A quilting group based in Linwood, Kansas, recently presented Citizen Potawatomi Nation veterans with handmade quilts to honor the veterans’ military service. Peggy Pistora, Navarre family descendant, is a member of the Linwood Community Library’s Quilts for Veterans group. She helped organize the Oct. 8, 2022, quilt presentation at the Rossville, Kansas, CPN community meeting.
Mary Belle Zook visits Wisconsin Point, Wisconsin, and the Fond du Lac Reservation for a food sovereignty conference at their Tribal college.
Tribal member Karla Bylund started her own business six years ago, offering a wide variety of human resources services to Tribal governments and enterprises. Soaring Bird Solutions offers expertise in recruiting, crafting policy and procedure, handling employee investigations or grievances, employee training and development, compensation studies and strategic planning.
Teresa Hernandez may not have planned to have her own science education business, but she is now the proud owner of Adventures in Living Science and enthusiastic about sharing her knowledge with area students. A scholarship from the CPN Department of Education helped Hernandez in her path to business ownership.
Best-selling writer, ecologist and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ph.D., received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.
After 10 years working in foster care and adoption for tribal Indian Child Welfare departments, Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member Kendra Lowden accepted a position as a senior program associate at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work and Butler Institute for Families. She is also currently earning her Doctorate of Education from Southern Nazarene University.
Sly Alley, the author of Strong Medicine, is happy for the chance to share his Potawatomi heritage and culture with his fans during poetry readings, putting an Indigenous spin and unique perspective on the artform. Alley is currently working on his second book. As he completes new poems, he attends open mic events and poetry readings.
While listening to a podcast or talk radio program, the work seems easy — record, press play. However, the path to a product that presents itself as effortless and easy to digest takes teams of people on the same page with the same goal. Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member Devin Mellor has spent the last six years as an essential behind-the-scenes staff member at National Public Radio’s New York City bureau.
Creed Humphrey is a Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member and center for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. At only 23 years old, the Peltier family descendant played his second season of professional football in 2022-23, ending with his first Super Bowl appearance on Feb. 12, 2023. He spoke with the Hownikan about his experience as a professional football player.
Two Potawatomi artists contributed their talents to a new song and music video, Speak Again. Inspired by Potawatomi author Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s 2013 best-selling book, Braiding Sweetgrass, the lyrics and video envision a future where Bodéwadmimwen is brought back to Potawatomi communities in a meaningful way.