With the election for Cherokee Tribal Council just one week away, The Smoky Mountain News continues its series profiling the 24 candidates running for election to one of 12 Tribal Council seats.

There’s still no guarantee whether a special election will be held to choose the next vice chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, but that hasn’t stopped at least five people from announcing their intention to run for the seat.

The 2017 General Election will choose the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ next slate of Tribal Council representatives following Election Day on Thursday, Sept. 7.

Principal Chief Richard Sneed has vetoed legislation that Tribal Council passed in July setting up a program to pay power bills for tribal elders.

Election Day is drawing ever nearer for Cherokee Tribal Council, with all 12 seats up for election Thursday, Sept. 7.

For the ancient Cherokees and other southeastern Indian tribes, the greatest causes of illness were the spirits of vengeful animals. They were so angered at the killing of their brethren by hunters they convened a great council and devised human illnesses as payback.

A needle exchange program will likely be underway in Cherokee by the end of the year following Tribal Council’s unanimous vote to write the existence of such a program into its code.

The Cherokee of Jerry Wolfe’s early memory is a different place than the Qualla Boundary of today.

Wolfe, 93, remembers hills covered in farmland rather than forest, cleared by hand to keep the trees from encroaching on slopes families coaxed to yield the corn, beans and potatoes that fueled them. The weedy edges of fields yielded blueberries, blackberries and strawberries. The woods yielded fuel for winter heat in the log cabins and, when the family ran out of kerosene, knots of pine sap that could ignite to keep the lights on.

Councilmember Teresa McCoy, of Big Cove, has announced her intention to run for vice chief in the special election that Tribal Council approved July 27.

After months in limbo, the fate of Cherokee’s vacant vice chief seat has been decided — following a narrow vote from Tribal Council, a special election will be held to fill the office.