Wamego, Kansas, played host to a special party on Aug. 9, 2019, as the town celebrated the birthday of one of the country’s oldest living Native American veterans, Julia Kabance. A Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation citizen, Kabance celebrated her 109thbirthday with family, friends a fellow tribal members. Born on the tribal reservation in 1910, Kabance attended the Haskell Institute and University of Kansas before joining the Women’s Army Corps in 1943. Read more about her at cpn.news/pbp.
The Forest County Potawatomi are putting $2.6 million toward two green initiatives on their reservation lands in Wisconsin and privately held property in the city of Milwaukee. Funded via the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy, Forest County will place solar installations that are estimated worth $200,000 in annual energy efficiency savings for the tribe. Read more from the Wisconsin State Journal at cpn.news/fcsolar.
Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians Chairman Matt Wesaw gifted $127,500 to Beacon Health System in South Bend, Indiana, on behalf of the tribe and Four Winds Casinos in August. This year’s proceeds from the Four Winds Invitational at Blackthorn Golf Club will underwrite the purchase of pediatric eye imaging equipment for Beacon Children’s Hospital. Read more at cpn.news/4winds.
Illinois’ Forest Park Public Library recently repatriated artifacts from Potawatomi burial mounds that were removed in the 1960s from a former county cemetery. The Forest County Potawatomi Cultural Center, Library and Museum in Wisconsin took back the items, which included pottery shards, stone axes and spear points removed from Potawatomi burial mounds once located on what is now Forest Home Cemetery. Read the full story from the Forest Park Review at cpn.news/fpr.
Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, now has an official Indigenous People’s Park, after county commissioners voted to update the name to reflect its history as Potawatomi land. The park was ceded to the U.S. in 1833 as part of a treaty with the Potawatomi. Read more about the name change from Urban Milwaukee at cpn.news/ppark.