PORT ANGELES — Two members of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe will receive statewide and regional honors for their cultural and educational contributions for Northwest Native Americans.

Suzie Bennett, manager of the tribe’s Heritage Center, 401 E. First St., will receive one of five annual Leadership Awards from the Potlatch Fund of Seattle that makes philanthropic grants among tribes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Jamie Valadez, tribal elder, storyteller and longtime leader of the Klallam language program at Port Angeles High School, will accept one of six annual Governor’s Arts and Heritage Awards from the Washington State Arts Commission.

A dinner and reception for Bennett and other Potlatch Fund awardees will start at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Tulalip Resort Casino near Marysville.

For more details on the fundraising dinner, call 206-624-6076.

Since 2005, the Potlatch Fund has distributed more than $1.8 million to Native American arts and enterprises. For more information, visit www.potlatchfund.org.

The Governor’s Award honors groups and organizations that “have contributed significantly to the arts and cultural traditions of Washington state,” according to www.arts.wa.gov.

A dinner for Valadez and other Heritage Award recipients is set for 6 p.m. Monday in Teatro ZinZanni in Seattle.

For more information and ticket prices, call 206-802-0015.

Tse-whit-zen treasures

Bennett has managed the Elwha Klallam Heritage Center since it opened in 2010 and designed the Cixwicen Artifacts Exhibit of items uncovered at the Tse-whit-zen village site on Port Angeles Harbor while digging was done for a graving yard that was halted because of the finds.

Both the Klallam and English spellings of the term that means “inner harbor” are pronounced “chwheet-son.”

The project found a 2,700-year-old burial ground in 2003 and was abandoned by the state Department of Transportation three years and $100 million later.

The site now covers the reburied remains of 335 Klallam ancestors disinterred during the digging.

Many of the 80,000 relics found there remain at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, but they progressively are being returned to the tribe, which displays chosen items at the heritage center.

The current exhibition opened in July.

“I’m incredibly honored,” Bennett said Thursday.

“I’m at a loss for words. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.”

Alice Derry, a Port Angeles writer and teacher who has worked with Bennett on various projects, told the Peninsula Daily News:

“This is an important honor for our community and shows what a great leader Suzie is.

“I’m daily impressed with her vision.”

Language leadership

Valadez long has been a leader in the Lower Elwha Klallam’s rediscovery of its culture and preservation of its language, culminating in a Klallam Dictionary of 12,000 words published in 2012 and a 392-page Klallam Grammar volume published in May.

She regularly accompanies students on hikes and geo-science summer camps into the tribe’s usual and customary ancestral lands on the North Olympic Peninsula.

Valadez did not return calls requesting comment.

Scott Nagel, the Port Angeles cultural impresario who directs the annual Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival and is campaigning to buy and reopen the shuttered Lincoln Theater, was one of the Clallam County citizens who nominated Valadez for the Governor’s Award.

“I think it’s really important we have greater communication with our Native American tribes,” he said.

“Not enough people know about all the good work that goes on with them.

“A lot of people are doing amazing work. Jamie is one of them,” he said.

“Our future is with all of us. The tribes are involved in all of that.”

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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.