“He did not have to kill it,” she said. “He talked with it, the porcupine came over and grandfather just pulled out some of the quills. Then we just left some food and backed away.”

Brings, a seasonal cultural specialist at Crazy Horse Memorial, will share some of her Oglala Lakota family’s stories during the free 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 26, program at the Memorial’s visitor center.

Her daughter, Ailine Maea, also will sing traditional songs and demonstrate sign language. A college senior, she has toured Germany as a Native American ambassador.

Brings teaches Lakota language and some Oglala traditions and ceremonies to North Middle School sixth and seventh graders in Rapid City. She has taught the elective cultural appreciation course for three years, previously working as a Title 7 program cultural specialist throughout the Rapid City school district.

From the Red Cloud community, Brings said her Pine Ridge Reservation tiospaye (extended family) maintains the cultural traditions, including speaking Lakota exclusively at home. She learned about history, including about her ancestors Man Afraid of His Horse and Clown Horse. And her maternal grandparents, George Plenty Wolf and Julia Dirt Kettle, taught her about plants, birds and animals while guiding her on trips to gather natural medicines.

The mother-daughter story and song presentation will conclude this year’s weekly Summer Performance and Lecture Series at Crazy Horse.

People attending the Thursday program are admitted free to Crazy Horse Memorial with three cans of food per person for the KOTA Care & Share Food Drive. Audience members also are welcome to tour the visitor complex, see the Lakota Family Dancers on the viewing deck at 7 p.m., and stay for the “Legends in Light” laser-light show presentation at 8:30 p.m.

For more information, e-mail memorial@crazyhorse.org, visit www.crazyhorsememorial.org or call 673-4681.

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

The 6 p.m. event in the visitor center will showcase “The Little Soldier Dancers,” sisters Irene Rone Eagle, 10, Trivi Ann Rone Eagle, 9, and Marah Rone Eagle, 6.

Their grandfather Alton Little Soldier Belt also will provide a brief overview of his latest historic research project. A Hunkpapa-Oglala, Belt’s grandfather Henry Little Soldier was a stepson of Chief Sitting Bull.

Belt is a student at Oglala Lakota College in Rapid City, pursuing a degree in chemical dependency counseling. In 2003 he received the student of the year award and distinguished award for merit from the South Dakota Association for Adult Lifelong Learning.

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 can tour the visitor complex and see the “Legends in Light” laser-light show presentation at 8:45 p.m.

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

The weekly seasonal presentations will conclude August 26 with a song, story and dance program featuring Lakota mother and daughter Harriet Brings and Ailine Maea of Rapid City.

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

Students say ‘unforgettable summer’ provided lessons beyond classrooms

Mostly strangers, the would-be college students began the first Summer University Program at Crazy Horse Memorial in June with simple hopes of earning course credits and paychecks from seasonal jobs.

In collecting their completion certificates on Friday, Aug. 13, several said they had attained those goals and much more over 10 weeks.

Lynnette Francis of Fairbanks, Alaska, and Santana Fuentes of Eagle Butte, SD, garnered inner strength.

Dylan Tymes of Pine Ridge, SD, and Jordan June of Farmington, New Mexico, discovered “the big man upstairs” could help their fishing and writing.

David Estes of Lower Brule, SD, and Carly Randall of Kyle, SD, gained a second family.

John Little Bald Eagle of Rosebud, SD, found a purpose.

In the process, they were among 18 students making history by finishing the first University of South Dakota courses at the Crazy Horse University Student Living and Learning Center.

The unique academic partnership – a public school working with a privately funded nonprofit organization – passed its inaugural test, said program emcee Jack Marsh of Sioux Falls. He is the president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and recent winner of the international fraternity Pi Lamda Phi’s lifetime achievement award for fighting prejudice.

“In the end, lives were enriched, meaningful relationships were born, and men and women from different cultures, different age groups, different backgrounds and different experiences became an extended family,” said Marsh, a Crazy Horse board member.

USD began the classes on June 7 for the nonprofit Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, drawing students from Alaska, the Dakotas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

“You came together to form a talented, diverse and powerful inaugural class,” USD President James Abbott said in congratulating the group at the completion ceremony.

“You could have spent your summer doing other things. Many kids did. You chose to spend time making an investment in yourself. You changed yourselves and you changed the people around you.”

Autumn Sanderson of Conde counts herself among the changed. She was one of three non-Native Americans among the students completing the program.

