New Ceremonial director's savvy 'a great relief'

Jeri Poletto makes phone calls and works on planning and setting up this year's Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial at her office in downtown Gallup on Wednesday afternoon. Poletto was recently appointed as the executive director of the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — You could say the new director of the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial hit the ground running.

Jeri Poletto took the reins of the annual gathering of American Indian tribes from across the continent a week ago Monday and is already handing out business cards. She spent all of Monday and Tuesday in Santa Fe with staff from the State Tourism Department getting familiar with her new job.

For the Ceremonial Association, which has been running the event largely on its own for the past decade, it couldn't have come sooner.

"It's a great relief," Louis Bonaguidi, president of the association's board of directors, said of Poletto's arrival.

Although it's been only two years since the association's last director, Joe Athens, stepped down for health reasons, Bonaguidi said, "if feels like about 20."

The all-volunteer board has been doing the job without a director since. But even with Athens around, it was a challenge for the group to pull off the massive event, which costs anywhere from $500,000 to $700,000 to put on each year.

Although attendance has stayed strong, the event has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt. When Athens left, the board decided to keep the post vacant so as not to make matters worse.

Savior (sort of)
That's when the state came to the rescue, eventually.

The New Mexico Legislature passed the Inter-Tribal Ceremonial Act in 2005. The bill established a Ceremonial Office within the Tourism Department, but failed to put any money into the fund the act set up.

It wasn't until the next year that the state finally found $175,000 to pay for a director, assistant and governor-appointed advisory board. Even then it didn't fill the director's seat until last week with Poletto and the advisory board is still being assembled.

The association was hoping for an appointment by last August so that whoever Gov. Bill Richardson picked could witness at least one Ceremonial in action before getting started on the next. But having Poletto in the position works out. She's been one of the nearly 400 volunteers the association depends on each year since arriving in Gallup from Pennsylvania in early 2005 looking to make it as a photographer.

That experience has helped her appreciate both the importance of those volunteers and the need for the position she's filling.

"It's very hard to put on the event strictly with volunteers," she said. "The purpose of creating this office ... is to maintain the effort all year long."

Maintaining focus
The job of the governor's advisory board whenever it shows up will be to keep the Ceremonial "pointed in the right direction," Poletto said, to make sure the event stays true to its mission. The local association will stick around to carry that mission out. Poletto's place rests somewhere in the middle, between keeping an eye on the big picture and watching over the details.

Already she's brought her business experience to bear by whittling the association's board down from 21 executive voting members to seven, making it easier to assemble a quorum, and more clearly defining the budget each sub-committee has to work within. She said the association is months ahead of where it was this time last year in its preparations. It's that business savvy, acquired from years of financial management experience in both the private and public sector, that helped win her the job in the first place.

All that's happening behind the scenes. But the public should expect a few changes when the Ceremonial arrives Aug. 8.

Despite its popularity, the all-Indian rodeo has been a financial drain on the Ceremonial. If it wasn't costing money to put on, it wasn't bringing much in. The cash prizes were already on the decline. And when the rodeo committee started circulating a petition to protest what they considered the organizers' mistreatment of contestants last year, the association was ready to do away with the rodeo altogether.

Different ride
Poletto said the rodeo would be back, just not like it used to be. The Diné Land rodeo for seniors will return, she said. But in place of the rest of the usual rodeo schedule, visitors will get professional bull riding courtesy of the Turquoise Classic Thunder Tour. While that means fewer American Indian contestants, she said, the tour plans to include an all-Indian invitational component.

"So we'll still have to full rodeo experience," Poletto said, "but we'll be doing it differently."

The Turquoise Class usually comes through Gallup as a stand-alone event later in the years. By teaming up, she said, both the Ceremonial and the Turquoise Classic stand to improve their attendance.

Poletto also hopes to incorporate more youth events into the Ceremonial this year.

"I've heard comments that this event is great for adults, but how much is there for kids to do?" she said.

She and the association also hope to keep adding to the number of dance troupes the Ceremonial can afford to bring to Gallup each year. The $175,000 the state gave the Ceremonial Office this year might be enough to pay for some of the event after it's been used up on the staff and advisory board, but the bulk of the money the association needs to put the show on will still need to come from local sponsors.

Poletto may be relatively new to the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, but she seems to have grasped its importance to the area.

"Except for people who are over 86 years old," she said, "the Ceremonial has been around all their lives."

And besides pumping valuable tourist dollars into the local economy each year, she added, it's an annual opportunity for a diaspora to reconnect.

Historically, Poletto said, "it's been the time ... for people who've been scattered over huge areas to come together."

While there may be bigger powwows and Indian markets around the country, she said, there's nothing quite like the Ceremonial.

"There's no other place on earth where, in five days, you can have this broad an immersion in Native culture," she said. "There is nothing like this in the world."