Category: Guest Bloggers

Celebrating Christmas at St. Joseph’s

Greetings from the banks of the Missouri River!

This past weekend was a busy and exciting one for the Lakota children.  Since they are home for Christmas break, we celebrate Christmas when they return to St. Joseph’s Indian School after the first of the year.

This past Sunday was that day!

Some of the students act out the Nativity and the visit of the Magi during the Sunday Mass. Afterwards, everyone heads to their campus homes to open gifts. It is exciting to see the sheer joy that comes over the children’s faces as they tear packages apart to see what Santa –  through your generosity – has brought them.  We were blessed with nice weather on Sunday, so several students were able to go outside and enjoy their remote controlled cars. The onset of spring and warmer weather will give others the chance to use new footballs, soccer balls and basketballs.

You can see more photos here.

On Saturday, St. Joseph’s spelling bee winners traveled to Mitchell, South Dakota (about 70 miles from campus) to take part in the annual Corn Palace Regional Spelling Bee. St. Joseph’s had nine spellers participate!

The Lakota children participated in a spelling bee.
St. Joseph’s had nine spellers participate in an advanced spelling bee.

Two of our students captured 3rd place in their age group and all were in the top ten at their grade levels.  Congratulations everyone!

You may recall that a team of high school students was going out to Rapid City to take part in the Lakota Nation Invitational’s (LNI) Knowledge Bowl.  One member of our team, a 9th grader named Liliana, took top honors in the geometry and grammar categories of the individual competition. Congratulations Liliana!

The boys’ basketball season got underway Monday with our 7th and 8th grade teams taking on Kimball – a small community just east of Chamberlain.  Unfortunately, the Braves came up short this time but look forward to improving throughout the remainder of the season.

We are looking forward to starting the girls’ inter-city basketball league this Sunday.

I hope everyone has a great week!  Let’s keep those dealing with the water contamination problem in West Virginia in our prayers that it all gets resolved quickly.

Thanks again for your generosity.

Sincerely,

Fr. Anthony Kluckman, SCJ

Chaplain

Rewind to the week before Christmas

St. Joseph’s students are back from break and will celebrate Christmas this Sunday!

Before Christmas break, St. Joseph’s students got into the Christmas spirit by getting busy in the kitchen! In Personal Living Skills class, students baked cookies, made our famous Oreo truffles and peanut butter balls. They had a fun time decorating and using lots of sprinkles!

Christmas is a lot more than baking and exchanging gifts though.  It is about giving and being thankful for what we have and being with the ones we love the most.

Sadly, there are many people who cannot be with their loved ones during the holidays or some who cannot provide for their families at Christmas because of different circumstances.  The seventh graders worked on a community service project to try and give back to people in need.

After some discussion, they decided that making baby blankets and donating them to the Chamberlain women’s shelter would not only keep babies warm, but would warm many hearts, too.

Being a part of this community service project was an excellent way for our students to give back this Holiday season and was a great addition to the food drive put on by the Student Leaders at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

Wopila tanka – many thanks – for the generosity you show the Lakota children which allows them to show generosity to others!

Pam

Personal Living Skills Teacher

The Lakota children are back from Christmas break!

Dear Benefactors,

Sadly, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end… and it did here at St. Joseph’s, with a thud!  Sunday was the end of the Christmas break, but also the outset of extremely cold weather.

While we have not gotten the snow other parts of the country have, we are getting a taste of the Polar Vortex that is keeping the temperature down along with the wind chill, which sent the temperatures plunging.  Many of our students were not able to make it back on time and most schools in the state were closed Monday.  On campus, we even used the school bus to ferry the students to class from their campus homes.

Christmas Break was enjoyed by all.  Students and staff had the chance to enjoy family and friends.  I was able to visit my mother in Texas for a few days and was blessed with good weather going down and coming back.  All the Lakota students were able to enjoy Christmas at home, though members of the boys’ and girls’ high school basketball teams had to come back to campus early in order to take part in the scheduled games over the break from school.  This is a tough aspect for the team members, but they seem to be facing the challenge, as both teams are 4-1.

We look forward to getting all the students back and kicking off third quarter with a prayer service.

St. Joseph’s fifth graders are taking part in a program called “Star Base” which aims to develop an interest in science. The classes and experiments involve building robots, shooting model rockets and, Friday, will culminate with a trip to Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, South Dakota.

We received a visit from an alumnus last week! KP graduated in 2012 and then completed an automotive vocational course in Wyoming. He then worked in the Rapid City area prior to enlisting in the military.

