Łaxayam Tribal Tilixam~

My name is Michael Cherry, I’m the daughter of Candy Robertson-Cole and the late Jesse Robertson, Oglala Sioux, grand-daughter of Alberta Riggs-Norwest, great-grand daughter of Lena Bobb Norwest and the great-great granddaughter of Chief Solomon Riggs.

I am a wife, mother, grammy, sister, auntie, daughter and friend. I am honored to have served you on Tribal Council for the past three years. I am seeking reelection on Tribal Council to continue serving the members and represent your needs. I was born and raised in Grand Ronde and my heart is in this community.

Prior to be on Tribal Council I have served the tribe in various leadership positions including the previous Spirit Mountain Community Fund director and Marketing manager for our casino. But my heart is in service to our people. My career started in Indian Child Welfare in 1989. Fast forward three decades and life seems to come full circle when I was asked to pray on the steps of the Supreme Court Justice building with tribal staff for the Haaland v. Brackeen ICWA case. What an honor that was! The ICWA case that was upheld was critically important to protect our children and to protect our tribal sovereignty.

We have made tremendous progress as of late with a Child Care Development Center, a Resident and Recreation Center, sawah-ili?i skul Tribal School, Wind River Apartments Phase III and seeing the completion of Homeownership phase I and Elder Housing phase II, we have much to celebrate!

I am proud to serve alongside eight other members of our council who give so much of their time and talents to serve our membership. We do not make decisions in a vacuum, you have to collaborate and work well with others to see progress.

When I ran in 2021 one of my main priorities was taking care of our elders. I am happy to see our first ever Elder Protection Ordinance now being developed. Taking care of our elders is the foundational core of who we are as native people. Education was also very important to me. Our tribal students still graduate at half the rate of their peers and this is why it’s critical that we continue to prioritize the tribal school for the best possible outcomes for our kid’s futures. 

We are seeing the answered prayers of our ancestors and I’m so grateful for how far we’ve come but their sacrifices is not lost on me. We are a spiritual people and as a prayer warrior it’s critical that we carry on the tradition of prayer and honor those who came before us. This led me to advocate for those ancestors who have walked on but have no markers on their graves. I’d like to see us reestablish the cemetery committee & honor those ancestors by taking care of their final resting place.

We’ve held a number of listening sessions on the state of enrollment and we have work to do in preparation of a Constitutional amendment to move towards lineal descent. It’s time for families to heal.

I have been transparent and accountable to the members. I believe there are always opportunities to improve communication. To support these endeavors I recorded a podcast, a video or wrote e-newsletter articles each and every time I returned from a work trip to report to the membership. I keep a daily attendance spreadsheet log and report to the membership at  scheduled Year End Reviews in December each year  on my attendance record for transparency.  I also provided an operational report of the projects I supported, meetings I attended with the percentages of participation. I did this on my accord to show accountability to all tribal members and will continue to do so.