I wish I had been in Texas yesterday! Click on the photo link to see pictures of Don--he is in pics 14-16.
Indian dances, rock star help open Caddo refuge
By WES FERGUSON Sunday, September 27, 2009 KARNACK — A ceremonial dance blessed the public debut Saturday of the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The day marked the culmination of years spent cleaning the former Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant near Caddo Lake's southwestern shore.
Talk of East Texas: Indian dances, rock star help open Caddo refuge
The refuge's 8,400 acres of pines and bottomland hardwood trees will be a haven for wildlife and a place for people to seek spiritual renewal, said Don Henley, the rock singer from Linden and a speaker at Saturday's opening event."The refuge contains one of the best, if not the best, examples of flooded wetland forest in the entire nation," Henley said.
Henley, who is founder and board chairman of the Caddo Lake Institute, said lake-area residents fought plans to convert the former plant into an industrial park after it closed in 1991."This has been a community effort, no doubt about it," he said.
Caddo tradition
Several descendants of Caddo Lake's first inhabitants, the Caddo Indians, sang and danced traditional welcome songs at the celebration.
Travis Threlkeld, 16, was the loudest singer. He and three other men sang and beat a wide drum as they marched in a circle.Two rows of women in traditional floral dresses, flowing headdresses and moccasins shuffled behind the men."Our songs are traditional," Threlkeld said. "They have a lot of variety and differences that keep us entertained." He said the Binger, Okla., tribe's biggest dances of the year can draw up to 150 people and last all night, from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m.His grandfather is one of only two people who can still speak the ancestral language fluently, he added.
"I'm one of the younger singers, but I've been around it so long I've kind of got an idea of its history," he said.
As Threlkeld and the others danced, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, bobbed his head to the drumbeat. Later, Gohmert told the crowd of about 500 people that he was working to pass legislation to protect Caddo Lake and to fight invasive species such as giant salvinia."The appearance of giant salvinia could be the biggest problem the lake has ever had as a threat," he said.Gohmert also composed a song for the occasion.
"Hotel Caddo Lake" was set to the chorus of "Hotel California," the famous number by Henley's band, The Eagles. Henley said he had been fishing on Caddo since the mid-1950s. "The older I got, I realized just what an important ecosystem this is, and that we need to protect it," he said.