RED ROCK, Okla. – It has been said that there is nothing permanent except change. The seasons change, jobs change, people change and so do encampment chairmen. This year is the first year of a two year term for the new Encampment Committee Chairman Jade Roubedeaux and he is passionate about the changes he wants for the encampment.
 
Roubedeaux was raised by his paternal grandparents Richard and Celeste Grant Roubedeaux. When he talks of the Encampment and his serving as chair, there is emotion in his voice. For him, this is a personal matter. A deathbed promise he made to his grandmother who died in October 2012.
 
“My grandma talked to me,” Roubedeaux remembers. “The last few weeks of her life I was with her every day. She talked about this. This is what we raised you to do—because I wasn’t encampment committee chair yet. She told me that she wanted me to get it back. ‘I only want you guys to mourn for a little while. I don’t want to you to mourn too long.’ She said she wanted me to start taking my place in this tribe how her and grandpa raised me to be.”
 
Roubedeaux says he agreed to her request and more obligations followed.
 
“So I told her OK,” Roubedeaux says. ”I said I’ll try to get the encampment back. The next thing you know, I got hired here, and I got the encampment back and I got put on the election board. It was a little overwhelming at first.”
 
It has been eight years since Roubedeaux last held the position of Encampment Committee Chairman. He held the position in 2006 before the enrollment requirements were dropped 1/8 blood quantum resulting in a tripling in size of the tribe. But Roubedeaux says regardless of how large the membership has grown, the Encampment stays the same.
 
“When I got it last time, I was told ‘This ain’t a powwow,’” Roubedeaux says. “My grandpa used to tell me that all the time ‘this ain’t a powwow, this is our Encampment.’ All Otoes gather once a year.”
 
His experience as a singer has also made him sensitive to the long days that Head Staff endure during Encampment. That’s why one of the things that Roubedeaux wants to change is that the dancing ends before midnight.
 
“When it comes to dancing, for one, we are not supposed to dance into the next day,” Roubedeaux says. ”We are not supposed to go past midnight. And in the past we have been out there until 3, 4 o’clock in the morning. And you have to get sleep because your committee and your head singer has to be ready to go at 7:30 the next morning to raise the flag. Then you start that whole day over again.”
 
In the 1920s the Kiowa Tribe gave the Otoe people the Gourd Dance. It was lost in the 1930s after the outlaw of the Sun Dance and both tribes stopped dancing the Gourd Dance. When the Kiowa people revived the dance in 1957 they again gave it back to the Otoe-Missouria as a gift recognizing the long friendship between the two tribes. Today the Otoe-Missouria Tribe has its own Gourd Dance Society called Red Rock Creek.  
 
However, with limited hours in the day, Roubedeaux had to make cuts somewhere to end at 11 p.m.
 
“In the beginning, we were a dancing people,” Roubedeaux says. “We danced before we got the Gourd Dance. That was our way. And it seems now, that we are spending so much time Gourd Dancing, that you got to squeeze the dancing part into 3 or 4 hours or else you are going past midnight and you’re there until morning. That’s why we’re not going to Gourd Dance after supper because we are a dancing people.”
 
This year, Grand Entry will only be held on Saturday night and winners will be announced after their contest.  Roubedeaux says that this change will allow dancers who don’t want to dance each night to sit out.
 
“This is where they come, set up their camps, visit and they might not see somebody for a long time they might want to sit out and visit one day,” Roubedeaux says, “and maybe dance the next day, compete and whatever you know. That’s what it’s all about.”
 
One of the more controversial changes the committee made this year was how they chose their princess. For the last several decades, the princess has been chosen by the committee itself. This year however, the process was changed. Roubedeaux explains why this decision was made.
 
“I brought it up at a committee meeting one time,” Roubedeaux says. “’What do you guys think about having a contest?’ And everybody kinda liked it. Just give everybody a shot. Then we started talking about the princess sorority. Well since we have a princess sorority let’s see if we can get them involved because you should be able to use other outside help. Everything doesn’t have to be the committee and the committee alone. Who better to help judge this and maybe come up with some questions because they already know what it is like to be princess? We’re men! I have no clue what it is like to be a princess. So that’s how that all came about. So we thought we would just try it. For one year.”
 
