Native American Student Association Club has been revitalized this year. NASA encourages students to become immersed in its culture and history. This brings Native American students to come together to share ideas of who they are to students.

Student members of NASA came and met with each other a few times these past months. The advisors have been teaching students traditional arts and skills. Upcoming activities in later months would be moccasins and ribbon work. At the moment, they are doing beadwork.

“We’re working on beadwork and then we were going to work on moccasins” junior Faith Cichon said. “We were going to actually bleach our own hide to make the haircut for the mocassins.”

Native American activities don’t just stop there. There are activities and entertainments that happen outside of Stillwater as well. Powwows are known to bring Native American communities together to socialize and honor their culture.

“Just recently there was a drum circle in White Bear Lake that people went to and it’s just a form of entertainment.” Junior Abby Speckman said.

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Photo by Sumer Harrington

NASA club meets after school every other Tuesday.

An important factor of NASA is giving graduating seniors an eagle feather. This is a tradition when a senior completes a brave act.

“We honor our seniors with that and the brave act that the seniors are committing by graduating is that they’re setting the example to their peers that education is important.” Advisor Joanna Tom said.

In NASA, another one of their goals was to create a welcoming and knowledgeable community. Students may notice posters around the school of facts about Native Americans.

“We do have a display downstairs that people can see when they walk by,” Speckman said. “We’re also setting up the signs that we’re putting on people’s doors of facts about Native Americans.”

Not only does NASA spread their culture, but also their history too.

“Some of our students didn’t know much about the history of residential schools and how the US government took Native children by force from their families and sent them to the schools and some of them never went home,” Tom said.

The creation of NASA happened 4 years ago and this is their first year being an official club. The advisor of NASA had started the club while being a part of NAPAC, which determines how the district uses fundings for Indian education. They had thought it was a perfect opportunity.

Tom said that she thought it was a good fit, to be in school and in NAPAC, to gather students and create NASA.

NASA is not only a club, but it is an opportunity to learn the important aspects of life. Joining the club will be eye-opening and create a great community.

Speckman explained how people should join because there are different backgrounds, ethnicities, and viewpoints on life within the group. It is not just the culture, but learning about people.

“Some of my friends come in there. They’re not Native American. They just love to do it because they like to be working and actually learning about the truth about Native Americans,” Cichon said.