Ms. Halfmoon currently serves as the Shawnee Tribe Executive Director of Cultural and Historic Preservation. She supports the Shawnee Tribe leadership and staff in all cultural programs and efforts including language, historic preservation, and the Shawnee Tribe Cultural Center. She is a citizen of the Caddo Nation and is also Choctaw and Delaware and has over 25 years of experience in cultural preservation, tribal liaison work, consultation practices, cultural resource law and museum leadership. She holds a degree in Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma and a certificate in Cultural Heritage Tourism from George Washington University.
From 2007 to 2015, Ms. Halfmoon served as Director of Outreach/Museum Programs for the First Americans Museum (OKC) where she led a statewide tribal outreach effort and served as the exhibitions liaison with Ralph Appelbaum & Associates (NYC). From 2015-2019 she served as the inaugural Director of American Indian Relations for the Ohio History Connection in Columbus, Ohio where she initiated the Tribal Nations Conference and oversaw the development and adoption of the Ohio History Connection’s first American Indian Policy.
In 2019 she returned to Oklahoma to support the Choctaw Nation and lead the way in preparing for the grand opening of the Choctaw Cultural Center; a stunning 100,000-sf facility with immersive exhibitions, a retail store, a café, and daily Choctaw programming. Ms. Halfmoon oversaw the hiring of all staff for the new cultural center as well as facilitating vital components including branding, marketing, facilities maintenance, and construction. The Choctaw Cultural Center opened its doors on July 23, 2021.
Ms. Halfmoon is currently Chair of the American Alliance of Museums’ Indigenous Peoples Museum Network, and she was recently elected to serve as a council member on the American Association for State and Local History.
Over two days in late August, the tribe and the OU School of Dance produced the Five Moons Dance Festival, a remarkable celebration of Shawnee heritage and the timeless legacy of five Oklahoma Indian ballerinas—Yvonne Chouteau (Shawnee), Rosella Hightower (Choctaw), Moscelyne Larkin (Eastern Shawnee & Peoria), and Osage sisters Marjorie and Maria Tallchief. Named after […]
The Shawnee Tribe’s 2024 General Council & Election Weekend included a hawikeepicika kiskotaawe (“ribbon-cutting”) and open house for the new Emma “Mock” Donaldson saawanwaatoweewika (“language house”), a community dinner and stomp dance, as well as the annual meeting of the Shawnee Tribal Council and Business Council election. Citizens had the opportunity to meet tribal service programs & administrative […]
The Shawnee Tribe’s Behavioral & Mental Health Department is hosting Community Support Groups twice a month. Meetings will go through mid-December. For more information, please contact Linda Rothe, MS, LPC at 918-542-2441 Ext. 150 or email lrothe@shawnee-tribe.com.
On Monday, September 23, 2024, following the 2024 General Council Weekend, the Shawnee Tribe Cultural Center in Miami, OK, reopened to the public after an extended closure due to COVID-19 precautions and the need to use the center for office space. With the Emma “Mock” Donaldson Saawanwaatoweewika now open as the permanent home of the […]
Update (10/2/24): Special Livestream Event On Tuesday, October 8, join the Sid Meier’s Civilization team at 10:00 AM PDT / 1:00 PM EDT for a Tecumseh livestream featuring special guests from the Shawnee Tribe. The Shawnee Tribe is set to be featured in the upcoming release of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, a popular video game series that enables […]
We’ve moved things around a bit on the Shawnee Tribal Courts webpage now that Shawnee Tribe District Court case information is available in the On Demand Court Records database at ODCR.com. To search the open records, click the ‘Search Case Records’ button on the Courts page. In the search query at ODCR, select ‘Shawnee Tribe District Court’ from the list of options […]
Welcome to ta’saawanwaatoweeyakwe, the new blog series dedicated to the Shawnee Language Immersion Program’s happenings and language preservation work. Now that we are most of the way through the first year of our Master-Apprentice program, we wanted to share some of our work. Each week we focus on a new concept, and we had a lot […]
Messages from the Chiefs: Summer 2024 — Chief Barnes discusses highlights from tribal programs, including Higher Education Awards and the Indian Child Welfare Office. Chief Baldridge emphasizes the importance of diplomacy and inter-governmental work.