The second annual Christmas “Elders Lunch” of the San Carlos Apache Tribe was held on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at the Apache Gold Casino on the San Carlos Reservation. The luncheon is a gesture of appreciation for tribal elders initiated last year by then new Tribal Chairman Wendsler Nosie, Sr. Nosie, who is a spiritual “traditionalist,” not a Christian, is also part Chiricahua – the tribe of Cochise and Geronimo and the smallest of the several Apache clans concentrated as one on the reservation by the U.S. government. “It’s a significant development that I was elected, in part by these elders,” said Nosie. “As a Chiricahua, I’m a minority of a minority, I’m not Christian, and some of the people here are descendants of the scouts who helped the U.S. Cavalry track down Geronimo.”

AJA