You’re invited to a COMMUNITY MEETING about the future of the Four Corners intersection (Route 438 & Versailles Plank Road).

Tuesday, May 26, 2026
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Cattaraugus Community Center, MPR

Questions? Email: a.kennedy@sni.org

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Save the Date: May 19, 2026 – 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

LOCATION: Voting will be held in the Lobby outside the District Office. Please enter through Door #7. Parking will be available for voters in the lower and upper parking lots located by the District Office.

Cast your ballot for the 2026-2027 school budget and elect two Board of Education candidates. Stay for dinner and support the Music Boosters Chiavetta’s Chicken BBQ fundraiser.

Vote & Support our Students

See flyer below for details or visit the schools website HERE!

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On Saturday, June 20th, the Council office is sponsoring a Bisons game for Native American Heritage Day.

At these venues, elders are provided 40-seat suites with food and beverage bar. Elders 60 y.o. and older watch for more fun times being planned!

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Submitted by Brittany Seneca

Stop down to the Allegany Senior Center or the Wini Kettle Senior Center and enjoy daily activities throughout the month of May. For more information call Stephanie John at (716) 945-8990 (for Allegany) OR Adrian Carry-Moccasin at (716) 532-5777, ext. 5501 for Cattaraugus.

Please note: Calendars are subject to change.

Schedule of events listed below:

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Pictured above: Kevin Seneca (left), a Seneca Nation Councillor on the Allegany Territory, and Dr. David Hilmey, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at St. Bonaventure University, take part in the ceremonial planting of a white pine tree.

ST. BONAVENTURE — St. Bonaventure University celebrated its 16th consecutive year of being a certified Arbor Day Foundation Tree Campus USA on Friday by planting a white pine tree outside its Administration Building.

The white pine was chosen to honor the Seneca Nation, upon whose ancestral land the university sits. Several members of the Seneca Nation attended the ceremony, held near the university’s newest flagpole bearing the Seneca flag that was dedicated in the fall.

The white pine is profoundly significant to the Haudenosaunee people as the Great Tree of Peace, symbolizing the unity, strength and harmony of the five nations. It represents the Great Law of Peace, which brought warring tribes together, and its roots represent peace and strength extending in all directions.

The five needles grouped together on a white pine represent the original five nations — Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca — bound together as one.

“I’m thrilled that it was students who decided to choose this tree,” said Flip White, a Seneca educator and member of the Wolf Clan. “From a contemporary standpoint, this tree is representative of lifelong learning because of the branches that continue to grow.”

St. Bonaventure and the Seneca Nation formed a friendship committee three years ago to strengthen their bonds and deepen their shared connections.

The flag dedication in the fall came just months after the university issued publicly for the first time a Land Acknowledgement Statement to recognize the “the stewards of the land” upon which the school was built almost 170 years ago. The university has also offered a minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies since 2022.

“Of all the things I’ve been involved with in my time at St. Bonaventure, renewing our relationship with the Senecas is what I’m most proud of,” Dr. David Hilmey, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, said at the ceremony.

The Tree Campus Higher Education program honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals.

The annual event is coordinated by Kevin Vogel, longtime member of the Biology faculty and chair of the Environmental Studies program. Br. Kevin Kriso, O.F.M., guardian and animator of Mt. Irenaeus, blessed the tree.

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• Daphne Twoguns, Yenyahdë:h (She is Turtle clan) – crowned by her No’yeh, Charisse Twoguns
• A’yane Moses, Yenyahdë:h (She is Turtle clan) – crowned by her Akso:t, Becky John
• Charlotte Carry Moccasin, Gogë’ge:ga (She is Beaver clan) – crowned by her No’yeh, Katryn Tarbell
• Remmie White, Gota:tö:nih (She is Wolf clan) – crowned by her No’yeh, Shavonne Stevens
• Justine Printup, Yenyahdë:h (She is Turtle clan) – crowned by her Akso:t , Viola Lay
• Eilah Sanchez, Gota:tö:nih (She is Wolf clan) – crowned by her No’yeh, Erika Stevens
• Rose Henhawk, Yenyahdë:h (She is Turtle clan) – crowned by shagóno’sëh, Corbett Seneca
• Alora White, Yenyahdë:h (She is Turtle clan) – crowned by her No’yeh, Veronica Cook
• Zinia Parker, Gota:tö:nih (She is Wolf clan) – crowned by o:hak (3x Great), Pat Pierce

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place at the Eastman Theater on Sunday night, April 26, 2026.

It was a celebration of artistic excellence, cultural impact and community legacy. Internationally acclaimed actor and singer Taye Diggs, the La Barbera Brothers, the Pythodd Room, Music of Seneca Nation, Donna Lynne Champlin, the Skycoasters and Paul Hoeffler were inducted as part of the class of 2026.

The ceremony honored the diverse musical contributions that have shaped Rochester’s cultural landscape.

By honoring the Music of the Seneca Nation, the Rochester Music Hall of Fame acknowledges that the region’s musical heritage extends far beyond commercial stages — it lives in traditions that have shaped community, resilience, and cultural continuity for centuries.

The music of the Seneca Nation—one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy—is among the oldest and most enduring musical traditions in Western New York. For centuries, Seneca music has served as a powerful expression of cultural identity, spirituality, and community life, closely connected to social dances, ceremonial gatherings, and storytelling traditions.

