Starting in 2006, though, the Cherokee Historical Association set about updating the drama, making it more Cherokee.

“The rewrite came about in the beginning because there was a decline in attendance. The original scripts had gotten stale and the Cherokee people wanted more ownership of the drama,” said Linda Squirrel, who works as a program manager for the CHA and as a scriptwriter for “Unto These Hills.”

Kiowa author Hanay Geiogamah undertook the first rewrite of the drama, and while the result was magical, it didn’t do enough to teach audiences the history of the Cherokee.

“What he came up with was a wonderful production but not necessarily the story of the Cherokee people,” Squirrel said.

In 2007 the association hired two Los Angeles-based writers, Ben Hurst and Pat Allee, to carve out a narrative line. That version was better, but Squirrel said it didn’t really take into account the play’s function and setting.

Squirrel, who had been involved in each of the rewrites, took matters into her own hands.

“I really wanted the historical part to be as accurate as possible keeping in mind the show still has to have an element of entertainment about it,” Squirrel said.

This season, “Unto These Hills” is on its third rewrite, which combines elements of all the rewrites but has a new clarity of focus on the Cherokee narrative.

“It’s not really hard to tell the story because the story’s there. It’s the story of the Cherokee people, and it’s full of drama,” Squirrel.

For Squirrel, the script is just one part of a new ownership stake the local community has in the play.

“I think the thing I’m most proud of is the fact that you have Cherokee people telling their own story; whereas, in the past, you had local people who were only in the crowd scenes who were never given the chance to act,” Squirrel said.

The cast now boasts 35 enrolled members out of a cast of 47, including Mike Crowe Jr. –– a Yellow Hill native who plays Junaluska –– and Dustin French, a Big Cove native as Tsali.

Crowe has been with the drama for three years, and he said this year’s community night show last week put butterflies in his stomach.

“It’s the most intimidating night of the season because if we can’t get the stamp of approval from our own people, then what are we really doing?” Crowe said.

French said the community night show was a chance to prove to locals the show had changed.

“It feels good because we have the support of the local people now and that just shows we’re taking the show in the direction we’ve been talking about,” French said.

Eddie Swimmer, who runs the box office at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, is in his third year as director of “Unto These Hills.”

Swimmer got his acting break in Hollywood bit parts then graduated with a theater degree from Brigham Young University. After spending more than a decade with the American Indian Dance Theater, based in New York, Swimmer came home.

Swimmer is largely responsible for giving local actors like Crowe and French their breaks, which he sees as an opportunity to bring a new kind of energy to the play.

“It’s just about the energy of our cast members,” Swimmer said. “Some of our local cast members are literally reliving the stories of their ancestors.”

Swimmer said part of the purpose of the play is to bring the Cherokee characters to life, to complicate the assumptions the audience has about Native Americans. French’s portrayal of Tsali, the resistor who sacrificed his own life so his people could stay in their mountains, is a prime example.

“We have to show the general public that we are a people and we want to develop the characters,” Swimmer said. “Tsali was a real man. I want to show people how he felt.”

“Unto These Hills” is still a stage play, full of musical numbers and bright costumes, and it even still has a rousing rendition of “Rocky Top.” But now the professional actors who come to play leading roles are rubbing elbows with local talent, and both sides stand to benefit from the collaboration.

Swimmer believes the play can become an incubator for Cherokee talent and an example for other tribes for how to shape their narratives for outside audiences.

“I think we could be a stepping stone for other native nations to set up their own theaters and start telling their own stories,” Swimmer said. “It’s a good way to show Americans who we are.”

Swimmer understands the play’s role and his own role in a much larger drama. After many years of living up to other people’s expectations of them, the Cherokee are telling their own story.

“Like the play says, we did rise from the ashes,” Swimmer said. “Our children now days are speaking the language, and the traditions are being upheld.”

See the change

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian will celebrate the old and the new June 11 and 12. The Museum will dedicate its new Education and Research Center Friday, at 3 p.m., June 11 with a ribbon cutting ceremony and demonstrations of its purpose. On Saturday, centuries old Cherokee traditions will be celebrated at the Cherokee Voices Festival from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. www.cherokeemuseum.org or 828.497.3481 x306

The Cherokee uses and ecology of river cane will be discussed during a guided walk from 10 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, June 9, in Franklin.

“We Brake for River Cane” will discuss biology and ecology of canebrakes, and the cultural and historic importance of this plant to the Cherokee Indians, who had more than 30 traditional uses for the plant. A demonstration will feature one of those uses.

The program along the Little Tennessee Greenway will be led by David Cozzo, an ethnobotanist; Darry Wood, a Native American earth skills expert; and Dennis Desmond, stewardship director for Land Trust for the Little Tennessee.

Meet at the Rotary Shelter at the Airport Trail entrance behind Macon News. 828.349.5201.