Clubs

This month we have an update from our very own Tar Heel State correspondent Tom Andrews ’60 about the Dartmouth Club of the Piedmont’s recent American Indian heritage celebration. The always-dynamic Piedmont Club serves alumni in central and eastern North Carolina, including the Research Triangle communities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill as well as the cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Wilmington.

In 2006 the executive committee of Dartmouth’s Club Officers Association began encouraging Dartmouth’s regional alumni clubs to work more closely with the College’s affinity groups to develop joint programs. “The Dartmouth Club of Piedmont North

“The Dartmouth Club of Piedmont North Carolina took this to heart,” reports Andrews. “Noting that the largest American Indian tribe east of the Mississippi, the Lumbee, are located in our area and that a number of Lumbees were current Dartmouth students or alums, we approached the Native American Alumni Association at Dartmouth about a joint program centered on the Lumbee experience. At that time the Lumbees had for years been producing an acclaimed outdoor drama in their community in southeastern North Carolina, so the first idea was for a program that included attendance at that drama and at related activities in the Lumbee community. When the drama was canceled for two straight years the need arose to develop another program.”

The 14th annual North Carolina American Indian Heritage Celebration in Raleigh, featuring the eight state-recognized tribes in North Carolina, became the new focal event for the program. Eventually a one-day program was developed, with speakers in the morning and attendance at the many public activities of the celebration in the afternoon, including Native American dance, food, arts, crafts, medicine, storytelling and films. A Dartmouth panel discussion featuring Native American students and alumni was held at the end of the day, followed by an optional dinner at a local restaurant.

The club arranged with the North Carolina Museum of History and the State Commission on Indian Affairs to be officially included in the 2009 celebration and to hold its programs at the museum.

On the morning of the event, held November 21, alumni were welcomed by Greg Richardson, executive director of the Commission on Indian Affairs, and Ken Howard, director of the North Carolina Museum of History. They heard from two faculty speakers suggested by leaders of the Native American Alumni Association at Dartmouth: professor Melanie Benson, the newest member of Dartmouth’s Native American studies department and a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag, and Melinda Maynor Lowery, an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina and a member of the Lumbee tribe.

For lunch alumni sampled an extensive variety of foods offered by Native American vendors at the heritage celebration. Among the many dishes available were beef stew, sweet potato fries, Sappony salsa, fried pies and pumpkin pine nut bread from the Sappony tribe; barbecue, fry bread, Indian tacos, pork chop sandwiches, nachos, buffalo burgers and chicken fingers from the Haliwa-Saponi tribe; turkey legs, ribbon fries and funnel cakes from the Lumbee tribe; and “chicken bog” from the intertribal Native American Methodist Church.

In the afternoon alumni enjoyed a lively panel discussion featuring Native American students and alumni from Dartmouth and from North Carolina colleges. They shared their personal experiences at Dartmouth, reflected on the day’s activities and discussed current issues in the Native American community. Speakers included Catherine Hutasuhut ’99, Steve Lowery ’05 and Heather McMillan Nakai ’02.

“The event turned out to be a great success, the speakers were engaging, the celebration’s public activities were engrossing and the panel discussion turned out to be a real highlight,” said Andrews.

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