Kalispel Tribe holds conference

It was time to put away the notebooks and break out the basketballs at the Spokane Convention Center where nearly 40 teams of American Indian youths participated in a little three-on-three action on Thursday.

As many as 830 Native youths from Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Utah participated in the annual Northwest Indian Youth Conference, presented this year for the first time by the Kalispel Tribe of Indians and Kalispel Tribal Youth.

“This is a big deal for such a little tribe,” said Julie Edmiston, a Coeur d’Alene tribal member who works for the Kalispel Tribe.

She volunteered to help out during the six-day event that ends Saturday.

Native youth spent the week learning leadership skills and listening to inspirational speakers, said Anna Bluff-Pope, director of education for the Camas Institute, the Kalispel Tribe’s behavioral health and learning center.

This was the third conference for Josephine Roach, 14, of the Kalispel Reservation.

She said the conference helps Native American youth “learn how to make better choices.”

“And raise your self-esteem,” added her friend Chrystal Littlecrow, 15.

Edmiston said the conference is a good place for Indian youths to learn that they don’t have to make the same mistakes their grandparents might have made with alcohol, drugs or car crashes that have plagued Indian reservations over the years.

It’s also not a bad place to make new friends, said Roach and Littlecrow, who will use MySpace.com to keep in touch with some boys they met from the Lummi Nation of coastal Washington.

The conference ends in a two-day powwow, which is free to the public, beginning at 7 p.m. today at the Convention Center.