The Cherokee Red Star Gourd Dance Society was sanctioned at the Spirit Powwow, State Fairgrounds, Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1998 by Mr. Lawrence Shortman, an enrolled member of the Southern Cheyenne, a Southern Cheyenne Elder and an elder of the Southern Cheyenne Gourd Dance Society. He is a long time member of the Kiowa Black War Shield Society. Mr.  Lawrence Shortman sought and received permission from the Kiowa  and Southern Cheyenne to sanction the Cherokee Red Star. Mr. Harold Durr was selected as the Headman of the Society.

At the Gathering of Nations 2004, Bill Two Horses, a long time Gourd Dancer and an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma, his son Walter, and Mr. Al Bellamy, were inducted into the Society.  Mr. Lawrence Shortman and Mr. Harold Durr honored Two Horses by selecting him as the Headman of the East for the Society, granting him permission to sanction Cherokee Red Star Gourd Dance Societies in the East.

On May 15, 2004, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, the Cherokee Blue Spring Red Star Intertribal Gourd Dance Society was formed. 

On October 23, 2004, the Cherokee Blue Spring Red Star Intertribal Gourd Dance Society held it’s first annual “Dance For The Ancestors“ Gourd Dance at the Cherokee Blue Spring Heritage Center, at Eureka Springs, Arkansas.