|
|
|
|
|
Stacy D. Stumbo The Roseburg News-Review September 26, 2002
CANYONVILLE — Her friends in the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians government offices call her “Mac,” but to most everyone else she’s Carol McKinney.She’s the diminutive, stiletto-wearing, well-dressed blonde who watches from the sidelines during every major event held at the Cow Creeks’ Seven Feathers Hotel Casino & Resort.
For more than a decade she’s served as assistant to the band’s board of directors and as Chairwoman Sue Shaffer’s go-to girl.
Assistant
Cow Creek board assistant Carol McKinney puts together gifts for a conference at the Cow Creek Tribal Offices in Roseburg.
Photo by STEPHEN BRASHEAR
>
The tribe wouldn’t be able to get along without her, and neither would the chairwoman.
“They call us Lucy and Ethel,” McKinney said. “Some people won’t travel with us because we’re such trouble.”
“We are not a problem,” Shaffer said. “We are fine. They think we’re disruptive. But, it’s other people who have problems.”
Though neither Shaffer nor McKinney are schoolgirls, they frequently behave like they are. They like to ham it up and compare their dogs’ high jinks. Shaffer has a cocker spaniel named Sparky and McKinney has a 120-pound Doberman called C.J. The women commute to work together almost every day.
“We’ve worked together so long that we intuitively know what’s on the other’s mind,” McKinney said. “Family can be connected by blood, but family can also be connected by heart.”
After years of almost constant companionship, McKinney and Shaffer have developed some of the same foibles.
“They’ve even developed the same knock,” the band’s government operations officer Michael Rondeau said. “You never know which one is on the other side of the door.”
McKinney is there whenever a Cow Creek grant is awarded and when movers and shakers like U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., swing into Canyonville to applaud the strides made by the tribe in the 20 years since its federal recognition.
McKinney hails from Jackson, Mich., the home of the Goodyear blimp.
In high school, McKinney was voted “Most Shy.” Shaffer said she is used to standing in the shadows and never taking the glory.
“I feel that Carol deserves a lot of credit,” she said. “She does a lot of the grunt work, but never complains.”
After attending a junior college, McKinney transferred to the University of Oregon, where she graduated in 1972 with a degree in elementary education.
“I never used my degree for teaching,” she said.
Instead, she moved to Canyonville, got married, had a child and divorced.
McKinney calls her son, Air Force Staff Sgt. Andy Straw, her “inspiration and my hero… He’s been my life.”
In spite of early financial struggles, McKinney managed to pull her small family through.
“I worked as a waitress for 20 years,” she said. “I loved it.”
In that time, she was employed by nearly every restaurant in Canyonville, from the 3-Js to the Feed Lot. It was there she met Jerry McKinney, the owner and operator of Jerry’s Barber Shop, fell in love and agreed to be his wife.
Shaffer said after 45 years, the barber shop is the longest continuously operating business in Canyonville and is the place to be to get the local buzz. It was because of her husband’s inside line into what was happening around town that McKinney hooked up with the tribe.
“I’d been unemployed for about two weeks and I was going nuts,” McKinney recalled. “Then Sue’s husband came in for a haircut, and they got to talking. He suggested I apply for a job with the tribe. I started Nov. 11, 1991.”
The early days of her employment required hard physical labor.
The Cow Creek had secured money to build a bingo parlor, but it was just enough to cover the cost of the building and equipment.
“We had a sod-laying party in the rain,” she said.
McKinney did a lot of research for the tribe and worked with Rondeau on the team that came up with a gaming compact with the state.
“This was before either of us were computer literate,” Rondeau recalled. “We had to cut and paste on the document. Literally, on a piece of paper, we cut out the words and lined them up the way we thought it should look.”
McKinney worked on the Cow Creek Gaming Commission and Foundation board and watched the transition from modest bingo parlor to extravagant Nevada-style gaming.
“It’s been the best. Every, every day is a new challenge,” she said. “It’s a great place to work. Helping folks in the tribe as well as the community is incredible.”
Still interested in education, she finds the philanthropic element of her job particularly rewarding.
“It’s nice to help local kids be able to go to college,” she said. “Over the years there’s been a real awareness developing about child abuse, hunger, homelessness and poverty. It’s all coming to the surface. Douglas County is very unique in that even in the times when everyone’s been poor, they’re still willing to help their neighbors out.”