For six young citizens of the Cherokee Nation, June will mark a tough journey.

It’ll be a grueling bike ride across seven states, but it’ll also be a journey of reflection into the past and what their Cherokee ancestors endured along the infamous Trail of Tears.

The six cyclists: Kortney Dry, 24, and Kayce O’Field, 24, both of Tahlequah; Emily Christie, 24, of Stilwell; Jeanetta Leach, 23, of Rocky Mountain; Madison Whitekiller, 23, of Verdigris; and Desiree Matthews, 18, of Watts, were selected recently to participate in the 2022 “Remember the Removal” bike ride. Their trek will retrace a roughly 950-mile-long path followed by Cherokee people who were forcibly removed from their native lands in Georgia to Oklahoma in the late 1830s.

This marks the first year for the team to be composed entirely of Cherokee women.

You can read more in an article in The JournalRecord web site at: https://journalrecord.com/2022/04/27/young-women-to-follow-trail-of-tears-path-of-their-ancestors/.