“I’d like to thank all the students for accepting us … letting us into your culture and kind of teaching us what you are all about,” she said.

“We’ve all grown closer than we ever thought possible – and within a blink of an eye,” said an emotional David Estes, 17, a Sicangu Lakota of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. “Whatever path it is we decide to create for ourselves, and wherever it takes us, all of us will always have the memories we formed here.”

Santana Fuentes, an 18-year-old Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribal member, said she remembered being shy and uncertain in coming to Crazy Horse. Over the summer, she acquired the confidence to speak to the dormitory’s designer and construction superintendent, collecting reinforcement for her decision to become an architect.

“This is a great program, giving Native Americans a chance. Where and when has someone given Native Americans such a chance?” Fuentes asked. “Today marks the beginning of the end of stereotypes, silencing those who say Native people cannot succeed.”

Carly Randall, 18, an Oglala Lakota from Kyle, said her memories of “an unforgettable summer” include how the students bonded in helping each other pass tests beyond the exams in English, algebra and American Indian Studies. She said most of her classmates, just recent high school graduates, were away from their families and communities for the first time and forced to face issues as emerging adults.

“We’ve been tested with … time management, school, the balance between school and work and trying to fit everything together in one piece. There were times when things became a little too much to handle. Well, lo and behold, we found out that’s life.”

The farthest from home, Lynnette Francis said she suffered dark bouts of homesickness for her family and Gwich’in tribal community in Alaska. But learning about and talking with 84-year-old Ruth Ziolkowski inspired her. “She gives me so much courage.”

Francis and other students noted the constant support they received from Crazy Horse sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski’s family and Memorial staffers. The students especially lauded faculty members John Lofberg, Jason Murray and Marie Balsley Taylor, and gave standing ovations to dormitory parents Colleen and David Jensen and internship coordinators Don Gifford and Cleve Janis.

Murray, a 37-year-old Choctaw-Chickasaw from Oklahoma, taught English, drove student shuttles and led recreational outings, including fishing trips to nearby Custer State Park. He lived on the center’s second floor, earning the “big man upstairs” nickname.

He said the students’ achievements fulfilled Korczak’s dream for the Indian University of North America at Crazy Horse. Murray said the first class also expanded the mountain carving’s story in stone and the quotation of the legendary Lakota leader, shown pointing to his peoples’ ancestral lands “where my dead lie buried.”

“Crazy Horse is now going to say, ‘My lands are where my children go to school, where they become doctors and lawyers and teachers and business men and women,” Murray said.

He added that these students will help many non-Indian people to change their views of Native Americans.

“You are more than beads and feathers and braids. You are the future, and brothers and sisters, the future is beautiful.”

Sioux Falls S.D. businessman-philanthropist T. Denny Sanford gave the $2.5 million Crazy Horse University Student Living and Learning Center complex. The educational program’s costs will be paid from revenues generated by the $5 million open endowment that retired Huron S.D. bankers Donna “Muffy” and Paul Christen established with the South Dakota Community Foundation.

The students’ families were equal partners in developing the university by entrusting the care and education of their children to the Memorial, said Ruth Ziolkowski, Korczak’s wife. “I hope that this has turned out so that they will make you very proud and that you are very happy that it came about,” she told the nearly 70 relatives attending the invitation-only ceremony.

Mrs. Ziolkowski said the students showed they have a dream by coming to the Crazy Horse school. “You proved that you have something to do because you stuck with it. Now you need to do it. … remember, there is only one answer when someone asks you, ‘did you do the job?’ The answer is, ‘yes, I did.’”

John Little Bald Eagle, an 18-year-old Rosebud Sioux Tribe member, arrived at Crazy Horse guessing he would volunteer for military service instead of heading to college. He still plans to become a Marine, but for now he is Colorado bound for veterinarian schooling.

“I’m doing it so one day my kids will have the childhood I couldn’t have,” he said. “I want to make their lives easier.”

Program graduates listed

By virtue of the alphabet, 18-year-old Georgia Baker of McLaughlin, SD, received the first University of South Dakota certificate for completing college-level courses at the Summer University Program at Crazy Horse Memorial. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe member has not declared her study major but plans to attend USD.

