Crazy Horse News

Five young Native American powwow dancers from Rapid City will be featured at the free July 29 Summer Performance & Lecture Series program at Crazy Horse Memorial.

Wakiyan and Wicahpi Cook, and J’von “Hepana” Shields, Jeremiah “Hepi” Shields and Joreese “Hoksina” Shields will perform during the 6 p.m. special event at the Memorial’s visitor center complex.

Wakiyan and Wicahpi, both of Dakota and Lakota heritage, have danced in the powwow circle since they were toddlers. Wakiyan has placed at several powwow competitions. Wicahpi is considered an upcoming powwow dancer.

“Hepana” Shields, 9, entered the dance circle as a fancy bustle dancer. Of Dakota-Dine’ heritage, he comes from a powwow family who traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica, to demonstrate traditional powwow dances styles for an international gathering. He will be a fourth grader at General Beadle Elementary School this fall.

“Hepi” Shields, 7, is developing as a boy’s traditional dancer.  He will be a second grader this fall at General Beadle Elementary, where he won the school’s Mustang Award for being an exemplary student.

“Hoksina Shields, 5, has traveled to Hawaii with this grandmother Vickie Lambert to share his heritage and culture. He will be a kindergartener at General Beadle this fall.

People attending the Thursday educational programs are admitted free to Crazy Horse Memorial with three cans of food per person for the KOTA Care & Share Food Drive. Program audience members are can tour the visitor complex and see the “Legends in Light” laser-light show presentation at 9:30 p.m.

For more information, contact cultural education specialist Belinda Joe at 673-4681, e-mail memorial@crazyhorse.org.

The weekly Crazy Horse programs will continue through August 26. The August 5 program will spotlight Hunkpapa Lakota artist Del Iron Cloud.

Crazy Horse Memorial is open every day, year-round, and is located on U.S. Highway 16/385 between Hill City and Custer.

Crazy Horse Memorial’s youth theme for the month continues at the July 22 Summer Performance & Lecture Series program. The free presentation begins at 6 p.m. at the Memorial’s visitor center.

Seven-year-old Sophia Benally of Rapid City will be the featured Native American powwow dancer. She entered the dance circle just last year as a youth royalty contestant and traditional dancer at powwows, and performed at Crazy Horse on Native American’s Day.

She has Dine’ (Navajo) and Dakota heritage, and women in her family have won powwow dance and royalty contests.

“Dancing makes me feel beautiful and you have to walk in beauty – that means you have to be beautiful on the inside and outside,” she said.

Next up on the weekly Thursday showcase will be four more young dancers from Rapid City – Wakiyan and Wicahpi Cook and J’von “Hepana” and Jeremiah “Hepi” Shields – on July 29.

The weekly seasonal presentations continue through August 26.

People attending the Thursday programs are admitted free to Crazy Horse Memorial with three cans of food per person for the KOTA Care & Share Food Drive. Audience members may also tour the visitor complex and stay for the “Legends in Light” laser-light show presentation at 9:30 p.m.

For more information, contact cultural education specialist Belinda Joe at 673-4681, e-mail memorial@crazyhorse.org.

Crazy Horse Memorial is located on U.S. Highway 16/385 between Hill City and Custer.

“They’re going to blow up George Washington?”

The boy, maybe 6, had just arrived with his family in time to hear about the 1 p.m. Fourth of July blast on the Crazy Horse Memorial mountain carving.

The Washington bust, at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, was perfectly safe.

So was the stone portrait of legendary Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, some 300 feet above the blast zone.

Despite rain and wisps of fog, the visibility cleared in time for Crazy Horse visitors to see the 1,500-ton blast. It was the latest in the engineered explosions that are roughly shaping the 219-foot high horse’s head.

“Unbelievable.”

“Fantastic.”

That’s how benefactors T. Denny Sanford and Donna “Muffy” Christen, respectively, reacted to the new Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation’s University Student Living and Learning Center.

They were featured speakers at the June 27 dedication ceremony. It was the first time they had been back since the center’s ceremonial groundbreaking on Sept. 27.

“This is such a marvelous day and to see this wonderful structure put up in about a nine-month period of time is unbelievable,” said Sanford. He is the Sioux Falls, SD, businessman-philanthropist who gave $2.5 million to build the complex, and established the $5 million Sanford Challenge in 2007 to speed carving on the mountain.