The princess sorority selected Shiloh Pickering as the 2014 Otoe-Missouria Tribal Princess. Miss Pickering will be crowned by outgoing 2013 Princess Shelby Faw Faw on Thursday night at the arena.
 
There is one other thing that Roubedeaux is passionate about—his family. For him and his wife Tesa, the goal with their children is to expose them to the culture as much as possible in hopes that they take an interest.
 
“We don’t want to force them to do this or force them to do that, we just want them to do it,” Roubedeaux says. “You always bring your kids around something, well, they are going to end up taking part in it anyway. Mainly how I learned was just being around it all the time. Watching everything, paying attention to everything that goes on. “
 
Like many fathers, Roubedeaux would like to see his sons follow in his footsteps.
 
“I started writing a book about the whole thing (being encampment chair) I haven’t finished it. Just for that purpose. If one of them says ‘I might wanna do that some day’ then they are gonna read everything I wrote,” Roubedeaux says.
 
There is one other thing that Roubedeaux would like to change. He says when you hear people say “oh, she only dresses at Otoe” or “he dances at Otoe, but he doesn’t contest” that they need to remember one thing in their criticism--“this ain’t a powwow, this is our Encampment.”  
 
“I’ve heard people say they don’t dress because they don’t want to contest,” Roubedeaux says. “You shouldn’t have to contest! If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. At the bigger powwows, you’re going to contest because that’s all they do all day long. If you’re not going to contest there’s no point in even going. But these last few powwows like Otoe, Ponca, Tonkawa, Iowa they are still trying to get regular dancing in instead of just running contest after contest. You should be able to dance if you want to. You need to get involved. Because if you don’t, what will we have?”
 
There are several events scheduled for the four day encampment this year including kids games, arts & craft vendors, Gourd Dancing and a Mud Run that replaces the 5k run. Friday, Saturday and Sunday there is contest dancing. For more information about the 133rd Annual Otoe-Missouria Summer Encampment visit www.omtribe.org or call Jade Roubedeaux at 580-307-7911.
 
133rd Otoe-Missouria Summer Encampment
Head Staff
Head Singer: Kyle Robedeaux
Head Gourd Dancer: Ed Yellowfish
Head Man Dancer: Amos Littlecrow
Head Lady Dancer: Mary Beth Glasco
MC: Oliver Littlecook, Frank Carson
Arena Directors: Michael Whitecloud, Moran "Babe" Bible
2013 Princess: Shelby Faw Faw
2014 Princess: Shiloh Bluebird Pickering

2013-2014 Encampment Committee:
Chairman . . . . . Jade Roubedeaux
Treasurer . . . . . Alde Robedeaux
Member . . . . . Pat Moore, Randy Moore, John Arkeketa, Gary Whitecloud Jr.
 
Schedule of events:
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
»5:30 p.m. Mourners Dinner
 
Thursday, July 17, 2014
»Raising of Joseph Roubedeaux Flag 7 a.m.
»Crowning of 2014-2015 Otoe-Missouria Princess
 
Friday, July 18, 2014
»Raising of Douglas WhiteCloud Flag 7 a.m.
»Gourd Dancing at 2 p.m.
»Supper at 5:30 p.m. - No Gourd Dance After Supper
»Social & Contest Dancing 7 p.m. - No Grand Entry
 
Saturday, July 19, 2014
»Raising of Charles Robedeaux Flag 7 a.m.
»Nimaha Unange (Running in the Mud) Mud Run 8 a.m.
»Kids Olympics in the morning
»Gourd Dancing at 2 p.m.
»Supper at 5:30 p.m. - No Gourd Dance After Supper
» Grand Entry  7 p.m.
»Straight Dance Contest Sponsored by the Family of Leonard Koshiway
 
Sunday, July 20, 2014
»Raising of Theodore BraveScout Flag 7 a.m.
»Gourd Dancing at 2 p.m.
»Supper at 5:30 p.m. - No Gourd Dance After Supper
»Social & Contest Dancing 7 p.m. - No Grand Entry