Others completing the program and their college plans are:

• Jeremy Blacksmith, 18, Oglala, SD (Pine Ridge Sioux Tribe), physical therapy or pediatrics at Creighton University, Nebraska.
• Charity Davila 19, Sisseton, SD (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribe), criminal justice; school undecided.
• David Estes 17, Lower Brule, SD (Rosebud Sioux Tribe), criminal justice at USD, Vermillion.
• Lynnette Francis, 18, Fairbanks, AK (Gwich’in Indian tribe), sociology, psychology and pre-law, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO.
• Santana Fuentes 18, Eagle Butte, SD (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), architecture at North Dakota State University, Fargo.
• Quincy “Q” Greaves, 20, Okreek, SD (Rosebud Sioux Tribe), accounting at Sinte Gleska University, Mission, SD.
• McKenzie Jensen, 19, Crooks, SD, medical transcriptionist; school undecided.
• Jordan June, 19, Farmington, NM (Navajo Tribe), creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM.
• Kristen Keeler, 18, from Rosebud and Marty, SD (Yankton Sioux Tribe), business at South Dakota State University, Brookings.
• John Little Bald Eagle, 18, Rosebud, SD (Sicangu and Cheyenne heritage), veterinary science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins.
• Carly Randall, 18, Kyle, SD (Oglala Sioux Tribe), forensic science at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.
• Autumn Sanderson, 18, Conde, SD, psychology, Black Hills State University, Spearfish, SD
• Dylan Tymes, 18, Pine Ridge, SD (Oglala Sioux Tribe member; his grandmother Theresa Two Bulls is the current tribal president), journalism at USD.
• Jasmine Wallette, 18, Dunseith, ND (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), photojournalism at SDSU.
• Josalyn Wallette, 18, Dunseith, ND, (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), major undecided at SDSU.
• Erica Wergin, 18, living at Vermillion but originally from Stillwater, OK; graphic arts at USD.
• Holly Yellow Bear, 18, Rockyford, SD (Oglala Sioux Tribe member), veterinary technician, National American University, Rapid City, SD.

“Wow, where did the summer go?” asks Santana Fuentes of Eagle Butte.

She’s among the students nearing completion of the first 10-week Summer University Program at Crazy Horse. The inaugural session, which began June 7, will wrap up at an August 13 ceremony led by University of South Dakota President James Abbott.

After that, the students from five states (Alaska, the Dakotas, New Mexico and Oklahoma) will return home or head to higher education institutions in Colorado, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota to begin fall terms. The freshmen candidates who have declared majors will pursue a wide range of degrees, including architecture, forensic science, journalism, law enforcement, pediatrics and veterinarian studies.

The Crazy Horse Memorial mountain carving figured prominently in the national Boy Scouts of America centennial celebration.

The July 31 event shared activities at the Memorial with five other sites over a closed-circuit satellite television network. The show also was available worldwide thanks to a streaming video broadcast on the Boy Scouts’ website.
The 100th anniversary celebration, dubbed “A Shining Light Across America,” was based at the National Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. Televised segments also came from arenas in New York City; Durham, North Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Crazy Horse was the farthest west of the sites providing televised activities. Other locations also conducted “Shining Light” events, although not televised.
The Crazy Horse scouts and their supporters gathered in the upper level of the Memorial’s visitor parking lot. Their activities included archery, Native American arts and crafts demonstrations, and dancing by youth and adults led by Memorial cultural affairs specialist Belinda Joe and the He Sapa Ho (Voice of the Black Hills) Drum Group.

Local televised speakers included scouts Will Smith, Christian Sugrue and Ian Keegan; Gerard Baker, the recently retired assistant director of American Indian relations for the National Park Service; and Rapid City attorney Timothy Rensch, an Eagle Scout. In 1982, Rensch was one of two Scouts selected to present sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski with a plaque for his support of a three-day Order of the Arrow “Camporee” at the base of the mountain.
Korczak was a Boy Scout troop leader during his teenage years in New England. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in uniform are admitted free to the Memorial, and the Welcome Center features displays of various Boy Scout honors and troop badges incorporating the Crazy Horse image.
The Tasunke Witko Nature Trail at Crazy Horse was an Eagle Scout project that transformed into the hiking trail used for the annual Crazy Horse Volksmarch.
Order of the Arrow honor guards stood watch during public viewing of Korczak’s closed pine casket in the original log cabin studio-home following his death on Oct. 20,1982. A scout bugler also played taps at the conclusion of his funeral service on October 24, 1982.

Recent donations included:

• A heart-shaped whimsy, a small beaded coin purse and a pair of beaded moccasins that “Grandma” Mary Boyer Trimmer Lone Wolf of Wanblee made for Gladys Albin. As a child, Gladys had a foot problem that kept her from wearing traditional shoes. The beaded leather gifts were given by her son Darel Albin of LaPine, Oregon.

