Herald & News April 27, 1982 HE WILL REALLY ENJOY BEING BIG KID UP FRONT Sprague River, Or.--------Dibbon Cook knows how to enjoy a good parade. In days past he's been everything from a spectator to a clarinet player in a marching band to the creator of award winning floats. More recently Cook has been parading from a different vantage, as grand Marshall for the Chiloquin Rodeo Parade, Horse and Buggy Days Fourth of July Parade and, Saturday, the Chief Schonchin Days-All Indian Rodeo Parade. He will share honors with another Klamath Indian, Ima Jiminez, for Saturdays parade, which will march thru downtown Klamath Falls. Parades and celebrations have been a part of Cook's 79 years. He was born in Pokegama, a ghost town along the Klamath River that was once a bustling logging community. His family moved to Klamath Hot Springs, also known as Shovel Creek, where his father worked at a nearby ranch, and later, as a hunting and fishing guide. Following his mother's death in about 1908, Cook and his brother and sister were sent to Yainax, part of the Klamath Indian Reservation, to live with an aunt and uncle. He remembers "rattlesnakes furnished the music" as wagons topped Topsey Grade. Celebrations in those days were a homier variety. He remembers the general store as "the place where the older people would gather around a great big stove during the winter months and tell ghost stories. I suppose this was for our benefit as we were all eyes and ears and yet we looked forward to those meetings each night, but many of us didn't dare to leave for home alone in the dark". From Yainax he moved to Sherman Institute, Calif. After six years there, including time playing clarinets in parades with the school band, he transferred to Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kan., where he continued his musical-marching tooting. Cook was working as a shoe and harness instructor in Kansas when he returned to the Klamath Basin in 1927 to stay with his sick aunt. He intended to visit only 30 days and go back and attend the University of Kansas, but he ran out of money and stayed. He spent a year as disciplinarian and boys adviser at the Fort Bidwell Indian School in Modoc County before settling in at Sprague River. He tells of returning day after day to the town's sawmill "until I guess they got tired of seeing me come each morning so I finally got a job," that lasted 11 years. "That's the only way they got rid of me," he chuckles. "They closed" Cook opened a shoe shop in Sprague River, and later in Chiloquin. About 1940 he was elected to the the Klamath Tribal Executive Committee and Klamath General Council. He's spent more than 40 years serving on various tribal groups and been deeply involved with a potful of controversial issues, including tribal termination and appearances at congressional hearings in Washington, D.C. But the days Cook celebrates are those spent at gatherings, rodeos and of course, parades. He recalls gatherings by the Sprague River near Beatty where salmon were hung by their tails and smoked and dried over fires. There were Fourth of July celebrations in Beatty where he and others played stick games all night. He seldom missed any of the Chiloquin or Beatty rodeos, but always as a spectator, not a participant. "I got thrown off one time and I never did ride." What began as a Memorial Day celebration-rodeo in Beatty grew and transferred to Klamath Falls. Organizational changes were made and the event will be repeated this weekend as the Chief Schonchin Days-All Indian Rodeo. Over the years Cook developed a hobby - creating string ties, pins, necklaces and other items from deer antlers. It all began when he made some into beads for a daughter's dress. Some items are given to friends, others displayed and sold at art fairs and museums around the West. "I seen all these deer horns laying out in the woods," explains Cook, "and I thought sure something useful could be made from them." Finding a use for otherwise discarded objects fits in with Cook's personality. He's typically found ways to make his hobbies, and himself, useful. Years ago he was what every parade needs, a thrilled kid watching from the street corner. Saturday he'll celebrate a different thrill - being the big kid who rides up front. Cook expects he'll be grinning. After all, he knows how to enjoy a parade. _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/