He is excited about the prospect of preparing for Special Forces as he heads to Ft. Benning, Georgia, aware that a tour in Afghanistan is a real possibility.  KP shared that his time at St. Joseph’s Indian School helped him to focus on the things that go into making such an important decision.

His former houseparents and several other staff expressed their pride in KP’s decision, and the fact that he has a plan and seems to be sticking with it.  We wish him well in his future and ask the protection of the Great Spirit on him!

KP, a former St. Joseph’s student, came back to visit with his teachers and houseparents while on leave from the military.
Craig (teacher), KP and Patrick (houseparent) catch up.

Now that it is cold outside, the students are getting ready for all sorts of indoor activities. The boys’ basketball teams have begun practices and the girls’ inter-city league will be underway in a week or two.  Aside from basketball, there will be archery, bowling, cheerleading and tumbling.  Of course, swimming is also a big hit with our Native American students, too.

We hope that you and yours had a very special holiday  season and that the New Year is off to a great start.  May the Great Spirit bless and reward you for your generosity toward the Lakota boys and girls!  As you look at the blank pages of the new calendars around your home, remember God is already there waiting for us to catch up with Him.

Sincerely,

Fr. Anthony Kluckman, SCJ

Chaplain

P.S.  The local movie theater is setting the tone for the weather outside as it is currently showing the new Disney movie ‘FROZEN.’

Meet April, a St. Joseph’s employee for 7 years

Good afternoon and Happy New Year!

April works with the Lakota children on drug and alcohol prevention.
April has worked with the Lakota children at St. Joseph’s for seven years.

My name is April and I have been an employee at St. Joseph’s Indian School for seven years. I am a Level II Alcohol and Drug Counselor and have been in the field for 24 years.  I am an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe from Fort Thompson, South Dakota.

When I first started at St. Joseph’s, I worked with families and provided support for our Family Service Counselors in different ways. I have also worked with the FAST program. This year we are beginning the search for a new family program that will benefit the students we work with.

But I do lots of other things too!

  • I help with the cultural trip in May for students moving from seventh to eighth grades. We set out from Chamberlain and make our way to Lame Deere, Montana, with several stops along the way. This is a wonderful, fun, educational trip not only for the students, but for staff as well. I think the most exciting part for the students is climbing Bear Butte.
  • I have had the opportunity to be part of our “Healing Camp” held each March. This daylong activity is for students who have lost a family member. It helps begin the healing process, not only for our students, but staff who participate as well. It touches my heart to know that we are working as a team and getting to know each other more and more. I feel that, with each new year, I am building stronger friendships and professional relationships with each and every person who crosses my path on my every day walk of life.
  • My newest task is helping with the Lakota Circle of Hope (LCH), which is a drug and alcohol prevention curriculum. I enjoy working on it with the little free spirits in third and fourth grades.  The activities focus on the critical need for drug and alcohol prevention lessons targeted at children in second through fifth grades. The program specifically targets Native American children by teaching prevention lessons through the use of Lakota/Dakota culture.
April and the girls get ready to climb Bear Butte.
Each year, April is part of the cultural trip for St. Joseph’s seventh graders moving into eighth grade.

I will always remember the first day I came to St. Joseph Indian School, and there was Fr. Steve offering a hug and welcoming me to St. Joseph’s tiyospaye – extended family. It was very heartwarming and I always will hold this memory close to my cante’ – heart.

I would like to tell everyone at St. Joseph’s Indian School wopila/wopida tanka – many thanks – for all lessons I have learned while working here and all the support I have received as part of this tiyospaye!

With a warm and hearty handshake,

April

Learning about the Dakota 38+2

Good afternoon! I am LaRayne, St. Joseph’s Native American Studies teacher.

Runners lead the Dakota 38 Memorial riders for the first 10 miles.
“Freedom Runners” ran from the starting point in Lower Brule across the Missouri River Fort Thompson, South Dakota – approximately 10 miles.

Before Christmas break, St. Joseph’s seventh and eighth grade classes learned about the Dakota 38+2 Memorial Ride – what it is for, why it is done and what we could do to help. These thoughts spilled over into campus-wide education, sharing, and giving from the hearts of our students and staff.

The Dakota 38+2 Memorial Ride commemorates the 38 Dakota (Sioux) warriors who were hung in Mankato, Minnesota, following the Dakota War of 1862 – the largest mass hanging in our nation’s history. Two more warriors were hung later, in relation to the same conflict. The ride of reconciliation was inspired by one man’s vision to heal the brokenness between cultures.

Two of St. Joseph’s family service counselors, Scott and Rob, brought in riders to speak to our older students and showed the movie about the Dakota 38+2 (the link to YouTube is at the end of this post).

