Children, culture, borders, and the future.

Klamath, CA – Klamath River Early College of the Redwoods (KRECR) with the sponsorship of the Yurok Indian Housing Association and Margaret Keating Elementary School (MKS), transformed the MKS auditorium into a frightening and fun Halloween Carnival October 27, 2006.

Admission and tickets were free for all participants. KRECR sold food, with proceeds benefiting the Tribe’s alternative high school in Klamath. Activities included bowling, golfing, hoops, fishing, ring toss onto real antlers, face painting, and the crowd pleasing spooky haunted house. Costumed children ran excitedly from one activity to the next, winning prizes at each booth. Giggles, gleeful shrieks, and ear-to-ear grins, filled the MKS auditorium on Friday night. Most adults wore grins almost as big as the kids.

KRECR students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community members, took turns running the booths and activities. One KRECR student proudly showed off his contributions, helping to build and decorate the booths and gym. He expressed his own enthusiasm for being able to bring a Halloween Carnival back to Klamath.

We hear a lot about it taking a village to raise a child. In Klamath, a Yurok Village of long historical standing and significance, these words form the strands that weave the blanket of everyday life, inextricably threaded through family, friends, and community.

Anyone who has lived on the North Coast of California is probably familiar with local Indian Tribes. What may be surprising are the issues of culture, poverty, education, and basic civil rights, which are ongoing within traditional Native communities. Fundamental rights which many, even on the North Coast, take for granted are still struggled with, and for, on a daily basis on local Reservations and Rancherias.

Amid water rights and old growth logging, protected species and dunes, are a mostly quiet and unobtrusive group of people who continue to experience the type of attitudes and disparities that spurred Martin Luther King Jr. into action. Yet, you won’t see many news articles with people clamoring to discuss this; ingrained Native traditions disdain self-pity and extol self-reliance.

Although Klamath students have historically endured discrimination and received disparate, or even been openly denied, basic educational services, this is another issue which people don’t often discuss in mixed crowds. High drop-out rates and scholastic failures have been the result and are almost invariably blamed on the students, families, and “hereditary” factors, without ever addressing the underlying causes.

KRECR is a realization of renowned Yurok resourcefulness. In recognizing and addressing the needs for essential education in a nurturing environment, KRECR provides, from within the community, that which would be otherwise unattainable. Combining cultural activities with sound scholarship, KRECR is also reaching out to further enrich the larger community.

Sometimes it is difficult to remember that from even a small seed, a giant tree may grow. Surrounded, and perhaps inspired, by the majestic Giant Redwoods, KRECR has embraced the task of fulfilling a community covenant to educate and raise the Yurok and Klamath leaders of tomorrow.

Individuals and groups with activities or presentations to share are encouraged to contact KRECR at (707) 482-1737 and MKS at (707) 464-0340