Photo Gallery: 2025 Auntie’s Day Out

“You are Powerful, You are Enough, and You are Making a Difference.”

The PITU Puow’wan Program hosted the 2025 Auntie’s Day Out — or Mumowts’ Davaputs (“Women’s Day”) — on Saturday, March 8, as a celebration of Nung’wu Mumowts’ and in recognition of Women’s History Month.

Tribal Chairwoman Hope Silvas started the event, imploring the aunties in attendance to not only repeat after her but also remember three important messages: “You are powerful, you are enough, and you are making a difference.”

Eleanor Tom gave the opening prayer, followed by the main speaker for the event, Vivienna Orcutt, a former tribal leader who has worked for the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development and is currently employed at the California Department of Transportation Headquarters in Sacramento. Vivienna told some of her own stories of difficulties as a woman, and she said when it came time to be a parent, she realized that she couldn’t do anything about her past but she could be a different woman for her daughter and share some of those experiences that shaped her.

Vivienna also talked about her journey of sobriety and stressed the importance of being able to be alone and not comparing ourselves to others. As a final message, she said that women have a lot of responsibility laid on them, but they have to prioritize themselves before everyone else. “Not in a selfish way,” she said, “but you gotta take care of yourself.”

Julie Wilcken also spoke at the event. Julie is a certified Physician Assistant who works at the FourPoints Health Cedar City clinic, and she talked about the importance of women’s health screenings, encouraging those in attendance to make sure they were making appointments for these screenings and fielding any questions.

After Julie spoke, attendees enjoyed lunch, during which the contests for Best Auntie Hairdo, Biggest Auntie Earrings, and Best Ribbon Skirt were held. Winners were chosen by audience response, with Sarah Azule sporting the best ‘do, Rita Walker winning the earring contest, and Gloria Benson winning for best ribbon skirt.

Finally, martial arts trainer Sue McAley helped some of the aunties become even more deadly. Sue has been training in the martial arts for over 40 years and has a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Gojo Shorei Karate. She also has a master’s degree in counseling/psychology and has worked with both offenders and victims of violent crimes. Sue had participants on Saturday work on their assertive voice and stance, showed them some grappling moves, and even had several attendees break boards.

See the full photo gallery below.

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