Mrs. Christen and her husband, Paul, retired bankers from Huron, SD, established the $5 million Crazy Horse Centennial Fund. Managed by the nonprofit South Dakota Community Foundation in Pierre, the open endowment will produce annual investment earnings to cover ongoing costs of the Memorial’s university programs as they grow.

Memorial president and chief executive Ruth Ziolkowski’s vision for the learning center included glowing pine-clad ceilings and walls studded with mountain blast fragments. “You surely got it. Fantastic. It’s really, really well done. You have to be proud of that,” Mrs. Christen said.

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski planned the university and a medical training center to benefit American Indians in the early 1950s. Ruth Ziolkowski, who celebrated her 84th birthday on June 26, said the opening of the first dormitory and classroom facility proves her late husband’s theory that anything is possible if you work at it.

“We are so proud and happy to not only have this facility, but to have the opportunity to help the 20 students who are here. …To all the people who have helped make this possible, I can’t thank you enough.”

The 20 students will finish their University of South Dakota-sponsored courses on Aug. 13. They will earn up to 12 university-level credits that can transfer to other schools.

The first on-site class at Crazy Horse includes:

Alaska: Lynnette Francis (Gwich’in) of Fairbanks.

New Mexico: Jordan June (Navajo) of Farmington.

North Dakota: Jasmine Wallette and Josalyn Wallette (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) of Dunseith.

Oklahoma: Erica Wergin of Stillwater.

South Dakota: Georgia Baker (Standing Rock Hunkpapa), McLaughlin; Jeremy Blacksmith (Oglala Lakota), Oglala; Vonna Blacksmith (Oglala Lakota), Oglala; Charity Davila (Sisseton-Wahpeton), Peever; David Estes (Sicangu-Dakota), Lower Brule; Santana Fuentes (Sisseton-Wahpeton), Eagle Butte; Quincy Greaves (Rosebud Sicangu), Okreek; McKenzie Jensen, Crooks; Kristen Keeler (Yankton), Mission; John Little Bald Eagle (Rosebud Sicangu), Mission; Carly Randall (Oglala Lakota), Kyle; Autumn Sanderson, Conde; Stephanie Sorbel (Oglala Lakota), Martin; Dylan Tymes (Oglala Lakota), Pine Ridge; and Holly Yellow Bear (Oglala Lakota) of Manderson.

President Richard Bowers led a delegation of 30 elders and others from the Seminole Tribe of Florida attending the June 26 night blast on the Crazy Horse Memorial mountain carving. The annual event, highlighted by a thunderous pyrotechnical display, honored the 134th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the 84th birthday of Memorial president and chief executive Ruth Ziolkowski.

Making their first trip to Crazy Horse with President Bowers were Nancy J. Willie, Judy Baker, Ollie Balentie, Judy Jones, Elsie J. Bowers, Nettie Stewart, Coleman Josh, Dorothy Josh, Lawanna Oscela Niles, Bobbie L. Billie, Connie Gaiven, Winnie Billie Doctor, David Stephen Bowers, Elizabeth Bates, Jayne Salgado, Kenneth Bayon, Wilmeth DeHass, Robin Weitzer, Joel M. Frank, Marcy Frank, Yvonne Courtney, Bryan Courtney, Ruscilla Tiger, tribal Treasurer Michael D. Tiger, Judy Tiger, Scarlett Jumper, Tiana Young, Naomi Fewell and Cynthia Douglas.

Former U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell toured Crazy Horse Memorial with aides during a sightseeing trip. They were in the area for the sold out mid-year conference of the National Congress of American Indians in Rapid City.

Campbell, 77, now serves on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe’s council of chiefs and is a senior policy adviser for a Washington, D.C., law firm representing some tribes and their casino operations.

A member of Congress from Colorado from 1987 to 2005, he sponsored the 1991 federal legislation to change the name of the Custer Battlefield National Monument to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. In 2003, he led the dedication of the Indian Memorial to the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapahoe warriors who defeated cavalry troops there.

A one-time judo champion, he was the U.S. judo squad captain at the 1962 Toyko Olympics, where Oglala Lakota runner Billy Mills won the 10,000 meter race. “People don’t remember me,” Campbell quipped, looking at the Memorial’s painting of Mills breaking the tape. “Mills won the gold medal and I broke my leg.”

A jeweler and craftsman, nine of Campbell’s commemorative knives are displayed in the Arleen Latte Collection in the Laughing Water Restaurant’s snack shop dining area. An autographed photo of him in full headdress and beaded leather wear, posing on his horse, is displayed near the tipi in the Indian Museum of North America.

