1933 Koshares Dance For Elks Club

dresses, wearing leather chaps, and stripped to the waist, the band of 18 warriors, led by heap big chief Francis Burshears rushed into the lodge room and captured the attention and applause of more than twice their number.

"The Indians" were members of Boy Scout Troop 230 and of the Koshara (note spelling) club which grew out of that organization. Beginning with the Sioux peace-pipe ceremony, the boys ranged themselves in a circle about the skull of a buffalo. Then came a hair raising Ojibway scalp dance, the Sioux circle dance, the sage chicken hop, the toe-heel step --- all intricate and strenuous.

Featured was the Eagle dance which depicted an eagle caught in a trap. Vernon Elder showed excellent understanding of the pantomime, the great wings he carried circling nearer and nearer the imaginary trap until with a scream he was caught.

Starting with practically nothing, the Koshara club has built up its stock of costumes until today they are worth about $5,000 according to Burshears. Most of the work has been done by the boys themselves, even to dyeing the feathers and the stringing of their beads.

Money earned by the club through its programs will be saved and eventually used for the erection of a museum building in La Junta into which will go numerous Indian relics and costumes typical of our old western Indians.

Besides their leader and teacher Francis Burshears, the members of the Koshara club who took part in last night's performance are: Billy Sisson, Tommy Sisson, Jimmy Taylor, Vernon Frame, Bob McCluskey, Bud McCluskey, John Ritter, Totsy Ritter, Chester Ralston, Denzil Ralston, Dean Strain, Dean Kendall, Tommy Woodruff, Vernon Elder, David Hill, Walter Snyder, Bob Inman and Harold Wolfe.