• A brief historical sketch of the Blackfeet Indian Tribe is provided in the book “Out of the North” by Frank Linderman and color prints of portraits by Winold Reiss. Donor Mayme Sever of Waldwick, New Jersey, provided the combined works, originally sold in a souvenir packet at Glacier National Park in Montana.

• Beautifully beaded clothing items given to Mary Gertrude Johnson Sherwood Olson while she worked as a field nursing matron on the Crow Creek Indian Agency, sometime between 1900 and 1908. The family keepsakes, never before displayed, were given by her granddaughter Maurine Brown of San Francisco

September 4-6 – The Labor Day holiday weekend open house, Saturday through Monday, Sept. 4-6, will include the ceremonial night blast on Monday. The fiery displayt commemorates the dual observances of the 1877 death of Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and what would have been the 102nd birthday of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. The end-of-summer sendoff draws large crowds, with people from the Dakotas, Montana, Nebraska and Wyoming gaining free admission by giving three cans of food per person to the KOTA Care and Share Food Drive. Admission to the Memorial is free year-round to Native Americans, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in uniform, military personnel with active-duty identification and Custer County residents.

October 3 – The first distance-running competitions of the “Run Crazy Horse” event on Sunday, Oct. 3, will include a five-person marathon relay, and a 13.1-mile half-marathon and 26.2-mile marathon for individuals. The trek from Crazy Horse to Hill City will follow the scenic Mickelson Trail public recreation path. For details and to register, go to the official “Run Crazy Horse” web site at www.runcrazyhorse.com

October 11 – Crazy Horse Memorial will host its 21st annual Native Americans’ Day celebration on Monday, Oct. 11. On this day, South Dakota officially chooses to honor the rich heritage and culture of the Lakota and other Native Americans. The daylong event will conclude with the seasonal finale of “Legends in Light,” the spectacular multimedia laser-light show.

October 20 – Korczak Remembrance Day on Wednesday, Oct. 20, is set aside to honor the sculptor and allow our visitors to pay their respects with a walk to his tomb at the foot of the mountain. Weather permitting, there also will be a blast on his mountain carving in progress.

at 2:30pm, on Saturday, July 31, at Crazy Horse Monument

RAPID CITY, SD (July 30, 2010) – As part of the Boy Scouts of America’s 100th Anniversary, Black Hills area Scouts are inviting local residents to join in an all-day celebration at Crazy Horse Monument to participate in a historic broadcast of the Centennial Celebration Show from the 2010 National Scout Jamboree, an event at Fort A. P. Hill, Virginia, that attracts more than 40,000 Scouts and Scouting volunteers from across the country.

The event marks the first time in BSA history that the entire Scouting community—past, present, and future—will have the opportunity to join together to experience an inspirational and interactive jamboree arena show, which will be broadcast via satellite to select locations nationwide and Webcast worldwide via www.ustream.tv/shininglight.

The South Dakota “Shining Light” event will take place on Saturday, July 31, 2010, at Crazy Horse Monument, from 2:30 to 10 p.m., and will conclude with the inspirational “Shining Light” nationwide broadcast at 8 p.m. EST.  The event will shine a light on Scouting with the help of several exciting activities for the entire community to enjoy, including:

• A stage show featuring music, demonstrations, contests, and trivia
• Activities including archery and Native American arts and crafts
• A traditional Native American dinner
• An overview about what it takes to become an Eagle Scout, the highest level of Scouting
• A chance to speak with members of local councils to learn more about Scouting

A Shining Light Across America is truly a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Scouting friends and family, and the entire Black Hills Area community, to come together in celebration of Scouting, its rich heritage, exciting present, and bright future, said Liz Smith, Marketing & Events Administrator for the Boy Scouts. “We’re thrilled to bring this incredible experience to the Black Hills of South Dakota that promises not only to build pride in our current membership, but also to spark fond memories in former Scouts and alumni, and intrigue those who may be interested in learning more about our organization.”

Hundreds of  “Shining Light” events will take place across the country in venues large and small on July 31 as part of the organization’s historic nationwide broadcast of the Centennial Celebration Show, which will be performed live in front of an estimated 60,000 Scouts, Scouters, and visitors at the 2010 National Scout Jamboree at Fort A. P. Hill, Virginia.

