Governor's Heritage Award - Vi Hilbert

Vi Hilbert of Seattle, Washington is a member of the Upper Skagit Tribe. She grew up on the Skagit River in northwest Washington, speaking Lushootseed, the native language of the indigenous peoples whose homelands lay between Puget Sound and the Cascade Range. Hilbert moved to Seattle in 1942. Always interested in the traditions of her people, Hilbert began to collect and translate stories and songs recited in Lushootseed, and in 1972 she published a two- volume grammar of the language. The same year, Hilbert began to teach Lushootseed at the University of Washington. She is the author of two books of Lushootseed traditional stories and has trained a number of storytellers, both Native and non-Native. Hilbert was the recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994.