Helene Smith, mother of five children is an award-winning playwright and novelist with fifty published historical works including six produced plays.
Some of her historical titles include A Guidebook to Historic Western Pennsylvania (University of Pittsburgh Press), Sallie Civil War Dog, Whisky Rebellion and Tavern Signs of America (History and Catalog).
As a certified historian she was the personal researcher for Edger J. Kaufmann, Jr. regarding background history on his property,
"Falling Water," Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural masterpiece.
For years she has devoted her time to focus on the rights of First Native Americans and American Africans. Three of her works on these topics are
Apsaalooka, the Crow Nation;
The Sun Dance, a case history of pesticide poisoning on the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation
and Aramenta, The entwined heroic life of Harriet Tubman with her friend John Brown.
In 1997 she was nominated to receive the annual Jefferson Award for work among indigenous peoples within their sovereign nations. In 2008 she was nominated for the Arthur St. Clair Award from Westmoreland County Historical Society where she is an honorary life-member.
As a life-time project she has collected peace quotations from all over the world for her book, Cry for Peace (which includes a proposal for international peace enforcement).
Her most recent historical book is Murrysville and Export (Arcadia Publishing).
A rose queen for Hershey, PA 50th chocolate anniversary-representing Mercer County and northwestern PA in a 4-day site competition–final performance on stage at Hershey Arena–presented clarinet solo to introduce monologue, Home Sweet Home, about Clarence Day who wrote about family–Life with Father–his book and TV serial.
For years protrayed Nellie Bly in monologue who went around the world in less days than the novelist who wrote about Jules Verne's 80 days.
Helped as volunteer during the last large Johnstown 100 year Flood in 1977 when PA National Guard were fed–78 drowned and 50,000 people left homeless.
One of published dramas in Where Eagles Fly about homeless combat veterans–takes place in 1950s in Jacksonville, FL with many of them still homeless. Need a producer-director for mystery play and love story.
After activist for international peace all adult life, received a letter from secretary of French president. She wrote I would soon be honored with a personal letter from Pres. Francois Mitterrand agreeing with my stand for global peace-a thank you note for my letter he wrote in French with a fountain pen.
Personal letter from Pres. Obama and separate one from Michelle for my concern over First American rights. These were added to my large life-long letter collection from Congressmen and other notables regarding politics and global peace. After Vice-Pres. Gore corresponded with me about public smoking, it was banned from the White House.
One of musical performers recorded–on a tribute of Proud Traditions for University of Pittsburgh Bicentennial 1787-1978.
Member of Mortar Board National Senior College Honor Society for distinguished ability, scholarship and leadership–also other educational honor societies.
Member of WorldWide Who's Who
George Swetnam has led an interesting life as an author, clergyman, commercial photographer, college teacher, hobo, newspaperman, historian, dramatist, and folklorist. He began writing at an early age, and was listed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature while still in high school. After attending the University of South Carolina and the University of Alabama, he graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in English. Entering Columbia Theological Seminary, he graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Divinity, scoring the highest grades in Hebrew in the school's 100-year history. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he held pastorates in Alabama and Mississippi, and then received a graduate fellowship from Auburn Theological Seminary, where he received a Master of Theology degree, majoring in Semitic Language. He attended the Hartford Seminary Foundation, where he received his Ph.D. degree in Assyriology. He taught English at the University of Alabama, founded a photographic firm, gave it away, and was a hobo for two years.
Following his nomadic period, he edited a weekly newspaper in Tennessee, was managing editor of a daily newspaper in Pennsylvania, and became a columnist and feature writer for the Pittsburgh Press. He authored a dozen books, including a three-volume history of Pittsburgh, and the only history of transportation in Pennsylvania. Swetnam coauthored a half dozen more books, as well as three produced historical dramas. He edited the Keystone Folklore Quarterly for six years, founded the Institute of Pennsylvania Rural Life and Culture, and was a former member of the Pennsylvania Historical Association. He was also a member of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society.
Author Lloyd George "Mickey" Old Coyote, was born on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana. He knew a lifetime of struggle within a sovereign tribal nation that has been denied its rights by a confining bureaucratic system. Despite the man-made barriers, his parents were among the first generation of scholars in his nation. They also represent the first generation in which the Government forced Indians to accept Anglican names, a custom unknown to their culture.
The author, as his parents before him, sought higher education outside of his reservation through the support of the Baptist church and studied business administration at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma completing a two-year course of the same at the University of Montana in Missoula. During his service in the United States Army he became a martial arts instructor and demonstrator for physical and combat training of troops. Enlisted in the 28th Pennsylvania Division Command, he was active in all sports, was a Color Guard for the Division Unit, and was a member of the Division Drill Team. This was followed by a three-year Kellog Extension program at Montana State University at Bozeman where he studied political science, economics, sociology, communications, philosophy, psychology, history, and education. He also served on the Morningstar Inc. Project, an Experiential Learning Community.
Ever since his college days, Mickey Old Coyote, who has lectured widely in America and Europe, was active in educational programs for Crow cultural enrichment. He was one of the founders of the Crow Agency at the Little Big Horn College and served there as a professor of cultural affairs and a consultant, linguist and musicologist. He has actively formulated plans for the Crow Tribe's progress through education, industry, economics, culture, history, and traditions, including his service as Crow Cultural Specialist for the Labre Indian School in Ashland, Montana. He also was a Crow Tribe Community Action Program Administrative assistant, a life member and secretary of the Crow Tribe Historical and Culture Commission.
He has also narrated a variety of Crow events, television programs, and videos, has served on numerous cultural boards, has chaired many programs such as the local Red Cross Blood Drive, has served as a bilingual teacher supervisor and as an active member of the National Indian Advisory Board on Native American Cultures and Religions.
As a recipient of sacred objects passed on to him from his elders, was given the right to conduct five different Sweat Lodge Ceremonies, together with five types of rights to sing traditional Crow praising songs, six types of tribal rights to announce at large gatherings; and the right to conduct the Sun Dance as well as other religious ceremonies. This traditionalist was also a member of the Sacred Tobacco Society and a member of the Sacred Tobacco Singers.
As a result of his experiences and wealth of information, numerous individuals and organizations, such as the Smithsonian Institution, have consulted with him and have encouraged him to write about his tribe where he and his wife, Miriam raised their five children.
Along with his involvement with tribal history, he has also tried to dispel the inaccuracies of Indian history written by white men, with Indians always portrayed as savages. Lloyd Mickey Old Coyote has unselfishly shared his knowledge and nativism with innumerable people who are sincerely seeking the truth in regard to the life ways of Native Americans.