American Indian and Alaska Native White House Conference on Aging Listening Session

by Tim Hudson

Oklahoma weather and tornados weren’t enough to deter the Delaware Tribe of Indians delegation from a recent conference on Aging Listening Session.

According to Delaware Elder Nutrition Program Leader Allan Barnes, “We did get interrupted by the tornado sirens and were escorted to the designated Storm Shelter safe rooms until the all clear was given.”

The scare happened on May 11, during the 2015 American Indian and Alaska Native White House Conference on Aging Listening Session held in Norman, Oklahoma.

According to the OICOA, (Oklahoma Indian Council on Aging) the event was held in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services Region VI & VII Tribal Consultation Session and included attendees from thirty-one Tribal Nations from Arizona, Alaska, New Mexico, and Washington.

Attendees traveled from far and wide to voice their concerns about aging in Indian Country.

During a session with Assistant Secretary for Aging, Kathy Greenlee and Cynthia LaCounte, Director of American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Programs, Oklahoma weather reared its ugly head in the form of a severe tornado warning in the area, sending attendees to seek shelter in the lower levels of the building.

“We were down there for 45 minutes to an hour,” Barnes said.

“No one seemed too ruffled by the idea of a tornado. If anything, there might have been a sense of claustrophobia.”

He says that the safe rooms the attendees were divided into were fairly spacious so there was no crowding and he got the opportunity to visit with several people.

“One lady from Albuquerque said when they had storms they were more concerned about lightning strikes and flash flooding” he said.

Another elderly Indian lady I sat down and visited with, said she was from southern Oklahoma and they would just sit out on the front porch and watch them because she was too old to be worried!”

After the threat had been lifted, Assistant Secretary Greenlee and Director LaCounte graciously resumed to the session and listened to every person presenting testimony until the session’s conclusion at 8:00 PM.

“All of these sessions, meetings, and conferences are very worthwhile and are a benefit to our tribe,” Barnes said.
“Our Delaware Tribe’s history and our origins from the East Coast is a very interesting story to most that don’t know we were one of the tribe’s to greet the first Europeans who came to America.”

He says that he feels like the seminar, even with the storm troubles, was very worthwhile.

“What I took away from the sessions for the Delaware people would be the influential contacts and their offers of assistance to our Tribe, whenever a need existed” he said.