Fashion highlights character over clothes
By Jerry W. Kram
If you have a passion for fashion, then the Northern Lights Community Center was the place to be as the Three Affiliated Tribe Boys and Girls Club. But the focus on the night wasn’t so much on the outfits the club members were wearing as on the content of their character and hopes for the future.
The fashion show celebrated the Boys and Girls Club’s 14th anniversary.
"We want to highlight our youth," said Ryan Eagle, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club. "We did a fashion show two years ago. This year we tweaked the name to call it a Youth Fashion Showcase. But what we want to showcase is the really extraordinary youth we have here on Fort Berthold."
As the members from the clubs in each of the six segments – plus the club’s new chapter in Mandan – walked down the red carpet either shyly or swaggering, emcees Tito Ybarra and Prairie Rose Seminole read short biographies of each club member.
The biographies included the member’s favorite activity, class in school and what they wanted to do when they grew up and where they would go to college. One seven year old wrote that she wanted to be a doctor and would go to college at "the doctor school."
"We’re not not focusing on the fashion, we are focusing on the kid," Eagle said. "They can wear their favorite jersey or outfit. They can wear whatever they want. We are going to talk about them. We want to highlight what the kid is all about and their accomplishments."
Eagle said the annual anniversary events are a chance for the Boys and Girls Club members from across the reservation – and with the addition of the Mandan club, the state – to meet and get to know each other.