Students discussed, questioned, learned and reflected on different aspects of this historical event, which created motivation to support the riders financially. The students set out to raise money to help defray the costs of food and shelter

Riders on horseback journeyed from Lower Brule to Mankato, South Dakota for the Dakota 38 Memorial Ride.
The riders participating in the 2013 Dakota 38 Memorial Ride.

for riders and horses, as well as occasional police escorts on busy roads between Lower Brule, South Dakota and Mankato, Minnesota.

Out of respect for our donors, we wanted this money to come from our personal pockets – not from the generous gifts of those who support St. Joseph’s.  With the help of students and staff, our efforts raised more than $1,200 from a penny war, a raffle, “Jeans Because” money and a soup and salad lunch for staff campus-wide. It was great to see the different acts of generosity and downright competitions that came alive at St. Joseph’s Indian School to support this cause!

Our littlest children (first, second and third graders) brought in little bags of coins to add to their pickle jar for the penny war.  Staff members could add coins to any age group, and this is where the competition began.  During the last minutes of the penny war, it was evident that the staff was just as competitive as the kids in wanting to win the penny war and give to a great cause!

St. Joseph’s students and staff were at the send off on December 10, 2013.
St. Joseph’s seventh and eighth graders, along with several staff, attended the send off ceremony for the Dakota 38 Memorial Ride.

The purpose behind teaching this historical event to our students is to help them understand the events of the past and how they are linked to their ancestors.  Because we want our students to understand who they are, they must learn and understand where they come from. This is just one example.

The culmination in learning about the Dakota 38+2 was to be a part of the send off ceremony for the riders who departed from Lower Brule, South Dakota on December 10. Taking full advantage of the opportunity, we made this day a class field trip for the seventh and eighth graders.

Several adults accompanied 38 students for this great day.  We were honored to be a part of smudging, singing, honoring, listening, praying and building.

Our Lakota students built relationships with one another.  They built relationships with other communities, people, youth, Lakota leaders, other adults and the horse culture.

We were honored to be in the presence of Arvol Looking Horse, the 19th generation pipe carrier of our sacred cannunpa – pipe – blessed with prayer while a female elder and several male singers sang prayer and horse songs for the ceremony.

We had four young men from St. Joseph’s take advantage of running a few miles with other representatives from Lower Brule and Crow Creek to serve as runners for freedom.  Next year, we hope to have many of our students and staff help send our Dakota 38+2 horse riders off by running with the pack.

As staff, we hope this day will live in the memories and lives of these kids for years to come.  In the meantime, we will do our part to honor who we are and where we are going in mind, body, heart and spirit.

Learn more about the Dakota 38 by watching the trailer for the documentary on YouTube.

Visions of sugarplums?

Dear Benefactors,

I’m not sure if ‘visions of sugarplums danced in their heads,’ but the eyes of our Lakota students were wide and happy last weekend as they came to the Christmas Store to pick out gifts for their family members at home.

St. Joseph’s Christmas store allows the Lakota children to share a gift with their families.
Shakia found stuffed animals for her younger siblings!

Each year, St. Joseph’s receives items that can’t be used on campus for one reason or another, or we have enough to go around – things like baby clothing, stuffed animals, knick-knacks or blankets. These items can be ‘purchased’ by the students during our Christmas Store.

With guidance from an older student or staff member, they find their treasures and volunteers help wrap. Students have their pictures taken with Santa and there are goodies for everyone. It’s a wonderful day!

We are so grateful for your generosity in providing gently used gift items! Your kindness allows us to teach our students to be kind and generous to others. The children are so thrilled to be able to share a gift, and that is a lesson that truly lasts a lifetime. We wish you could have seen the joy! Read more about the Christmas Store.

As Christmas draws closer and preparations for presents and parties are made, we also remember the reason we celebrate – the birth of Jesus. St. Joseph’s pastoral staff is offering an Advent Reconciliation Prayer Service to give our students the opportunity for the Sacrament of Confession or – for those who are not Catholic – to have the chance to talk about their relationship with God if they wish.

We try to remind our students that Advent is a time of preparation – not just making plans for Christmas but also getting ourselves ready inside so that there will be room for the Christ child in our hearts.

On the sports front, we had the end of the girls’ basketball season as the 7th and 8th grade girls’ teams journeyed to Miller, South Dakota last night. The 7th graders won in overtime and the 8th graders fell by 4.

Wrapping presents and Christmas treats finish out the day!
Older students and staff volunteers helped the Lakota children wrapped their gifts.

