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| Volume XXIII Number 15 | November 7, 2003 |
By Alexandra Frank
TEMECULA, CA. — The 17th Annual Intertribal Agriculture Council Symposium was held at the Pechanga Resort & Casino from Oct. 13-17. The Symposium was titled “Indian Agriculture: More than Cattle, Horses & Hay.” We have a very good agenda this year,” said Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) President Richard Bowers.
On the first day of the event, Bowers welcomed everyone to beautiful southern California. “We would like to welcome each and every one of you. I see a lot of familiar faces out there that have supported us year after year. Please continue because we do need it, especially in these times of budget cuts and so on. We will still survive just like we did 500 years ago,” said Bowers.
Bowers discussed the need to branch out when it comes to business, saying, “We’re involved not just purely in agriculture. Of course agriculture is very important to all of our tribes, but we have other ventures that we’ll go after. We’re not just talking about cattle all the time; we do much more.”
“I know a lot of you are going through a dry period or drought. In Florida, all of our Seminole people came by rowing boats to get to the airport because we had over 100 inches of rainfall this year.”
We’ve been coming out of a couple of years of drought and we wanted rain. We prayed for rain! But you have to be careful what you ask for, because it just dumped on us this year. If anyone wants water, come on down to Florida and bring a couple of buckets and bring it back with you,” joked Bowers.
“That’s where I’m from. We have to move aside alligators and snakes to get to the airport. Hopefully, we will have our brand new facilities ready, the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa and Hollywood, under the leadership of Mitchell Cypress. I believe the Hard Rock in Tampa opens in March, 2004. I’d like to have a meeting there, so if the board will think about that, we’ll hopefully see you in Florida next year,” said Bowers.
“We coincided our program with the INFR (Indian Nationals Final Rodeo), which we are great supporters of. We hope that you stay around this weekend to enjoy the finals, which will feature competitors from all over the country,” said Bowers.
“The Seminole Tribe has been involved with IAC since its inception 17 years ago. The late Fred Smith, who at one time served as President for the Seminole Tribe of Florida Inc., was instrumental in creating the Intertribal Agriculture Council. We hope to keep IAC going, not only for Fred Smith, but also for our tribes,’ said Bowers. Bowers explained that the IAC can assist many of the tribes out, which is the reason that sponsorship is so important.
Bowers then introduced two prominent leaders from the Tribe. “These gentlemen have sponsored and supported timelessly to IAC. The first is Paul Bowers, who is a Board of Director with the Seminole Tribe of Florida Inc. There are two entities within the Seminole Tribe: One is the business side where Paul Bowers Sr. is a Board of Director. The other side is the Council, where Mitchell Cypress presides as the Chairman,” Bowers explained.
Last year, Hendry County, where the Big Cypress Reservation is located, honored Paul as the Rancher of the Year. He is also in his second term as the Board Representative on the Big Cypress Reservation. Richard proceeded to introduce Paul to the symposium attendees.
Paul greeted everyone and said, “I work with agriculture. We have several thousand cattle on the Big Cypress Reservation and about 8,000 over on the Brighton and Lake Placid area,” said Paul.
“We have citrus, farming and a rock mine. We sell sand and different types of rock, and have seven reservations in the State of Florida that we work with. Like Chairman Mitchell Cypress, I work with all the reservations and all the people out there,” said Paul.
Changing subjects, Paul spoke about his firm support for the rodeos. “I sponsor a number of them like the INFR and I sponsor Rob Smitty from the PBR. I support him, Tony Mendez, and also Gary Richardson.”
“In Florida, we may be like swamp people, but we really like rodeos. We have a lot of contestants that come from Florida, called the EIRA (Eastern Indian Rodeo Association). It was in Region 13 and we couldn’t go past Oklahoma, which is in Region 8. We couldn’t compete, so we talked to the commissioners to see if we could compete in the INFR. Thankfully, we’re now able to compete in Region 13. We now have quite a few contestants out here this weekend,” stated Paul.
