How do you create new fluent speakers in a language that’s no longer the common tongue of its community? 

That’s the difficult question about 75 members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians faced on Friday, Jan. 31, the second day of a two-day symposium focused on saving the Cherokee language. 

Motion Makers Bicycles in Cherokee is starting 2020 with a new location and a new roommate, but the same optimism about the future of outdoor sports on the Qualla Boundary. 

The bike shop’s Cherokee location first opened 2018, sharing a two-story yellow building on Big Cove Road with Franklin-based outfitter Outdoor 76. The concept was solid, but the logistics proved problematic. Four months after opening in Cherokee, Outdoor 76 launched a third location in Clayton, Georgia. Travel between the three locations was time-consuming, and the two-story layout was a challenge. 

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians hopes to earn more than $1 million over 10 years by extending a $4 million loan to broadband provider Balsam West, of which it is a 50 percent owner. 

When Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill last July legalizing sports betting on Cherokee land, Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos expected to have the new offering up and running by late fall. But now it’s mid-winter, and sports betting is still not available at the casinos in Cherokee and Murphy. 

A new retail complex featuring a mix of local and national chains is expected to break ground in Cherokee this year, with Tribal Council voting this month to approve an additional $2 million for the project in return for a 5 percent equity stake.

After nearly an hour of debate, Tribal Council voted unanimously last week to place term limits on members of the two boards that oversee tribal gaming operations.

Casino gaming is under serious discussion in the Virginia legislature this year, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is hoping to get in on the ground floor with a recently announced proposal to build a casino near Bristol, Virginia. 

For the second year running, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would return 76 culturally significant acres in Tennessee to Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians ownership.

Update: In a Dec. 14, 2023, opinion, the Cherokee Supreme Court vacated a lower court's conviction of Benjamin Cody Long for misusuing tribal property related to the cyber attack. "After careful review, we hold that under the Cherokee Code, evidence of an unauthorized login, without more, is insufficient to convict for the misuse of Tribal property," the opinion reads. "Because the Tribe failed to provide evidence of appropriation of Tribal property for Defendant's own use or use of another, as required by the Cherokee Code, we vacate Defendant's conviction."

A month has passed since the Dec. 7 cyber attack that loaded ransomware on the tribal computer network, but the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is still working to restore its operations to normal.   

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is the only federally recognized Native American tribe in North Carolina, but that could change if a bill currently making its way through Congress meets success. The Lumbee Recognition Act, also known as H.R. 1964, would extend federal recognition to the 55,000-member Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, ending a 131-year effort to obtain it.