Upon learning that Brenda Bober had won the custom-built “Warrior” motorcycle, a passing Crazy Horse Memorial visitor said he would give her $5 to buy his next lottery ticket.

Laughing, she told him, “I haven’t won anything since.”

Not monetarily, perhaps, but Brenda and her husband, Andy Bober, of Tucson, Ariz., won the heart of Memorial president and chief executive Ruth Ziolkowski.

In honor of her 84th birthday on June 26, they gave the one-of-a-kind bike to the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.

“It was something we had been thinking about doing and her birthday seemed like the perfect time to do it,” Andy Bober said. “It belongs here.”

The gift keeps the bike where it has been since shortly after the Aug. 12, 2006, drawing – outside the original log home-studio of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. Several of the bike’s hand-painted images are of Korczak, and the display invariably stops picture-takers as they enter or leave the home.

Created by Elite Custom Motorcycles of Prescott Valley, Arizona, the bike is such a work of art that it somewhat intimidated Brenda Bober. She said she did not want to ride it for fear a bouncing highway rock would mar the painting.

So other than sitting on it to pose before the carving model and mountain for pictures, and kick-starting it to hear the throaty rumble, the Bobers never rode their prize. Not once. Not even on the Avenue of the Chiefs or around the Memorial’s parking lot.

They did get the pleasure of paying Uncle Sam additional tax because the government considered the $26,755 bike as extra income. Signing over ownership might gain them an annual deduction over the next four years.

Now retired from architectural project designing, the former Avon, Colo., couple will always have the memory of Ticket No. 04399, the phone call from Memorial director Sid Goss and Brenda’s delighted squeal, “Did we win the bike?”

Crazy Horse Memorial will help the nation celebrate its 234th birthday with a 1 p.m. Fourth of July blast on the world’s largest mountain carving in progress.

Sunday’s blast will remove 1,500 tons in an area 300 feet below the top of Crazy Horse’s head. Please watch our webcams if you cannot attend in person.

This will be the latest engineered explosions that are roughly shaping the colossal horse’s head. At 219 feet tall, it will be the monument’s largest artistic detail.

Overall, the Crazy Horse Memorial carving will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high when completed.

Students, benefactors and managers alike say the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation’s first University Student Living and Learning Center is a heaven-sent opportunity.

Speakers at the facility’s June 27 dedication program recounted the six-decade effort to reach this start of the American Indian University of North America at Crazy Horse. Several people said the three-week-old program already is changing lives.

“I was a little reluctant about coming here, but now that I am here, I realize that this is probably one of the best decisions that I could have ever made in my life,” student Quincy “Q” Greaves of Yankton told the crowd of 84 invited guests.

She likes to compare the start of the school to the June 3, 1948, beginning of the Crazy Horse mountain carving. She said pictures of the 10-ton dedication blast show “a little tiny poof of smoke” signaling the start of what is now the world’s largest carving in progress.

“We are that first poof of smoke, and one day we will become the Crazy Horse mountain,” Greaves said. She credited that potential to fellow students “who are absolutely wonderful people” and teachers “who make it fun to go to class, and I’m not kidding when I say that.”

T. Denny Sanford and Donna “Muffy” Christen combined gave $7.5 million to build the center and fund ongoing costs of the education program supervised by the University of South Dakota. Students and officers of the nonprofit foundation thanked their benefactors, but the philanthropists each said they were thankful for and blessed at just being able to participate.

“This is such a marvelous day and to see this wonderful structure put up in about a nine-month period of time is unbelievable,” said Sanford. He is the Sioux Falls businessman who also established the $5 million Sanford Challenge in 2007 to speed carving on the mountain, an initiative that has raised more than $3.3 million.

He credited the living center’s fast construction since breaking ground Sept. 27 and the on-time start of the university classes on June 7 to Memorial president and chief executive Ruth Ziolkowski.

“Everyone who knows her knows she is a take charge kind of gal and she gets everything done,” he said.

Friend Donna “Muffy” Christen and her husband, Paul, of Huron established the $5 million Crazy Horse Centennial Fund, an open endowment managed by the South Dakota Community Foundation in Pierre. Others can contribute to the endowment, which will produce annual investment earnings to cover ongoing costs of the Memorial’s university programs as they grow.