Richard Bowers continued on with his next introduction, Mitchell Cypress. “I can’t just say enough about the next gentleman coming up. As I mentioned before, he has supported us from the very start. I think all of his adult life he has been involved in politics.”
“He started out under the Board of Directors and has run unopposed many times when he ran for Board of Directors. I believe he just did such a good job that everyone was happy with him. Later on, he ran for President of the Seminole Tribe of Florida Incorporated, which is the business side.”
“There, he spent the first two terms (8 years), and under his leadership, we have prospered and have made a great many strides in Indian Country. We’re thankful for his leadership and supporting the IAC.”
Paul added, “One more thing you should know about this gentleman. He has made history in our tribe by being the very first person who has served as President and Chairman, which has never been done before.”
Mitchell Cypress, Chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, welcome everyone in attendance to the IAC Symposium. He said, “I would like to welcome everyone to Indian Country, not Arnold Country (Schwarzenegger). This is Indian Country and we need to go ahead and work with the new governor of the State of California; “I think the tribal leaders, as well as the leaders of IAC and the National Congress of American Indians President, need to work with and to educate him. We do have a lot of non-Indians who become representatives, governors or even the President that need to be informed about Indians.”
“We’re still young citizens, but we try to be assertive, stay ahead, and work with our government in order to be successful in where we’re at. We do our best. If we make a mistake, we go back and correct that mistake,” said Cypress.
Cypress added, “We always support any organization for those in Indian Country, and would like to welcome NCAI President Tex Hall. To me, this gentleman is a real hands-on person. Along with the IAC, NCAI can work with them as a team like Richard was saying. That’s how we’ll accomplish anything here, anything that we do; we must do as a team.”
“We have to work together and be aware of what’s going on from the tip of Florida to Alaska to Maine. Agriculture is a priority, but we need to push health issues too,” said Cypress.
“As Richard was saying, there’s a lot of water in Florida. Back in 78’ or 79’ when I first got into politics, there was a gentleman that was married to one of our tribal members out in Arizona. One of his campaign speeches was about water rights. We’re surrounded by water in Florida and I was wondering why he was politicking about water rights? But today, I see what he foresaw,” said Cypress.
Today, they dig canals and drain all the water out. It was the Everglades at one time, but it’s not the Everglades anymore. It’s dried up now. The only time you see water there is when it rains down in Ft. Lauderdale and in Hollywood. But where we run cattle, there’s little water,” explained Cypress.
He continued, “We’re learning the issues about water rights just like you. You’ve been at it for a long time; it’s not fair, but this is what the water rights are all about. We might have a serious water problem due to the population growth around South Florida.”
“As Richard was stating earlier, we have a couple of Hard Rock casino/hotels coming up.The one in Tampa should be completed around March 2004; the one in Hollywood, if everything goes right, should be completed by May. We’ll have an area where all the different organizations can meet,” said Cypress.
“I would like to recognize one of our elderly cattle owners, Johnny Tucker. I think he’s probably one of the surviving cattle owners from the beginning, when we had Brahma cattle due to the wet area. He’s from the Brighton Reservation where he raises Hertford cattle. We eventually switched to Brangus cattle so we have Brangus out there in the Everglades.”
Cypress added, “I would like to go ahead and thank everybody. Richard has done a great job. He’s always informed us about what’s going on and what lies ahead.”
Chairman Cypress concluded, “The Seminole Tribe of Florida, as well as the Seminole Tribe of Florida Inc., would like to thank everybody here and are fully supportive of your organization.”
The Tribe over the past few years has greatly supported organizations such as IAC, NCAI, and USET. As Mitchell Cypress, Richard Bowers, and Paul Bowers Sr. stated before, everyone must be involved in these organizations in order for the tribes of the United States to be recognized and their voices heard as first peoples.
The times have changed since the first treaties were signed; many tribes are self sufficient, still others depend on the promises made by those treaties. Let us all work at supporting one another and continue to meet in seminars and symposiums in order to stay abreast of the changes that will come our way, and be aware of those changes for the sake of our people.
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