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Students at Sequoyah High School playing with stickball equipment, purchased with Diabetes Prevention Grant.

TAHLEQUAH, OKLAHOMA - Sequoyah High School is starting the school year with new fitness activities provided through a $71,000 grant from the Cherokee Nation.

"We were able to purchase lifetime sports equipment", said Tony Pivec, superintendent of Sequoyah High School. "We bought things they can use outside of Sequoyah such as golf bags, softball bats and gloves. Where a public school sends kids home we have the ability to guide physical fitness activities through the evenings."

Sequoyah also purchased incentive items to get more kids involved in physical fitness.

"Although it may seem like coaxing, it is worth it to improve the health of our students", Pivec said. "We also purchased around 20 bicycles, which get used constantly at the dorms, treadmills for the dormitories and roller blades to be used around campus."

The Cherokee Nation Diabetes Program selected Sequoyah High School as one of seventeen schools to share in a $1 million Diabetes Prevention Grant. Schools that applied for the Cherokee Nation Diabetes Prevention Grant had to submit a plan for improving their existing physical activity program or starting a new one. The Cherokee Nation distributed the grant as a form of diabetes prevention among Native American people. Schools with a high number of Native American students were given top priority in the selection process.

"We also used some of the grant money to purchase stickball sticks and balls", Pivec said. "This is not only a great physical fitness activity; it is also helping to keep our culture alive."

Sequoyah High School "Home of the Indians!" Sequoyah High School is an Indian boarding school which originated in 1871 when the Cherokee National Council passed an act setting up an orphan asylum to take care of the many orphans that came out of the Civil War. Sequoyah High School's approximate 300 enrollment represents 42 tribes and 14 different states. Students are eligible to attend if they are members of federally recognized Indian tribes or one-fourth blood descendants of such members.