In this episode, we’ll hear about the Potawatomi Fire, CPN’s new professional basketball team. We also talk to two Tribal members – one who self-published their first comic book and another who took us on their epic adventure hiking to the top of Mt. Whitney along the High Sierra Trail in California’s Sequoia National Park.
Professional basketball coming to Shawnee
Citizen Potawatomi Nation announced the exciting beginning of professional sports for Pottawatomie County in September 2021 with the debut of Potawatomi Fire basketball. At a press conference inside FireLake Arena on September 29, CPN Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett welcomed the league with open arms.
“The Basketball League offers us a great opportunity here at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. We are the first tribe to own a team in the league, and it is a growing professional league. It brings quality basketball to cities across the country, and we are particularly proud to be associated with TBL,” he said.
Find out more about The Basketball League at the basketball league dot net. Visit FireLake Arena online at fire lake arena dot com or on Facebook at FireLake Arena.
Embracing culture through art
Tribal member Lane Linecum is an artist from Madison, Wisconsin. The Bertrand family descendant recently graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and created a comic book titled Flyover as their final project.
Hownikan writer Mary Belle Zook recently talked with Linecum about comic books as art and the inspiration for Flyover, which centers on a Tribal member learning traditional Potawatomi tales and lessons in a post-apocalyptic world.
“I really like when my drawing feel very familiar and lived in, which I think makes it fun when I write like sci-fi kind of stuff or fantasy kind of stuff because it’s combining like a very realistic, lived-in world with sort of an out-of-this-world concept,” Lincecum said.
Linecum’s next steps including focusing on learning the Potawatomi language with the goal of releasing another comic book entirely in Bodéwadmimwen. You can find Linecum online at lanelinecum.com or on Twitter and Instagram @uglygirlswag. Purchase Flyover and other art from Linecum at cpn.news/linecum.
Father and son climb Mt. Whitney
Tribal members Koby and Steve Lawson took on the challenge of hiking to the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mt. Whitney in California through Sequoia National Park along the John Muir and Mount Whitney Trails. The summit sits an elevation of 14,505 feet.
“I thought it was insane. I was like, ‘How do people go hike … to the top of this mountain? I would never do something like that.’ And my dad, he immediately fell in love with the idea of doing it, and I think he saw it as a challenge for him to do that before he turned 60 years old,” Koby said.
See more about the trip on Koby Lawson’s Instagram account @High_Sierra_Trail_21.
Learning Language
It’s time for Learning Language, when the CPN Language Department joins us to teach vocabulary, songs, stories and more. In this segment, department director Justin Neely joins us for vocabulary about different types of drinks.
For more information and opportunities with language, including self-paced classes, visit cpn.news/language. You can find an online dictionary at potawatomidictonary.com as well as videos on YouTube. There are also Potawatomi courses on the language-learning app Memrise.
Hownikan Podcast is produced and distributed by Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Public Information Department. Subscribe to Hownikan Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud and wherever you find your favorite shows. Find digital editions of the Tribal newspaper here.