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Heirs of Sequoyah

By Christina Good Voice

TAHLEQUAH, Okla.—Among them, they have more than 100 years of journalism experience, but they don’t look a day over a half-century.

Friends, family and journalists gathered here Sept. 2 to toast and honor the careers of three Cherokee journalists who recently retired.

The three journalists—Dan Agent, retired editor of the Cherokee Phoenix; George Benge, retired corporate news executive for Gannett Co.; and John Shurr, retired bureau chief for the Associated Press in Columbia, S.C.—were honored at a party hosted by Bryan Pollard, the current Cherokee Phoenix editor.

Agent and Benge are past members of the board of directors of the Native American Journalists Association, of which Shurr remains an active member. Both Benge and Shurr have had journalism scholarships named after them.

Agent, who worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, expressed his admiration for his fellow retirees.

"It's an honor to have shared the moment with two history-making Cherokee journalists, friends and role models—George Benge and John Shurr," Agent said. "Our lives began in separate places, all in the Cherokee Nation, but our lives converged in one profession with one primary ethnic identity—Cherokee. Our careers took us to different locations, ultimately bringing us together in Tahlequah to be honored by fellow journalists, friends and supporters."

Agent said he will continue to do independent work as a media consultant and writer. He is working on a book that will be keeping him busy, he said.

Agent has received several awards as a journalist, such as the Cherokee Medal of Honor from the Cherokee Honor Society and the Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year Award.

'Free Man'

Benge, who will be embarking on a new career as a fiction writer now that he’s a "free man," said he, Agent and Shurr are all children of Sequoyah, the Cherokee who devised the Cherokee alphabet in the early 19th century.

"We like to think of ourselves as following in the spiritual footsteps of the great Cherokee linguist, Sequoyah, who is the spiritual father of the Cherokee Phoenix," Benge said. "If not for his word there never would’ve been a (Cherokee) newspaper. So, Sequoyah's blood flows through our blood, our veins, and we like to say we owe him a debt of gratitude and one of our jobs is to maintain the language skills that Sequoyah has bestowed upon us."

Benge, who had a 40-year career in the mainstream media, held leadership editing positions at Gannett newspapers in Asheville, N.C., Lafayette, Ind., and Muskogee, Okla., where in 1993 he became the first Native American editor of a daily U.S. newspaper.

Benge presented the first annual George Benge Memorial Scholarship to a student at the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute in June. The recipient is Candace Begody, Navajo, who is studying journalism at the University of Arizona.

In addition to writing a book about his Cherokee family history, Benge said he'll be completing requirements for a master's degree in literary criticism at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Free Press Advocate

Shurr, who worked for 35 years with the AP as a reporter, photographer, editor and free press advocate, said despite living in South Carolina, his home is Tahlequah, where the Cherokee Nation is headquartered.

Both of Shurr's grandparents—his mother's parents—attended seminaries in Tahlequah, and his mother was born in a house in Tahlequah in 1903.

Shurr's mother taught him many lessons when he was younger, such as giving back to his people.

"She taught me when I was a little boy about role models like Sequoyah, who was the original storyteller of the Cherokee people, and Will Rogers was a great storyteller as well," Shurr said. "So those people became my role models as a child. And she also taught me about giving back—how important it was to give back to your people."

One way he’ll give back now is through a scholarship in his name.

The John Shurr Journalism Scholarship was established last month through donations from Shurr's AP colleagues and others, and the scholarship will be administered by the Cherokee Nation and the Cherokee Phoenix.

The scholarship will go to a "deserving high school graduate of Cherokee blood who has demonstrated a strong desire to be a storyteller either in tribal or mainstream journalism and is attending an accredited school or college of journalism," as the official announcement said.

College freshmen can apply for the scholarship; recipients must show through their high school work that storytelling is their calling. Recipients of the scholarship must apply for a summer internship at the Cherokee Phoenix after completing their freshman year in college.

Recipients will be chosen by the Cherokee Phoenix editor and Cherokee Editorial Advisory Board members: Shurr, Benge and Cherokee tribal member Gerald Wofford.

Despite his retirement from his day job, Shurr said he's not leaving the journalism world. He will continue his work as the Freedom of Information chairman for the South Carolina Press Association for at least another year—he's chaired the group for 21 years. He also will be working with the Native American Journalists Association and any tribe that wants his help in setting up free press or FOI laws, he said.

Shurr will continue to mentor young journalists at the Freedom Forum's annual Native American Journalism Career Conference at Crazy Horse Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota; next summer he'll be a mentor at the University of Oklahoma’s Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism.

In addition to these ventures he'll continue to serve on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Cherokee Phoenix.

As for non-journalism activities, Shurr will be staying busy fixing the cottage he owns with his wife, Debbie.

"For fun and amusement, I'll be spending as much time as possible at our cottage on the Beaufort River . . . in South Carolina, a neat little spot surrounded by live oaks with Spanish moss swinging in the breeze," Shurr said. "It still needs a fair amount of work, and I spend time here every week doing that. I'll also be doing some photography work for magazines and newspapers just for fun."

Christina Good Voice, Muscogee (Creek), Choctaw and Rosebud Lakota, is a reporter at the Cherokee Phoenix tribal newspaper in Tahlequah, Okla. She is a member of the board of directors of the Native American Journalists Association. A 2001 graduate of the American Indian Journalism Institute, she had reporting internships at The Associated Press bureaus in Columbia, S.C., and Oklahoma City. Good Voice has writen for reznet since 2002. She writes about fashion, daily life, kids, family and the economy.

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