People’s Center marks 20-year anniversary
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POLSON — From its beginnings as bare ground and an office in the basement of the Pablo Bank, the People’s Center celebrated its 20-year anniversary in a beautiful building on landscaped grounds complete with an arbor. On Saturday, the People’s Center threw a birthday party for itself starting with a free barbecue from 1 to 2 p.m., shinney and double ball games from 2 to 3 p.m., stick game all day, a fry bread contest from 2 to 3 p.m. and a powwow from 3 to 6 p.m.
The People’s Center was started by an Administration for Native Americans grant written by Betty White, Arlee, according to Marie Torosian, People’s Center Education Director. White spearheaded the project and brought together a group of Culture Committee members, elders, and others, among them Patricia Hewankorn, Pat Lefthand and Clarence Woodcock. They traveled around Idaho, Washington, Montana and even up into Canada to see what kind of a facility they wanted to build and then hired Paul Bishop to design the structure, taking into account the wishes of the Indian people.
Torosian did not work at the People’s Center at the time it was in the planning stage. She served on the board of directors and worked at the Culture Committee to oversee Salish components of the museum.
Originally, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes planned to build the People’s Center up in the Crow Creek area, Torosian said, and establish the Salish Kootenai Nation Park. After the committee started touring the reservation with the prototype, people thought it would be better if it were closer to the highway.
Then in 1990 Alec Quequesah, 12 of his Salish Kootenai College building trades students and Jimmy Johnson began looking at blueprints of the museum and worked on the site for two to two and a half years.
“It was a great challenge for my students and me,” Quequesah noted.
The building is an eagle, Quequesah said. The portions emblazoned with the People’s Center are its wings, the front door is the beak, the round building is its body and its tail is in the back.
The rockwork on the outside of the building was contracted and contained three kinds of rock representing the three tribes — from Perma representing the Pend d’Oreille, from Elmo for the Kootenai and flat rocks from up the Bitterroot for the Salish.
After the museum was completed, Betty White was the first director of the People’s Center. A trained curator from back east named Mary Beth Libers trained Gloria Trahan and Frances Vanderburg to also be its first curators.
As for items to display in the People’s Center, Torosian said people donated, the Tribes purchased things, and lots of the collection was on loan from the Army Corps and from the Cheney Cowles Museum in Spokane, Wash.
The first exhibit entitled the “The First Sun, The Beginning” stayed up until about three years ago. After remodeling, a new exhibit was mounted with items purchased from Doug Allard’s collections. Museum staff traveled to Arizona and purchased back about 98 percent of the items and brought them home. Now up in the People’s Center is an exhibit titled “Understanding Native American People” by Susan Reynolds. Reynolds is a tribal member and photographer, and the exhibit will continue through October and November, Torosian said.
Exhibits in the education room at the People’s Center revolve. All sorts of activities take place in the education room beading on Thursday, a farmer’s market, schools come to do activities, tribal history talks, meetings.
The museum is open from October until May Monday through Friday and June through September Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information, call the museum at 675-0160..