High school basketball has started and there are 14 St. Joseph’s boys on the Chamberlain High School basketball team this year! Last week, they held a Red & White scrimmage at St. Joseph’s gym for everyone to come and watch.

The coach is very excited about the commitment of St. Joseph’s players. He spoke to our younger Native American students, urging them to focus on their studies and basketball skills so they too might be part of the team someday. The high school basketball season kicks off tonight with a trip to Gregory, South Dakota – Go Cubs!

This past Sunday was also the end of the boys’ inter-city basketball league. Inter-city is a mixture of players from St. Joseph’s and the local Chamberlain area.  The championship game was a nail biter! It came down to the final seconds with the victors winning only by one point. There will be an inter-city season for the girls after Christmas break.

Weather permitting, I hope to be able to head to Texas to visit my mother for Christmas, so this may be my last blog for a week or so. I want to take this opportunity to extend best wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a blessed, healthy and Happy New Year to you and yours from all the students and staff at St. Joseph’s Indian School! May the Great Spirit reward and bless you all for your generosity!

Sincerely,

Fr. Anthony Kluckman, SCJ

Chaplain

Cold weather has arrived!

What a difference a week makes! You may recall how I was saying it was still nice weather-wise here at St. Joseph’s. However, the bottom fell out this past week.

Fr. Anthony and the Lakota children.
Fr. Anthony spends time with St. Joseph’s students.

We got over 5 inches of snow and the temperature went down, down, down…

The Daily Republic, a daily newspaper in Mitchell, South Dakota (about 70 miles from Chamberlain), leads off the news the other day with an article on how the area has set low temperatures that broke a 105-year-old record.

Chamberlain was even mentioned on the radio when we hit 14 degrees below zero. The cold has had an effect on some of our water lines and has brought about a drip in the rec center ceiling.  Our Lakota students do not seem to mind, however, and love to be out sledding as long as they can.

A big thank you goes out to our maintenance crew on campus! They are quick to clear paths so our students can get to school and staff can get to work when we have snow.

We moved our regular Sunday Mass to Saturday evening so the Dancing Dolls & Dudes had Sunday morning to get ready for their recital in the early afternoon.  There was a great turnout for the dance presentations, which includes kids from the Chamberlain and surrounding communities; dancers as young as 3 and 4 year olds up through sixth graders took part.

When I drove up to the National Guard Armory, where the performance was held, I felt like St. Joseph’s Indian School was a visiting basketball team. So many of our Native American students were participating and watching, we had our large yellow bus and one or two of our smaller buses parked in from of the Armory!

Seems hard to believe, but our girls’ basketball season is drawing to a close.  Our last home games for our younger grades are this week.  Last Saturday, the 8th grade girls hosted their annual basketball tournament.  The snow prevented some of the teams from coming, but the rec center hosted a round robin tournament and we came in third.

Hope you all have a great week and that you are able to take advantage of the Advent Season and prepare the way of the Lord.

Fr. Anthony Kluckman, SCJ

Chaplain

Where we going?

Where we going?

This is an interesting question that can be answered in many different ways.  On this particular

The Lakota children decorated a Christmas tree at the South Dakota Hall of Fame.
Jacob and his classmates helped make small drums and drumsticks to use as decorations for the Christmas tree.

day at St. Joseph’s Indian School, the answer was to decorate a Christmas tree at the South Dakota Hall of Fame.  This is about 4 miles from campus, right along Interstate 90.

South Dakota leaders and luminaries are honored here – it is a great stopping point along I-90.  Each year, the Hall of Fame invites community leaders and organizations to decorate Christmas trees in the Hall of Fame.  St. Joseph’s was one of the first organizations to arrive and picked a choice spot to put up our tree.

We took six of our younger Lakota students from Student Leadership Committee to help.  They were all excited and couldn’t wait to help. The first challenge was matching all limbs to the right spot on the trunk of the artificial tree. We had to make sure to spread out the branches to make the tree look full and big.  The students did a great job of keeping the branches separate and sticking them in the right holes.  The tree looked full and big by the time we fluffed all the branches out!

Then, up went the lights! I helped string the lights from the top of the tree to the bottom with two of the girls guiding me around the tree and ensuring I had enough lights to make it the tree look bright.  Once we finished putting the lights up we plugged them in to make sure they worked.

To our surprise, the lights twinkled and blinked.  We didn’t remember the lights flashing last year… but hey, what a bonus!  The students thought it was neat; they oohed and aahed, mesmerized by the lights.

