Nice find Richard. No photo with this story...... yet...........
12/06/98 - Sacajawea To Be Featured on Coin
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WASHINGTON, Dec 06, 1998 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Sacajawea, the Shoshone teen-ager who accompanied explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to the Pacific Ocean almost two centuries ago, gazes serenely from a proposed design for the new dollar coin.
She looks over her shoulder, as if ready to go. Her infant son sleeps on her back. It"s among six finalists for the gold-colored coin that Americans will find in their pockets starting in 2000.
No one knows exactly what 16-year-old Sacajawea, who joined the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804, looked like. But all the proposals, according to U.S. Mint Director Philip Diehl, ""are realistic depictions of Native American women.""
""They are attractive, but they are not romanticized,"" he said.
Starting Monday, Americans can see the designs on the Mint"s Internet site and select their preferences.
Also on display are seven proposals depicting the American eagle for the reverse side.
Mint officials culled the 13 designs, front and back, from 121 submissions after exhibiting them last month to more than 300 invited historians, public officials, artists, coin collectors and representatives of Indian organizations.
It"s accepting public comment on the finalists with the aim of presenting three for the front and three for the back to the U.S. Fine Arts Commission, which meets Dec. 17.
Diehl said the Mint is aiming for selection of the winning designs by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin next month and will produce coins by January 2000, when stocks of Susan B. Anthony dollars are projected to run out. Unlike the Susan B. Anthony dollar, the Sacajawea dollar will be gold-colored and have an edge that can be readily distinguished from the quarter"s.
Indian officials and historians who"ve studied Sacajawea expressed satisfaction that all of the designs still under consideration depict women whose features clearly are those of an American Indian.
The Indian-head penny minted until 1909 depicted a European-looking a woman wearing a feather headdress.
Ken Thomasma of Jackson, Wyo., author of ""The Truth About Sacajawea,"" based on the journals of Lewis and Clark, said he hopes Rubin selects a model depicting little Baptiste as well as his mother.
""Every woman I"ve told about how she put her 2-month-old son on her back and went with 31 men across the wilderness were just astounded she could do that. ... Four times she and her baby nearly lost their lives.""
""If a teen-age girl today did what this girl did, she"d receive our highest civilian honor,"" he said.
History professor Gary Moulton of the University of Nebraska said he wants officials to avoid showing Sacajawea pointing in a manner reminiscent of a guide, as two of the six remaining designs do.
""She had a very important role, but being a guide was not one of them, "" he said. ""Lewis and Clark thought of her as an interpreter. She was a go-between ..., and through her they were able to purchase horses, which they desperately needed.""
W. Ron Allen, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said showing Sacajawea with her baby would be ""very consistent with the maternal qualities and compassion of American Indian women."" But he said his colleagues lean slightly toward a bust of Sacajawea looking west, her chin slightly upraised.
""It reflects the pride and the courage and the dignity of the American Indian woman,"" he said.
Of the designs for the reverse, two show a soaring eagle against a backdrop of mountains and streams. Indian officials, he said, favor that concept.
""They reflect the land and the water that"s so much a part of Indian culture and it relates to her journey through that kind of terrain,"" he said.
An advisory panel that selected the subject for the coin recommended an allegorical depiction of Liberty with features ""inspired by Sacajawea."" But, Diehl said, none of the designs incorporating the Liberty theme were judged attractive enough.
Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., chairman of the House monetary subcommittee, who opposes a Sacajawea design, said he still holds a glimmer of hope Rubin will change his mind and opt for the Statue of Liberty.
""I want the (Sacajawea) coin to succeed, but I"m worried that people will look at it and say, "Who"s this?""" he said. ""Based on polling information I"ve seen, the Statue of Liberty remains far and away the first choice of Americans.""
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EDITORS" NOTE: The U.S. Mint is accepting comment on the proposed designs via its Internet site _ www.usmint.gov _ and by fax at 202-874-3134 or by mail to The U.S. Mint, c/o Michael White, Office of Public Affairs, 633 Third St. N.W., Room 715, Washington, D.C. 20220.
Copyright 1998 Associated Press, All rights reserved.
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By DAVE SKIDMORE |
