"the People's Paths!" Cherokee News Path - Sequoyah Alumni Plans Reunion

TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma – The Sequoyah Alumni Association is planning their annual reunion May 2-4. This year’s event is expected to draw record crowds and reunite old friends.

“We do it because when we were there it was more like an orphanage and that’s the only home that we knew,” said Roberta Gibson, Sequoyah Alumni Association secretary. “It’s just a chance to be with family again.”

The weekend’s events will kick-off with a golf tournament on Friday, May 2 at the Cherokee Trails Golf Course and a silent auction and social from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. in the Cherokee Nation Community Room, located directly behind the Restaurant of the Cherokees. On Saturday, the alumni will host a “pot luck” picnic followed by the annual business meeting in the Sequoyah Schools’ academic building. Saturday night is 63rd annual homecoming banquet in Sequoyah Schools’ The Place Where They Play. The banquet will be followed by a dance at the Tenkiller Lodge. The alumni reunion will wrap up on Sunday with a breakfast in the Sequoyah Schools’ cafeteria and Sunday morning services in the Sequoyah Chapel.

“We used to have the banquet in the cafeteria, but we’ve outgrown that and moved it to the new gym. I really appreciate Chad (Smith, Principal Chief) and Ms. Stanley (Sequoyah Schools’ superintendent) for always making us feel welcome,” Gibson said. “Sequoyah is home for a lot of us.”

The Sequoyah Alumni Association currently has more than 300 members and would like for more alumni to join.

“It’s a big job communicating with everyone,” Gibson said. “We have people from all over that come.”

To make communicating easier, the association publishes a newsletter and maintains a website. They also hold fundraisers throughout the year to fund three scholarships that they will present to three Sequoyah Schools’ seniors at graduation.

For more information on the Sequoyah Alumni Association or the reunion, contact Charles Cochran by e-mail at cdcochran@hotmail.com or Gibson at robertagibson43@hotmail.com or (918) 756-1638. A complete schedule of events can be found on the association’s web site.

Sequoyah Schools, a boarding school for Native American students, originated in 1871 as an orphan asylum to care for children who were orphaned by the Civil War. Now known as Sequoyah Schools, it is named for Sequoyah, the scholar who developed the Cherokee syllabary. The school is regionally and state accredited for grades 7-12 and has become the school of choice for more than 400 Native American high school students every year. Sequoyah Schools is located five miles southwest of Tahlequah, Okla. For more information about the school, call 918-453-5400.