Marcus Bettles

Marcus Bettles talks about his grandfather's legacy.

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 You're listening to StoryHelix, intertwining
 stories past, present and not yet imagined
 
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 in Lane County Oregon. What's up, Earthlings?
 I'm Leah Velez and
 
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 I'll be your host. The stories that
 follow our raw footage. So let's open
 
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 up our ear nuggets and give these
 community submitted stories a listen. 
 
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My Grandpa, Gordon Bettles, he's from the Klamath and Umatilla.
 He went to a
 
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 University of Oregon and so did my
 grandma. They moved here like a long
 
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 time ago. They lived in Chiloquin. He said there's either go to
 
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 the church or like do criminal activities
 or whatever, because there wasn't much of
 
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 a choice of things to do there. There weren't many jobs, there weren't
 
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 like... and you can barely see anybody
 living there anymore. But Um, on
 
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 the outskirts there's a lot of nice
 houses that are really cheap. He wanted
 
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 more job opportunities and stuff like that, and he wanted to work with the
 
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 University of Oregon until he retired like
 a few years ago. He wanted to
 
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 get his master's degree at the University
 of Oregon. But he
 
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 met my grandma, which, they used
 to go to middle school and high school
 
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 together and they dropped out of college
 and had kids. And then a little while
 
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 after that he went back to the
 University of Oregon to get his master's degree.
 
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 When he was a lot older,
 he ran the Many Nations Law Council.
 
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 which used to be an old military
 barrack and he was one that cleaned
 
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 it up himself and and refurbished it. 
He set up the federally recognized tribes
 
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 flags on the plaza with stairs, where tribes
 can put up their own flags and their
 
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 own members can put up the flags
 for them. Last October and November I
 
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 got to raise the flag from my
 tribe. I'm enrolled in the
 
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 Umatilla tribe, but I'm also half
 Klamath. I try to like put up
 
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 my own people and praise them because
 a lot of them are struggling. I
 
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 probably would [move back to Chiloquin], because the houses are
 really nice and they're really cheap and there's
 
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 a lot of mountains and coyotes and
 stuff like that, and wildlife. I wish
 
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 that there would be more job opportunities
 and stuff like that, access to better
 
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 education and more support from larger cities
 like Eugene or Salem and Portland or the state. 
 
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Thanks for listening. You
 can find us wherever you listen to your
 
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 podcasts. If you've got your own
 Lane County story to tell, we'd love
 
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 to hear it at StoryHelix Dot
 Wordcrafters Dot Org.