Education

The Native American Day celebration at Crazy Horse each year includes a program, Native American singers, dancers, artists and storytellers. Another highlight of the day is hands-on activities for children, a free buffalo stew lunch for all visitors and a blast on the mountain (weather permitting.)

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The Native American Cultural Center provides a  number of unique educational opportunities geared to enhance the visitors experience at Crazy Horse. One-of-a-kind artifact collections are displayed, native artisans/vendors are showcased and special activities and games are featured.

The distinctive stone building was completed in 1996 from rock blasted from the Crazy Horse mountain carving.

The Center hosts and encourages many hands-on activities including: setting up a Lakota style tipi, Lakota games (shinny/field hockey, hoop toss, whipping top game, bone and pin game, whirling bone game and hand games.) Guests are encouraged to participate at the “make and take” activity table which provides detailed instruction on how to make Lakota crafts such as miniature drums, medicine pouches and par fleche designs. Each item has written and drawn explanations of its cultural significance and usage in order to teach the proper cultural respect. Staff and vendors provide instruction in American Indian history and culture through storytelling, flute playing, song and dance, as well as information regarding contemporary issues affecting tribal nations today. Native American artists from all over North America spend much of the summer in residence at Crazy Horse, where they are provided space in the Cultural Center at no charge. They are able to create and sell their work while interacting with visitors, which provides a valuable cultural exchange for both parties.

One wall of the lower level of the Cultural Center is a natural quartz ridge. The lower level is used for lectures and presentations and houses a display of a large collection of Edward S. Curtis photographs of Native Americans, taken around the end of the 19th century.  This extraordinary collection of historic and culturally significant photographs was donated by Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation board member William Turner and family of Florida.

As part of the Indian Museum of North America, the Cultural Center building is also the home of many museum exhibits.

The 10th annual Native American Journalism Career Conference will be held at Crazy Horse Memorial April 14-16, 2009.

The Native American Journalism Career Conference, held at Crazy Horse Memorial every April since 2000, is the largest Native student journalism program of its kind in the country.  This year conference organizers are expecting 125 high school and college students, and 75 mentors, teachers and staff to participate.

The 9th annual conference held April 22-24, 2008 attracted the largest total attendance, and the second-best student attendance.  During the 2008 conference, two young ladies each received a $2,000 scholarship for further study. With these awards, the Crazy Horse scholarship program passed the one million dollar mark in cumulative awards.  It began in 1978 with a modest $250 award.  The presentation of the 2009 Crazy Horse Memorial Journalism Scholarships will take place at 11:00 am on Thursday, April 16 in the Orientation Theater.

Over the course of the three-day conference, experienced journalists – many of them Native American – will mentor the students on the basic skills and practices of journalism, including writing, photography and multimedia.  Featured speakers at general sessions will include Freedom Forum and USA TODAY founder Al Neuharth, Mount Rushmore Superintendent Gerard Baker, and Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation CEO/President Ruth Ziolkowski.

The conference is funded by the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and co-sponsored by the South Dakota Newspaper Association, the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, the Native American Journalists Association, and the journalism programs at South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota.

For more information on the conference contact

Doris Giago with SDSU, 605.655.6236 • Doris_Giago@sdstate.edu; or

Janine Harris with the Freedom Forum, 605.677.5424 • jharris@freedomforum.org.

The 9th annual Native American Journalism Career Conference at Crazy Horse Memorial on April 22-24 was the biggest yet.

About 250 people, including 154 Native American high school and college students from 10 states attended. Conference coordinator Jack Marsh, Freedom Forum’s vice president for diversity programs, said this was the largest total attendance, and the second-largest student turnout, since the Freedom Forum, South Dakota Newspaper Association and other organizations started the program in 2000.
Mentors, several of them Native American, came from across the country to help the students and to encourage them toward journalism careers.
Of the nation’s 52,600 newspaper journalists, 284 are American Indians, the fewest of any ethnic group.
Officials plan to post the students’ projects at: www.freedomforumdiversity.org.

High school seniors from Lake Andes, S.D., and Andover, Minn., won college scholarships at the 9th annual Native American Journalism Career Conference at Crazy Horse Memorial, April 22-24.

Ramona J. Marozas

Sasheen Thin Elk

The $2,000 presented to Sasheen Thin Elk of Andes Central High School broke the $1 million benchmark for the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation Scholarship Fund. Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and his wife, Ruth, began the fund with $250 in 1978.

Thin Elk plans to pursue a broadcast journalism degree at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

Ramona Jeanne Marozas of Andover High School in the Twin Cities area also received $2,000. She will pursue a broadcast degree at St. Cloud State University.

The scholarship funding comes from memorials established for Lem Price, a journalism conference student; Robb DeWall, longtime communications director at Crazy Horse; and Peggy Sagen, a conference mentor and Rapid City Journal executive editor.  Only South Dakota Native American students are eligible to apply.