TOTA board meets in Memphis

The Trail of Tears Association board met Monday, May 5, 2008, at the Holiday Inn Select in Downtown Memphis.

Jerra Quinton was officially selected to replace Paul Austin as TOTA's executive director. She had been associate director and before that coordinator. Lois Bethards, who has replaced Paul as executive director of the American Indian Center of Arkansas, also attended. TOTA headquarters will remain at AICA, which provides other services under a management contract. Paul left his dual job at TOTA and AICA March 17 to become executive director of the Arkansas Humanities Council.

The board adopted a $142,475.00 budget that is based on having 600 members. Jerra said we now have 560. During the meeting, TOTNHT superintendent Aaron Mahr mentioned that TOTA will be getting extra funding from the National Park Service. A budget amendment will be considered at the TOTA board's next meeting on Tuesday, September 23, 2008, at the DoubleTree Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the 13th annual TOTA Conference & Symposium.

Mahr brought three staff members, some of them new to the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: Sharon Brown, who replaces John Conoboy as trails operations manager; Frank Norris, who replaces Aaron as historian; and Otis Halfmoon, who fills the new position of tribal liaison. Otis was also at the Rome conference. Sharon helped moderate a TOTNHT planning session in 2002. Frank just transferred to Santa Fe after 20 years in Alaska.

Brown encouraged TOTA to review and update the TOTNHT Strategic Plan as well as its own. There was discussion about having a Strategic Plan retreat in 2009 that will involve the TOTA board and chapter presidents.

She also said that all future Challenge Cost Share applications must go through the TOTA office instead of from chapters directly to NPS. It was later explained that this is because TOTA has liability insurance. TOTA will essentially be the fiscal officer for all future CCS projects. However, a procedure has not yet been set up.

With increased funding for the National Trails System, Mahr said he hopes to hire a GIS specialist and an interpretive specialist who will succeed Andrea Sharon when she retires.

TOTA president Jack Baker announced that the Cherokee Nation's Washington, D.C., office is working with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to get a version of HR 5335 introduced in the U.S. Senate. The legislation would add to the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail the Cherokee routes detailed in the National Park Service's Additional Routes Feasibility Study. It is hoped that the legislation will be adopted and signed before TOTA's September 22-25 conference in Little Rock.

It was announced that Jeff Bishop of GATOTA with Jerra and Jack were to present a Trail of Tears session on removal fort sites at the Partnership for National Trails System's preservation workshop on historic trails in Phoenix May 6-8.

Mahr said that the National Park Service's long-awaited Trail of Tears orientation film may be ready so to have its premiere at the TOTA conference. Aaron said he has seen the rough cut and that the 18-to-23-minute film will focus on the story of an individual Cherokee man and his granddaughter.

Representing the Arkansas chapter were Glenn Jones and Kitty Sloan. Bobbie Heffington, TOTA treasurer and Arkansas chapter member, was unable to attend. John McLarty did. He was there to report on the Map Room display planned for the September conference.

Others in attendance were vice president Troy Poteete, and secretary Patsy Edgar as well as Muscogee (Creek) Nation representative Joyce Bear. Representing chapters were Gail King, Alabama; Dola Davis and Tommy Cox, Georgia; Beverly Baker and Alice Murphree, Kentucky; Darrell Latch and Rowena McClinton, Illinois; Denise Dowling and Deloris Wood, Missouri; Ginger Abernathy and Mary Ann Thompson, North Carolina; Betty Barker and Curtis Rohr, Oklahoma; and Bill Jones and Shirley Lawrence, Tennessee.