The Haskell Spring Pow Wow was the first time Cecil Mashburn returned to the site of his alma mater since the Haskell Indian Nations University was a high school in the 1950s.

“The facilities were quite poor in the 1950s,” said Mashburn, whose American Indian name is Red Elk. “It’s much better now.”

Mashburn marched and danced among other American Indians at the annual Spring Pow Wow during his first visit back to Lawrence, but one that he said would become a yearly tradition for him.

“This is my first,” the Vietnam War veteran said. “It’s going to be an annual affair for me until I die.”

Hundreds of people – American Indians and folks from other races alike – gathered from all across North America for the powwow after the university’s graduation the day before.

“There’s people coming all the way from Canada, from California, the East Coast, the West Coast,” said Twila White Bull, a Haskell student. “It’s just good to see all our people and non-Indian people … enjoying the singing and enjoying the food.”

White Bull on Friday became Miss Haskell for 2007, a role with which she hopes she can influence improving student life at the university for the next school year.

The powwow drew people who were not Haskell students or alumni or even from anywhere near Lawrence.

Dee Toppah, also a Vietnam War veteran with two Purple Hearts for wounds he suffered during the war, came to Lawrence from southwest Oklahoma to attend the powwow.

To him, the event was an opportunity to make new friends and meet old ones, such as a college buddy he ran into whom he hadn’t seen in 40 years.

Toppah pointed out that nearly everything at the powwow followed the pattern of a circle, from the way tribes performed their traditional dances to the drum that set the beat for those dances to the crowd that surrounded the dancers down to the food that was served.

Those patterns weren’t coincidental, Toppah said.

“That’s what this circle represents, is life,” he said. “Whatever goes around, comes around. That’s what the Indians think.

“I enjoy the fellowship around the circle.”