On October 10, 2006, the Office of Exhibits Central hosted a press preview and staff opening for Native Words, Native Warriors, a joint production of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). Featuring fifteen large-scale banners, this show highlights the contributions of Native American soldiers who used their languages to help the United States armed forces in World Wars I and II.

Staff from SITES, NMAI, and OEC who had worked on this exhibition attended the preview along with special guests from the first venues hosting the show and members of the press. Comments from all were positive. Katherine Krile, project director from SITES, said, “We are all so excited to see seven years of research and hard work finalized in such a beautiful and moving tribute.”

OEC designed and edited the exhibition, two copies of which will travel around the U.S. for the next five years. The first venues hosting the exhibition are the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum in Arkansas City, Kansas, and the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

photo: Michael Headley, director of OEC, and Keevin Lewis, community services coordinator at NMAI. Photograph by Robert Alexander, NMAI.