Touring Day

Wed. June 22: Today dawned sunny and breezy. Teams 1-6 were “Touring” so after breakfast we all loaded in to the flat nosed Blue Bird Pine Ridge Bus and headed to our first destination, Red Cloud Indian School. Those who had seen it before were given a tour of the High School. The rest of us were given the history of the school by Tina, an alum turned staff member, who met with us in the lovely, lofty sanctuary that was rebuilt a few years ago after the original 1893 building burned down. Their chancel area is made from bricks and the cornerstone from the old building. We learned that Red Cloud demanded that the “Black Dresses” that had treated him well be included when they formed the school and that is why it is Catholic. They are a Preschool through high school and 92% of graduates go on to College. They have a high number of Bill Gates Scholarship recipients. There is no tuition charged but students must “test into” the school and they offer no Special Education Services. After her presentation we went to the cultural center to see the Art Show and purchase crafts made by students, if desired. From there we drove around the town of Pine Ridge. They made a quick stop at the gas station and then we proceeded to KILI radio station to look around. The DJ who was featured in the video we had seen Sunday was there and we had a good chance to talk with him. The view from the station is really beautiful and it was a good chance to enjoy the lovely day with temperatures in the 70s. The Reservation is very large and everything is quite a long drive so we spent a great deal of time riding in the bus between stops. Along the way I saw several magpies and an antelope lying in a field which was still there half an hour later when we passed it again. Everyone was really ready to eat lunch when we arrived at Betty’s Kitchen. Great Granddaughter of Black Elk, Betty serves preordered lunches at her double-wide on a hill side, eaten outside under a pine bough shelter looking over the rolling countryside. We both had a turkey sandwich that turned out to be much like what we had been eating all week. But it had hearty potato salad and pork and beans with it too. We also bought a piece of Betty’s chocolate cake for dessert. Many people made the steep climb up the hill behind Betty’s to enjoy even better views. But I was having trouble with vertigo and just couldn’t make it up. That was a first for me and I found it very discouraging. From Betty’s the bus took us to Singing Horse Trading Post. It is a small place under a log house with a variety of items for sale but we didn’t buy anything there. Our final stop of the day was at the cultural center at Oglala Lakota College. They played an audio guide to some of the paintings, photos, and maps that gave a history of the area. We were hurried out of the center before we could watch the video that was supposed to follow. But the group mutinied a bit and did manage to stop at the College Bookstore, where I finally found postcards and Marv bought a t-shirt. We arrived back at Re-Member just about exactly at dinnertime and had hamburgers. Kari’s group continued working for some reason and they arrived an hour late for dinner. They were pretty exhausted! Several Lakota artists were invited to bring their work for us to peruse and I finally managed to buy Dreamcatchers for the grandchildren and we bought a painting by a “ledger artist” named Joe Pulliam who, like some other artists, is doing paintings on old ledgers pages, the way Lakota artists had to do when they couldn’t get any other paper for their artwork. The evening presenter was a dancer who worked with the US Park Service named Corbin Conroy/Good Man to Walk With. He explained his Regalia and dressed one of the young volunteer men in most of it, telling the history and story behind the pieces. He had a dry sense of humor and made it very enjoyable but the whole presentation took about an hour and a half. Our group had hoped to climb the hill behind the dining hall to watch the sun set but it was too late for that. So we returned to our Kiksuya for Prayer Partner presents and to practice our song for which Kari had written a verse. While trying to work on pictures on the camera Marv inadvertently erased everything on the card, deleting about 200 Pine Ridge pictures and our anniversary dinner pictures as well. It was a sad note to end the day on as we wearily got ready for bed.