NTCC Honors plans original film premiere

Honors Northeast, the
honors program at
Northeast Texas
Community College, will
premiere an original historical
film Friday, Feb. 17
at 7 p.m. in the Whatley
Center for the Performing
Arts. The production, Sam
Houston and the Fate of
the Texas Cherokee, is the
fifth film Honors
Northeast has completed in
the last five years.
Free refreshments and a
brief panel discussion featuring
NTCC scholars
William Fox, William
Jones, Presley McClendon,
Ryan-Rose Mendoza,
Cassidy Watkins, and
Honors Director, Dr.
Andrew Yox, will be featured
after the film in the
Whatley Foyer. Admission
is free and the public is
welcome.
This year’s one-hour film
traces the relationship of
Texas’ founding father with
the Cherokee, their
estrangement, the tragic
Battle of the Neches, and
the transformation of
Houston as well as the surviving
Cherokee.
The film is an actionpacked
story of romance,
betrayal, and war that
interprets the exodus of the
sizable Cherokee community
in Northeast Texas in
1839,” Yox said.
Starring NTCC Scholar
William Jones as Sam
Houston, the student-made
film treats the western trek
of the traditionalist
Cherokee tribe led by Chief
Bowles (William Fox) to
their twenty-year home,
north of Nacogdoches. The
plot receives a hopeful
twist when Sam Houston,
an adopted son of the
Cherokee and husband of a
Cherokee princess, Diana
Rogers (Adriana
Rodriguez) moves to
Nacogdoches, and
becomes the Texan leader.
But can or will Houston
prevent his fellow Texans,
especially supporters of a
new President, Mirabeau
Lamar (played by Joshua
Yox), from wiping the
Cherokee off the face of
Texas? The film, following
a suggestion of East Texas
Journal publisher, Hudson
Old, was created entirely by
Honors Northeast. NTCC
Scholar, Cassidy Watkins
of Daingerfield is the film’s
editor and producer.
“This year’s cinematic
effort treats an Indian presence
in our region that was
remarkable for its brief
intensity, and significance.
Local museums and schools
teach that Northeast Texas
was the original home of the
Caddo Indians, with their
bee-hive styled homes and
mysteriously textured pots.
And yet the Cherokee, who
lasted only twenty years
here, were about as influential,”
Yox said.
Yox noted: “A two-hour
drive south from Mount
Pleasant brings one not to
Caddo but to Cherokee
County. Nacogdoches has a
statue of Cherokee Chief
Bowles, but we lack a
Caddoan parallel to personalize
their story. The first
Clarksville-to-Nacogdoches
road, was not some 271 or 59
expressway, but the
Cherokee Trace. We know of
Caddoan trails, but it was
the Cherokee who lined
their more formal Northeast
Texas highway with honeysuckle
hedgerows, and rose
bushes.”
Thanks to a Whatley
Employee Enhancement
Grant, the support of Jerald
and Mary Lou Mowery, the
Friends of Honors
Northeast, and institutional
support, members of Honors
Northeast were able to
research the story last summer
in Austin. It was filmed
last August in Nacogdoches.
The Honors Northeast team
was led by Director, Presley
McClendon, Unit
Production Director, Ryan-
Rose Mendoza, and cinematographers
Rachel Jordan
and Ariana Rodriguez. They
finished shooting all 65
scenes at historical sites,
including the 180-year-old
Tol Barrett house, the historical
village--Millard’s
Crossing, and several
antique area Bed-and-
Breakfast homes. Kassandra
Martinez worked at breakneck
speed as Makeup
Director; Emmalea Shaw
and Alecia Spurlin worked
as directors of costumes and
props.
Other students who also
appear with major roles in
the film are Emmalea Shaw
as Houston’s first wife, Eliza
Allen; Alecia Spurlin as
Houston’s mother, Elizabeth;
Hayden Duncan as Edward
Burleson, Alicia Cantrell,
Kassandra Martinez, Melody
Mott and Leivy Zuniga as
Cherokee maidens, Hialeah,
Adsila, Immookalea, and
Hiawassee.