The American Indian Cultural Center in Oklahoma City

Gena Timberman Howard, deputy director of the American Indian Cultural Center & Museum, and Jim Pepper Henry, Smithsonian National Museum of American Indians, announce a loan agreement between the two museums over a model of the Oklahoma City museum on Friday. By David McDaniel, THE OKLAHOMAN

Indian museums to share exhibits Smithsonian items coming to Oklahoma.

By Julie Bisbee
Staff Writer

The American Indian Cultural Center in Oklahoma City will have access to more than 1 million American Indian exhibits under an agreement with the National Museum of the American Indian.

Officials from both museums signed an agreement Friday that would allow for exhibit, information and staff exchanges between the proposed Oklahoma City cultural center and the museum on the National Mall in Washington.

"This is a project that is long overdue,” said Gena Timberman Howard, deputy director of the Native American Cultural and Education Authority. "This step is paving the way for a unique dialogue.”

The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian would allow Oklahoma's American Indian Cultural Center to use some of its artifacts in exhibits as well as education materials to show the experience of the 67 tribes with Oklahoma ties.

"A vast majority of our Native American constituents — and the majority of Americans — will never make it to Washington, D.C., to experience the museum,” said James Pepper Henry , associate director of community and constituent services and an enrolled member of the Kaw Nation in Oklahoma.

"For us, Indian country is outside of Washington, D.C. It's exciting for us to participate in this. We're glad to bring our exhibits out here.”

Dirt work on the site of Oklahoma's museum has begun along the Oklahoma River, where Interstates 35 and 40 meet in Oklahoma City. Officials are hoping the museum construction will be completed by 2010, but the final completion date also depends on fundraising success.

Layers of history

Once Oklahoma's cultural center opens, it promises to be the center of American Indian culture and education.

"I think of it as layers of an onion,” said Pepper Henry , who once ran the Kaw tribe museum in his hometown of Kaw City. "We at NMAI (National Museum of the American Indian) are just the first or second layer of the onion. To go deeper, people need to come to Oklahoma to learn more.”

Pepper Henry said Oklahoma's cultural center has the potential to bring visitors to the state and to other tribal museums.

"This is a perfect place to start that exploration,” he said.

Officials have been working on creating an American Indian cultural center in Oklahoma since 1994, when the Oklahoma Legislature created the Native American Cultural and Educational Authority.

Funding needed

"We've come a long way, and it's really going to happen now,” said Tommy Thompson, executive director of the Native American Cultural and Educational Authority. "We've got the momentum.”

A private fundraising campaign for the American Indian Cultural Center is expected to begin in May.

The Native American Cultural and Educational Authority wants to get at least $35 million from private donors and is hoping to get about $12 million from tribal sources, Thompson said.

The museum also is looking for about $56 million from state and federal sources.