Reznet

‘Stoked’ About Creighton’s Powwow

By Nancy Kelsey | Video by Tetona Dunlap

OMAHA, Neb. - In its first year, the Creighton University Native American Association's All Nations powwow drew about 750 participants.

"We usually expect a bigger crowd every year," said NAA member Millicent Wolfe Jr., who helped organized the event.

That was an understatement.

Four years later, the small Jesuit university organization has more than tripled its first year's attendance at its annual powwow. It is held in conjunction with the university's Native American Retreat.

"We wanted a way to experience Native culture at Creighton," said Wolfe, of the Omaha Tribe. "We got a lot of support."

The powwow took months of planning, said Oglala Lakota student Kristin Weston, but it was worthwhile in the end.

"The day of the powwow is awesome on a predominately white campus," said NAA president Princella Parker of the Omaha Tribe. "It's a way to get Creighton to reach out to the Native community."

Several tribes are represented in the school's Native American Association. They range from Southwest tribes to those in Nebraska to a large Lakota presence, said Ricardo Ariza, the group's staff moderator. He was honored with a Pendleton blanket.

It is important "for the students — for them to be validated, to help them to understand they're children of God and they have a place in higher education," Ariza said.

Though a fairly new annual event, it is still important not only to the Native students who organized it but to the non-Native community as well, Ariza said. "They come and they experience the beauty of this culture," he said.

As the director of Creighton's Office of Multicultural Affairs, he knows that high school students at the retreat appreciate the powwow, too.

"I decided to come to Creighton to see what they could offer me," said Omaha high school student Linda Hannah of the Blackfeet tribe. She said she was "stoked" to know that Creighton students put on a yearly powwow, too.

The high school junior said it has added to Creighton's appeal. "I think it's a great thing," she said.

 

Nancy Kelsey, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, is studying journalism at the University of Nebraska graduate school in Lincoln. She is a graduate of the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute. She interned as a reporter at The Seattle Times last summer. Next summer she'll report for The Associated Press in Boston.

Tetona Dunlap is a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. She graduated from Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., with a B.A. in Journalism in 2004. Dunlap works at the Kansas City Star in Kansas City, Mo., as a photographer/videographer.