Young America:
Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Biographical Notes

Tom Belt gew up in a Cherokee-speaking home in the Cherokee Nation of eastern Oklahoma. HIs academic "formal" training includes attendance at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Colorado. In Oklahoma, he served as Community Liaison Specialist for the Cherokee Nation, and was vice president of the Original Cherokee Communities Organization, a grassroots consortium of traditionalist communities that strove to maintain the viability and integrity of rural life in Indian country. Tom has lived with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in western NC for the past decade, and taught Cherokee language in tribal schools for seven years. He currently serves as a counselor for UNITY ,an organization for native youths at risk, and works with issues of substance abuse and violence among Indian children.

Margaret Bender is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and a member of the Interdisciplinary Linguistics Committee at Wake Forest University.

Robert J. Conley was born in Cushing, Oklahoma. He has been instructor of English at Northern Illinois University and at Southwest Missouri State University. He was director of Indian Studies at Eastern Montana College, Bacone College, and Morningside College; and an Associate Professor of English at Morningside College. Conley was also Assistant Programs Manager for hte Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Conley is noted for his accurate depiction of the old West, focusing on the history, tradition, and folklore of the Cherokee people. He has received a number of honors for his work, including the 1991 Ozark Creative Writers Award; the Spur-Best Western Short Fiction Award in 1988, 1992, and 1995; induction into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame in 1996; Wordcrafter of the Year, 1997; Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year (Prose-Fiction) award, 1999 (for War Woman); and Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year (Prose-Fiction) award, 2000 (for Cherokee Dragon).

Myrtle Driver grew up in a Cherokee-speaking home in Big Cove, one of the most traditional cummunities among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Myrtle has studied museology at the Field Museum (University of Chicago) and research methods at the Newberry Library (University of Chicago), and served an internship in Native American History at the Smithsonian Institution. While in Chicago, Myrtle was an Arts & Crafts and Language instructor at the Little Bighorn Indian High School and at the O/waya/way Indian Way School. She currently serves as Cultural Traditionalist for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Cultural Resources Department and she is Indian Clerk/Interpreter for the Tribal Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Ken Waldman, Alaska's fiddler-poet, has been fiddling all over the American West for the past decade. In performance, Waldman tells gripping stories, plays old-time Appalachian fiddle tunes, and reads enticing poems from his many chapbooks.  A former professor of English, Waldman has traveled from Barrow to San Francisco performing his poetry and original fiddle music in schools, coffeehouses, theaters, festivals, and bars. Author of Nome Poems (2002), Waldman holds an MFA in writing from the University of Alaska and has received grants from the Alaska State Arts Council and the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council.

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