“A Shining Light Across America” is one of eight major engagement programs the Boy Scouts of America is undertaking as part of its 100th Anniversary Celebration. For a century, the organization has brought families and communities together to prepare America”s youth to live, work, and play with character and integrity. The unique 100-year activities, activated at the local level, aim to drive engagement, recruit new members and volunteers, and enhance the awareness of the value of Scouting in an inspiring, purpose-driven celebration.

About the Boy Scouts of America

The Boy Scouts of America is the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. The Scouting organization is composed of 2.7 million youth members between the ages of 7 and 20, 1.1 million volunteers, and nearly 300 local councils throughout the United States and its territories. For more information on the Boy Scouts of America, please visit www.scouting.org.

More information about 100 Years of Scouting can be found at www.scouting.org/100years.

Humberto Burga and Luis Rene’ Saransig will begin their presentation of contemporary and traditional ethnic music at 6 p.m. in the Crazy Horse visitor complex.

The men, brothers in law, are members of the Kichwa Nation, the indigenous tribal people of western Ecuador. Saransig said he has performed publicly since 1991 and toured in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain with the group “Ecuador Marka.” He also played with the group “Taky Winds” at Crazy Horse in 1996, and has been a solo performer since 2002.

“I dedicate all my work, first of all, to the elders, to the ones we owe everything, and also to thank my family for their support, their advice and their love,” he said.

Saransig said he will play the Rondador, “panpipes sounding like the winds.” Burga, who now lives in Spain, will play the “Quenacho,” a flute made from bamboo.

The men and other family members, many living in Chicago, are among summer exhibitors at the Native American art market at Crazy Horse.

Saransig and his wife, Sofia Farinango, won first in the jewelry division at the Memorial’s 20th annual Gift from Mother Earth art show and sale last month. Burga won first in the show’s leather category. The heads of the family, parents Jose Farinango Lema and Marina Manuela of the Deguche Reservation in Ecuador, have previously won the tapestry competition and presented several gifts of their traditional woolen weavings to Crazy Horse Memorial.

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. Program audience members are welcome to tour the visitor complex, see the 7:15 p.m. weekday Lakota dance presentation on the viewing deck and stay for the “Legends in Light” laser-light show at 9:30 p.m.

The Aug. 19 program will feature Hunkpapa-Oglala historian and storyteller Alton Little Soldier Belt, and the Aug. 26 final program will feature speakers Harriet Brings and her daughter Ailine Maea.

For details about the weekly Thursday programs, contact cultural education specialist Belinda Joe at 673-4681, e-mail memorial@crazyhorse.org or visit www.crazyhorsememorial.org.

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

CRAZY HORSE MEMORIAL – Del Iron Cloud’s artistic career has spanned nearly six decades, although his first work at age five – a crayon illustration on his grandmother’s door – was lost in an immediate kitchen cleanup project.

Iron Cloud, the well-known Hunkpapa Lakota artist from the Standing Rock Reservation, will be the featured speaker at the free Thursday, Aug. 5, Summer Performance & Lecture Series program at Crazy Horse Memorial. His presentation will begin at 6 p.m. at the Crazy Horse visitor complex.

Iron Cloud is one of the exhibitors at the Memorial’s Native American art market this summer. He has won many awards and international recognition for his acrylic, oil, pastel and watercolor works that range from military subjects, to portraits, to Native American and western themes.

He also has illustrated Black Hills Pow Wow (He Sapa Wacipi) posters and painted more than 100 murals, including at the Denver International Airport and Ellsworth Air Force Base, where he designed the logo for the B1B bombers.

His interest in military art emerged early, earning him a first prize as a fourth grader at St. Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain. To depict his plans as a grownup, he drew a soldier with binoculars near an Army truck, with explosions bursting in the background. “I want to be an Army man to protect my country,” he wrote.

He actually served 20 years in the Air Force, retiring as a staff sergeant in 1991. His military service followed studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M, and the American Academy of Arts in Chicago.

Iron Cloud and his wife, Frieda, also an accomplished artist, have lived in Rapid City since 1995.

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. Program audience members are welcome to tour the visitor complex, see the 7:15 p.m. weekday Lakota dance presentation on the viewing deck and stay for the “Legends in Light” laser-light show presentation at 9:30 p.m.

For more information about Del Iron Cloud’s artwork, see http://www.delironcloud.com or e-mail delironcloud@hotmail.com.

For details about the weekly Thursday programs, 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.