Cherokee Preservation Foundation

 

Board of Directors

Luke D. Hyde
Chairman of the Board
Attorney and Business Owner

Michell Hicks*
Principal Chief
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Ronnie Beale
Macon County Board of Commissioners

Nikki Nations*
Fine Artist

Bill Boyum*
Tribal Supreme Court Justice
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Keredith Owens*
Social Work Representative
Bureau of Indian Affairs

Morgan Owle Crisp*
Business Owner
 

Jim Owle*
Chairman of the Tribal Council
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

 

Janell Rattler*
Snowbird Recreation Supervisor
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

* Enrolled member of the EBCI

 

Remembering Dr. Myron "Barney" Coulter

Cherokee Preservation Foundation and the entire western North Carolina region lost a good friend in October 2011 when Dr. Myron “Barney” Coulter died.  As the founding Board chairman and long-time Board member of Cherokee Preservation Foundation, Dr. Coulter helped the Foundation navigate through its early challenges with the same good sense, integrity, civility and grace he demonstrated when he led Western Carolina University for a decade as its chancellor.  Service to the region was very important to him.
 
As Luke D. Hyde, present chair of the Foundation noted at a celebration of Dr. Coulter’s life, “Cherokee Preservation Foundation has dispersed more than $54 million in grants for projects supporting education, employment, environmental preservation, and cultural preservation for the Cherokee on the Qualla Boundary and in the seven westernmost counties of North Carolina.  Those projects have created a living legacy for Barney, one that he never bragged about, but of which, privately, he was very proud.”