Friday, March 6, 2026
The CSC Eagle Newspaper – Chadron, NE
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The CSC Eagle Newspaper – Chadron, NE
Lifestyles

Roc your Mocs provides insight into Native American culture for CSC students

Guest Author

CSC students crafted moccasins by Native American art on the Roc Your Mocs event Friday in the Gold Room.

RLA and the Diversity Committee organized the program where students could show their handmade skills.

In a homely atmosphere with the movie “The Incredibles” on TV, students created their moccasins while snacking on chips, croutons and drinking soda. Tendy Leather Company provided supplies for the event.

Students learned a three-step process Native Americans use to fashion moccasins. They traced their feet on the brown paper and cut the contour out. The second step is to put the trace on the leather, to draw the contour on it, and cut it out. The third step, they used needles to connect all pieces together with thick threads. Organizers helped the participants and paid attention to them during the entire process.

Students said it looked easier than it was.

“I think I can count it as a project for my class,” Que’Nita Greene, 20, senior of Corning,  New York, said.

Among the tools, participants used hammers and nails when they made holes to pass threads through the leather. The process of moccasins’ producing looked serious not easy entertainment. It was the first experience for students.

“We are experimenting with them, working with flow,” Lane Swedberg, 21, senior of North Platte, said.

Swedberg made a research about the consecution of the manufacture.

“I wanted to make it informational and make it fun,” Swedberg said. “Diversity Community had extra money, they thought it would be cool.”

Swedberg told students a history of moccasins and that moccasins can be spelled different ways and have two forms, soft and hard.

Jennifer Schaer, representative of the Diversity Committee and director of Project Strive/Trio, came up with the idea in the spring. The Diversity Committee was assigned by the president to provide programs to promote student and teacher awareness of different cultures.

“I used to work on the reservation at Crazy Horse School in Wanblee and at Red Cloud Indian School,” Schaer said. “They are both located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.