Driving to White Eagle always takes a person past the homes of relatives who are long gone. Memories of them
and the brief times we spent  at their places are all that exist today.  The houses have been rebuilt, rooms added, and genereally, would be unrecognizable to those people of old.

The very large building where I was to speak is called the Cultural Center.  At this time it has been refurbished and was squeaky clean.  The director had overcome the expanse of the place by speaking through a microphone so that all could hear.  I thought this was a phenomenal thing because I remember trying to teach an art class there and not being able to make my voice heard without shouting.

    My thought was that I would be speaking to High School students and realized there were a good number of  five and six year old children there, as well.  The direrctor quickly seated these in a semicircle around the quickly made speakers tables he arranged. It was like watching pieces of puzzles coming together on a t.v. show, all so orderly and quickly done.

    In my speech I tried to bounce back and forth between the little ones and the teens there, no easy task, but, somehow I was able to do that.  I brought the speech down to a short, short place and the director, Dwight Howell, walked up to me as I asked him to do when he wanted it to end.  Somehow or another, the timing came out just perfectly and I had not one more thing to say when he came up. 

    The children were wonderfully attentive and their big eyes told me they were grasping the old story my great uncle had told me when I was a child.  That alone was a wonderful feeling.  The youth seems to absorb my story and even the young mother's were interested.

    When the program was over Dwight came over and he was all smiles. That made my day.

    One of my old friends walked me through the refurbished rooms now furnished with appliances for the use of the young people. There were computers, pool table, other table games, rooms for crafts and so on.  It was a wonderful feeling for me and in my heart I was so proud of Dwight's work.  He is endless in his talents, whether documenting history of artifacts on a computer or organizing this wonderful  teaching place for the children, which just goes to prove, it is the person who can bring about wonderful changes, not politics, money, or anything else. It all seemed a wonderful place to talk of my mother's book telling of the battle she fought for this, so many years ago.