Traditional Seneca music is primarily vocal and rhythmic. Songs are typically led by a singer playing a water drum and accompanied by singers using horn rattles, creating a distinctive sound that anchors many performances. Within the longhouse tradition, music accompanies seasonal ceremonies that give thanks for elements of the natural world and reaffirm the community’s connection to creation. Social dances such as the Smoke Dance, Round Dance, and Fish Dance bring communities together in celebration.

Passed down orally through generations, Seneca music remains a living tradition today—honoring ancestral knowledge while continuing to be shared through cultural events, festivals, and education. Keeping the tradition alive is the Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, NY, which is open to the public. More at Ganondagan.Org.

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Mrs. Kinney’s Native Lit English 12 students stepped beyond the classroom and into the natural world. As part of their study of abundance and reciprocity, students harvested wild onions while reflecting on the teachings from Braiding Sweetgrass and the Honorable Harvest shared by Robin Wall Kimmerer. They practiced taking only what they needed, offering gratitude, and recognizing their responsibility to care for the land.

With guidance from the NACT team, this hands-on experience brought lessons of stewardship and respect to life.

Moments like these remind us that learning isn’t just something we read—it’s something we live.

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Growing up, Eli Hall’s family often visited the Allegheny Reservoir, a man-made lake that straddles the border between Pennsylvania and New York. Driving north along the shores, they’d see blue waters, boaters, swimmers, everything you’d expect from a summer lakeshore. But following that road into the Seneca Nation of Indians’ Allegheny Reservation, they’d see the reservoir change. Gone were the boaters and swimmers and gone were the blue waters. In their place was a mess of green algae.

But why?

Having just earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, Hall finally has his answer. Along with it, he found a calling to use science to help people.

“As far as I know, I’m the first one in my family from both sides that has gone to grad school,” Hall said. “I never would have thought any of this would be possible.”

But Hall’s work on the question extends before his time at Pitt — and the problem’s origins go back much farther than Hall’s childhood. The Allegheny Reservoir was created when the Army Corps of Engineers completed the Kinzua Dam in 1965 as a means of controlling downriver floods in Pittsburgh. The resulting body of water took up close to a third of the reservation’s land, displacing around 600 Seneca by eminent domain and violating what was then the oldest treaty between the U.S. and a Native nation or tribe.

Hall, a Seneca himself, grew up nearby and often spent time in the reservation. As a college student at Rochester Institute of Technology, he decided to research the dam’s origins as a project for an environment and society class as Seneca elders seemed reluctant to discuss it.

“It’s still fresh on the memory for us,” Hall said. “I got more and more into it and decided to try to apply scientific principles such as remote sensing and biogeochemistry to give further context to the issue.”

He went on to work for the Seneca Nation Environmental Protection Department and then headed to Pitt for his PhD, where he joined the lab of Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Professor Emily Elliott as well as the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory.

Hall’s thesis work started with a historical accounting of the reservoir, analyzing satellite imagery with machine learning to show that algae blooms in the northern portion of the reservoir happened annually going back to at least 1984: almost 30 years earlier than the available records claimed. Two different kinds of algae are responsible for the blooms, and in some parts of the reservation, he found, those blooms are getting worse.

But when he was finally ready to start the sampling that would comprise the core of his thesis, the work was delayed for two years by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first of several times Hall would learn what he says is the most important lesson of his academic career so far.

“You’re going to get to a point where things just aren’t going right,” Hall said. “The most important thing is figuring out how to overcome the obstacles that are in your way. Every single obstacle you get past, the next one will get a little easier.”

In 2022, Hall was able to get back in the field. In collaboration with scientists in the Seneca Nation and the Army Corps of Engineers, Hall collected several years of water samples from different parts of the lake.

The team’s goal was to track nitrogen, a nutrient necessary for the growth of algae that can make its way into water from wastewater, agricultural runoffs, rain or other sources. Each source leaves behind a characteristic ratio of isotopes, and so, with their data, Hall and his colleagues could identify the nitrogen sources fueling those blooms.

The main culprit: wastewater, which the team found was responsible for more than 70% of the nitrogen found in the reservoir. Whether due to power outages or heavy rainfall, treatment plants can sometimes dump untreated wastewater into the surrounding water bodies. Soil and fertilizer also contributed smaller amounts to the blooms. Identifying these sources, Hall said, will help those affected reduce the occurrence of the blooms by tackling the problem at its source.

And completing a project with so many distinct approaches means Hall is leaving Pitt with a far broader expertise than when he entered.

“Truth be told, I didn’t think I would do all three projects,” he said. “I’m glad I got the opportunity to because I’ve learned quite a lot about three very different disciplines.”

The questions he answered with those methods have implications that extend far beyond the border of the Allegheny Reservoir: Algae blooms cause $2 billion in economic damage each year in the U.S. alone, Hall said, as a result of declines in recreation value, challenges in processing water for drinking and other factors.

The project also confirmed for Hall that he wants his career to use scientific techniques to answer questions that have real, direct consequences for people’s well-being — what he calls a “community scientist.” For now, he’s looking for postdoctoral positions and figuring out where he’ll land. Wherever it is, he’ll be using his scientific skills to solve problems with real relevance.

“I want to do the science, and I want to help people,” he said. “If that’s academia, if that’s the federal government, that’s tribal governments, absolutely.”

Source

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Register HERE!

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