vital Cherokee enterprise
You can easily take the boy out of the reservation, but taking the reservation out of the boy might be a bit more difficult.
That’s true, at least, in the case of Raymond Kinsland a 1958 College of Agriculture and Life Sciences graduate and general manager of the Cherokee Boys Club on the Qualla Boundary (Cherokee Reservation) at Cherokee, N.C.
The CBC is in fact the financial administrative arm of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Inc.’s Cherokee Central School System.
With a $27.7 million budget for fiscal year 2003, the CBC provides a vast and varied array of tribal services, including many once performed by the federal government. A few of these include vocational education and leadership training, a children’s home and shelter, services and recreational activities for Cherokee youngsters, jobs for 500 adult tribal members and family services that extend to nearby communities.
And under Kinsland’s management, it also operates a fleet of 82 school buses, trucks and coaches, all bus transportation for the Cherokee Central Schools, a charter bus service for Western Carolina University, the reservation schools’ and Job Corps food service, a laundry, parking and shuttle buses for the “Unto These Hills” outdoor drama, a repair shop for all those vehicles and a printing and graphics shop. The CBC also holds tribal contracts for roadside mowing, trash hauling, construction projects and more.
Kinsland, who’s been on the job for 45 years, was raised on his family’s dairy farm near the reservation. Renowned for his 24/7 work ethic and friendly manner, he’s never far from his job: He and his wife Jerri, the tribe’s Emergency Medical Services head, live next door to his office.
“Everything we do is at the request of the tribe,” Kinsland, who was granted honorary tribal membership in 1968, said during a recent interview at his office. He also was given a Cherokee name: “Di-sde-li-sgi-a-ni-wi-ni,” or “Helper of Young Men.”
“The tribe took over the school system in 1990,” he said, “and we already had accounting, computer services, fringe benefits system and such in place. So we deal with budgets, hiring policy, food services: all administrative services. And the beauty of this is that our educators are free to educate.”
The close working relationship between the elected school board and the CBC is illustrated by the fact that Kathy Wolfe, his long-time administrative assistant, is also school board chairperson. “She makes it a point to keep the two roles separate,” Kinsland said. “It’s a win-win situation.”
Kinsland’s equally enthusiatic about his university loyalties.
“What I like about N.C. State,” he said, “is the university has always been work-oriented. I’ve seen some great theories on paper, but the Bible says our faith and knowledge isn’t worth a lot if we can’t put it into action, and State puts knowledge to work.”
Kinsland’s high school principal encouraged him to attend N.C. State. He had intended to work the family farm after college, but hadn’t been home long before the superintendent of the Indian Agency (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs) asked him to take over a vocational education class, which he ended up teaching from 1958 to1964.
In that capacity, he also was faculty sponsor for the Cherokee Boys Club, which had evolved from the Cherokee Boys Farm Club (founded 1932) and the Cherokee Motor Club (founded 1934). The clubs combined in 1958, incorporating as a non-profit, self-supporting tribal enterprise in 1964. Despite the continuing use of the “Boys Club” name, in 1966, the club changed its charter to include young women.
“We also have the Boys and Girls Club just down the road from us,” Kinsland said. “Like us, they’re also a division of the tribe, and we have two employees on their board of directors. But they serve younger boys and girls and we serve high school and post-high school youth.”
Kinsland is a valued community member, whose roots run deep into the rocky reservation soil. His dad, who worked for the schools’ maintenance department, helped build the 2,800-seat Mountainside Theatre that since 1950 has housed the outdoor drama “Unto These Hills.” Kinsland was there for opening night and was head usher for many years.
He is so dedicated to high school football that he has never missed a home game in his more than 40 years as game announcer and clock operator — for which the Cherokee Braves showed appreciation by naming their mountain-ringed football field Ray Kinsland Stadium.
And if that’s not enough dedication, on snowy days, Kinsland drives all the bus routes well before dawn and makes the call as to whether the routes are safe.
“People ask me if I’ve been here all my life and I say, ‘not yet!’” Kinsland said with a chuckle. But every indication is that he will.
— Art Latham