“Were it not for the generosity of Donna “Muffy” Christen, we would not be here today and 20 students in this inaugural class would not have futures so bright and filled with so much opportunity,” said foundation director and program moderator Jack Marsh of Sioux Falls.

“I can’t think of anything better to do with $5 million,” Mrs. Christen said. “And the best thing about it is, that money … will continue to grow. It will give strength and always be here for this particular school and this particular dream.

“Ruth’s dreams are the best dreams.”

Her vision included glowing pine-clad ceilings and learning center walls studded with mountain blast fragments. “You surely got it. Fantastic. It’s really, really well done. You have to be proud of that,” said Mrs. Christen.

In looking from the learning center toward the mountain carving, she added, “I’m quite overcome. It’s a blessing to us who were able to make this gift to make this possible. It’s a blessing to see it in the boards and rooms, and in the teachers and students who are dedicated.”

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski planned the university and a medical training center to benefit American Indians in the early 1950s. Ruth Ziolkowski, who celebrated her 84th birthday the day before the dedication, said the opening of the first dormitory and classroom facility proves her late husband’s theory that anything is possible if you work at it.

“This is one of those moments, and there have been a lot of them in the last 60 years. This one is special because it touches lives. We are so proud and happy to not only have this facility, but to have the opportunity to help the 20 students who are here. …To all the people who have helped make this possible, I can’t thank you enough.”

The students will finish the first summer classes in seven weeks, earning up to 12 university-level credits that can transfer to other schools. USD Provost Chuck Staben and distance learning Dean Laurie Becvar of Vermillion, who spearheaded development of the classes, lauded the students for their dedication, and said USD is committed to creating a successful long-term program at Crazy Horse.

“Higher education is truly transformational,” Dr. Becvar said. “Learning does foster reconciliation and healing. …”

That is the real purpose of the Memorial, Mrs. Ziolkowski told the students, invoking her husband’s life motto. “You can go forward from here and do wonderful things,” she said. “Just remember, ‘Don’t ever forget your dreams.’”

Honoring a promise kept

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski told Pine Ridge teenager Freda Goodsell that he would build a university for Native Americans like her.

She had attended the June 3, 1948, dedication ceremony led by Chief Henry Standing Bear and Korczak to start the Crazy Horse Memorial mountain monument. At 18, she returned to Crazy Horse in the early 1950s to start babysitting for Korczak and his wife, Ruth.

Now 81, Freda still works at the Memorial as a gift shop clerk.

On Sunday, June 27, as an elder of Crazy Horse’s Oglala Lakota Tribe, she prayed to Tunkaschila, the Great Spirit, to bless the Crazy Horse University Student Living and Learning Center, its students and the Ziolkowski family for making Korczak’s dream come true. It is the first structure of his promised American Indian University of North America.

“Today I stand here proud to look at this building and at what’s going on,” Freda said at the dedication ceremony. “After all of these years, it is here for my people.”

20 in first university classes

The first Summer University Program at Crazy Horse Memorial involves 20 recent high school graduates or students who obtained their general education diplomas and are preparing to start higher education training. They include:

Alaska: Lynnette Francis of Fairbanks.

New Mexico: Jordan June of Farmington.

North Dakota: Jasmine Wallette and Josalyn Wallette of Dunseith.

Oklahoma: Erica Wergin of Stillwater.

South Dakota: Georgia Baker, McLaughlin; Jeremy Blacksmith, Oglala; Vonna Blacksmith, Oglala; Charity Davila, Peever; David Estes, Lower Brule; Santana Fuentes, Eagle Butte; Quincy Greaves, Yankton; McKenzie Jensen, Crooks; Kristen Keeler, Mission; John Little Bald Eagle, Mission; Carly Randall, Kyle; Autumn Sanderson, Conde; Stephanie Sorbel, Martin; Dylan Tymes, Pine Ridge; and Holly Yellow Bear of Manderson.

Thousands of people filled the Crazy Horse Memorial parking areas and the mountain viewing deck Saturday, June 26, to enjoy the mountain monument’s fiery salute to president and chief executive Ruth Ziolkowski on her 84th birthday and to commemorate the 134th anniversary of American Indians’ victory at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Among visitors was President Richard Bowers and a group of elders from the Seminal Tribe of Florida. Also Jesus Ayala, his wife, Candyce, and granddaughter Maya, presented Indian Museum of North America director Anne Ziolkowski with the flag of the Pala Band of Mission Indians in California. The Memorial now has more than 100 tribal flags in its displayed collection.