San Carlos Apache Club: Handing off the reign and keeping the tradition

It just brings such joy and happiness and pride, to see that even after all this time, we're still doing it,” she says. “Everybody is still involved, and it's starting young. We have the youngsters, we have the young kids that are doing it.”

Miss San Carlos Middle School’s Princess is preparing to hand-off her reign after a year of acting as the ambassador of the school and its Apache Club.

By October 15, she will pass her reign on to the crown of the Miss San Carlos Middle School Pageant after a year of holding the position. 

In late September, she participated in one of her last events as princess alongside club members at the Celebrate 2025 Conference in Phoenix, the 20th annual MASTERS Institute sponsored by Arizona State University’s School of Community Resources and Development and Arizona School Administrators.

The school’s Apache Club serves as a means to share Apache culture and the traditions that have been passed on by generations, explains Cheryl Haozous, lead parent supervisor of the school district’s parent educator program. 

“What the Apache Club represents, is that pride of the culture of everything that happens with our people,” she says. “The San Carlos Middle School Apache Club has really been active and getting out there and performing and doing things at different places.” 

She was one of the club’s several chaperones at the conference in September. There, the club performed part of a Sunrise Dance, the sacred coming-of-age ceremony for young Apache girls to transition into womanhood.

Haozous remembers when the club came into existence in the 1970s, when she was a teenager. Now, her granddaughter is part of the club. 

“It just brings such joy and happiness and pride, to see that even after all this time, we're still doing it,” she says. “Everybody is still involved, and it's starting young. We have the youngsters, we have the young kids that are doing it.”