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Marilyn
Tschida, a Cherokee Nation citizen and Descendants of Cherokee
Seminaries Students Organization's 2017-18 scholarship recipient,
speaks at the DCSSO's annual reunion on May 7 at the Branscum
Alumni Center in Tahlequah. (photo by Lindsey Bark - Cherokee
Phoenix)
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Brenda
Bradford, head of Special Collections and Archives at Northeastern
State University, foreground, helps attendees look for their
ancestors in the Cherokee National Female Seminary's roll
book during the Descendants of Cherokee Seminaries Students
Organization's annual reunion on May 7. The roll book contains
the names of students who attended the seminary from 1876
to 1906. (photo by Lindsey Bark - Cherokee Phoenix)
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TAHLEQUAH Every year on May 7 the Descendants of the
Cherokee Seminaries Students Organization hold its annual reunion
at Northeastern State University where it awards two NSU students
with scholarships. This year's recipients were Cherokee Nation citizens
Bryley Hoodenpyle and Marilyn Tschida.
Both students received a $1,000 scholarship based on their GPAs,
activities and interviews.
Hoodenpyle said her fourth great-grandmother's aunt and two
cousins attended the Cherokee Male and Female seminaries, which
she discovered through online research and NSU's archives. She said
after college she plans to attend NSU's optometry school.
"It means a lot to me to receive this scholarship just because
this university has given so much to me and has helped me grow personally,"
Hoodenpyle said. "NSU has developed me as a student and as a leader
so its really awesome to me that my family played a part in that
story however many years ago."
Tschida is an education graduate student and plans to graduate
in December. She said she found her grandmother's name in the Cherokee
Female Seminary roll book in NSU's archives and decided to apply
for the scholarship.
"I am really proud to accept it, I think she would be very proud
for me to have gotten something on her behalf," Tschida said.
On May 7, 1889, the Cherokee Female Seminary reopened north
of Tahlequah after a fire destroyed it two years earlier. So, no
matter what day May 7 falls on, the descendants of students who
attended the Cherokee Male and Female seminaries gather to honor
their ancestors and their time at the schools.
DCSSO President Rick Ward said the reunion is the oldest tradition
on NSU's campus, accruing annually for 167 years with the exception
of one year during World War II.
"It started out as a picnic, but it wasn't the descendants getting
together it was the actual students of the seminaries coming together,
bringing food and visiting out in front of the sycamore tree," he
said.
After noticing the number seminary students fading away, Jack
Brown established the DCSSO in 1975. Brown served as the executive
vice president of the Cherokee Seminaries Students Alumni Association
for years. He wanted to get the descendants of the alumni involved
in the activities of the association as well as keep the tradition
alive. In 1984 the name officially changed to the Descendants of
Cherokee Seminaries Students Organization.
The state bought the Female Seminary in 1909, which now serves
as Seminary Hall and the centerpiece of NSU.
DCSSO Secretary Ginny Wilson said she wants to keep the reunion
tradition alive for her grandmother, who was a student at the Female
Seminary.
"I do this for my grandmother. We used to bring her up here
to this reunion. It was always the one thing in her life she wanted
to do," Wilson said.
Wilson said the DCSSO follows the same format as their ancestors
did during their reunions, which consists of the organization's
meeting, lunch, a speaker, the Cherokee choir and Miss Cherokee.
"We follow that format as close as we can to just do the same
thing. It's gotten a whole lot smaller, but that's what we do as
descendants in memory of those people," she said.
Since the DCSSO established a scholarship for students who are
descendants in the early 2000s, its goal is to continue to provide
that scholarship.
"Our biggest plan is to increase our scholarship amount. That's
the most important, but also to keep the (May 7) tradition going
at Northeastern. Otherwise it will die," Wilson said.
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