TO THE CREATORS OF
CHEROKEE TURBANS BY LIZ
site of the original Old Settler Cherokee capitol on Deep Branch known
as Tahlonteskee Court House, in present-day Sequoyah County, Oklahoma.
Troy Wayne is the sixth generation of his family to reside in Sequoyah
County, where his ancestors settled pursuant to the Treaty of New Echota.
He is only the fifth generation of his family at "the falls" across the
Arkansas River, in his home town of Webbers Falls, where his father was
mayor, his paternal grandparents were postmaster and postmistress, and
both sets of his paternal grandparents were merchants and farmers.
Elizabeth was reared by her Cherokee grandmother near Lost City in
Cherokee County, Oklahoma, growing up on Fourteen Mile Creek and
attending Quarter Meetings of the Cherokee Baptist Association. Her
father, the Reverend Charlie Carey, together with her musically-talented
uncle Duce Carey, constructed the buildings and helped found several
of the Cherokee Baptist Churches in the Cherokee Nation; churches
where the Cherokee language is used in both song and sermon. Elizabeth
holds a Masters Degree in Curriculum Development from Northeastern
State University, and has taught the higher forms of mathematics,
developing a curriculum styled especially for the learning techniques
of Native American children at the tribally-maintained Sequoyah
High School in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and has also taught at Oaks
High School and the Muskogee, Oklahoma high school system. She
managed the box office for the Trail of Tears Drama at the Cherokee
Heritage Center in Tahlequah for many years. She currently devotes
much of her time to gardening and baby-sitting her grandchildren,
and is in the process of designing a "Chief John Jolly" turban,
which will be styled in the "open top" fashion.
At age twelve, Troy Wayne graduated from working in the hay patch
to working at Swearingen's General Merchandise in old Webbers Falls,
which in those days of 1968 was a trade center for southern Muskogee
County and western Sequoyah County. Many tribal elders traded there,
and it was among the numerous friends of his grandparents (on both sides
of the family) that he first began to learn the Cherokee language. At the
age of fourteen, he and his friend John Smithson began to research the
history of their local area, and discovered that Webbers Falls had been
the capitol of a forgotten "Cherokee Dixieland" where Cherokee
lifestyles had mirrored the idyllic "Gone With the Wind" milieu of
the mythical Old South. From those adolescent days until the present
time, Troy Wayne has researched, written, and spoken about Cherokee
history, particularly about the Confederate Cherokees for whom the
Canadian District was set aside as a settling place following the Civil War.
Webbers Falls was the seat of government for this, the southernmost
district of the Cherokee Nation. In 1991, Troy Wayne was elected to
the Cherokee Tribal Council to represent this area, now a part of the
Three Rivers District, in the first election of Tribal Councilors by
district since Oklahoma statehood. After serving as a Tribal Councilor
for two consecutive terms, Troy Wayne decided not to seek re-election
in 1999, devoting himself rather to a full-time study of the law. He
graduated from law school in May of 2001, passed the bar examination
two months later in July of 2001, and entered into private practice as an
attorney for a period before becoming the Executive Director of the
Arkansas Riverbed Authority, a tribal entity jointly created by the
Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee Nations to administer their
interests in the 96-mile section of the Arkansas River found
between Muskogee, Oklahoma and Ft. Smith, Arkansas.
Troy Wayne Poteete was appointed to the Cherokee Nation
Supreme Court by Chief Chad Smith in 2007, was confirmed
by the Tribal Council in September of that same year, and in October,
2007, was sworn in at a public ceremony in the Battle of Webbers Falls
Park, located on the banks of the Arkansas River in Webbers Falls,
Oklahoma. Mr. Poteete currently maintains his law offices in the
town of Webbers Falls, located in the same building where his father,
E.L. "Moon" Poteete, operated the "Hit and Run Grocery" for over
a quarter of a century beginning in the late 1970s.