After the lights were checked and the students refocused, they started to hang small hand drums up and down the tree.  The drums have St. Joseph’s logo on them and the students help make them.  Then we pulled out small dreamcatchers, a few wooden flutes and drumsticks for the students to hang.  The last ornaments to go up were homemade snowflakes with pictures of the students in the middle.  The final touch was small wooden teepee to top of the tree.  After a few alterations, the tree was finished and looked great!

The students helped clean up the mess and put the tree in place.  We loaded in the mini bus once again and headed back to campus.  The students were in a great mood and sang a few bars of Jingle Bells on the way, only they changed the verse to “Jingle Bells, Frank smells…” 

We had a good laugh over their version of a classic Christmas song.

All the fun aside, where are we going? can be a very hard question to answer.

But on this day, we were blessed to be able to tell the students, “we are going to spread the Christmas spirit and share our school with the rest of the community.”

St. Joseph’s tree at the South Dakota Hall of Fame was decorated by younger Lakota students.
St. Joseph’s younger students helped decorate the Christmas tree at the South Dakota Hall of Fame.

On this day, we were blessed to give the students a firsthand lesson about citizenship, generosity and belonging.   On this day, we were blessed to teach a lesson about life. On this day we were blessed to help our Native American students learn a little bit more about where they are going and who they will become.  Life lessons and teachable moments happen every day, and we are blessed to put them to good use!

Here is hoping you all have a great Christmas season full of family and blessings.

Merry Christmas!

Frank W.

6-8 Residential Coordinator

 

Another wonderful week in the neighborhood

It has been another wonderful week in the neighborhood – the weather has been great!

The campus was very quiet this weekend since the Lakota students and St. Joseph’s staff were on Thanksgiving break.  I helped chaperone the bus that took the students to their homes in Eagle Butte and Pierre, South Dakota.  It was good to meet some of the students’ families and everyone seemed very upbeat to be home for the holiday.

St. James Parish and Fr. Guy Blair, SCJ, hosted their second annual Thanksgiving meal open to anyone in the community.  It was an outstanding success and served over 400 people. They had over a 150 takeout orders for people unable to leave their homes.  It was nice to see that a wide variety of locals join together to help others.

Friday after Thanksgiving kicked off the Christmas season with the annual Parade of Lights in downtown Chamberlain.  Some very bright and inventive floats brought out a lot of oohs and aahs from spectators who braved the chilly evening.

St. Joseph’s Indian School was blessed with the presence of a bald eagle that sat high in a tree along the banks of the Missouri River.  It was a majestic sight.  Deer hunting season opened recently in our area, which may explain why I’ve seen seven deer on three separate occasions within the last 10 days or so.  They seem to know there will not be any shooting on campus.

This coming weekend will be the Dancing Dolls & Dudes program.  St. Joseph’s students have been involved in this over the last few years.  It will definitely be one of those Kodak moments!

Hope you have a great week and that God’s blessings will be with you throughout the new month as we prepare for the birth of the Prince of Peace.

Fr. Anthony Kluckman, SCJ

Chaplain

Learning? No, that was just fun.

We Serve and Teach.  We Receive and Learn.  This is our motto at St. Joseph’s Indian School.   Here we are dedicated to lifelong learning and nurturing the whole child.  That is why teaching and learning expands well beyond the classroom.

Problem solving and teamwork are a few of the many lessons youth learn at St. Joseph’s Indian School.
The Native American children at St. Joseph’s learn life skills, like teamwork and problem solving.

Today is Wednesday night, so typically that would be an Enrichment night, except that our Lakota students have gone home for Thanksgiving break.  Every Wednesday night, St. Joseph’s homes have activities to round out student learning.

The skills students learn can be intangible—like  building healthy relationships and dealing with peer pressure— or more concrete tasks—managing money or  addressing envelopes.  The activities are age-appropriate.  High school students have Sons and Daughters of Tradition, a culturally based group with a talking circle and visiting Lakota (Sioux) elders.  The younger homes have workbooks chock full of lessons and activities.

I love doing activities with the kids.  One week we talked about hygiene: why we work so much at keeping homes and bodies clean, and some of the issues that come up with poor hygiene practices.  For example, sharing eyeliner can cause an outbreak of pinkeye. L

Another week we talked about the difference between being assertive and aggressive.  The lessons tied together pretty well – if you have to approach a peer about a hygiene issue, how can you do that it in an assertive, non-shaming way. “Umm, would you like a breath mint? Or perhaps some perfume?”

Honestly though, the Masters of Enrichment are our Rec center staff.  It is one thing to talk to kids about cooperation.  The students can brainstorm lists and fill out worksheets in the home, but when it comes to actually practicing the skill, no one makes it more fun than Brian, Andy and Shoney.

I remember one particularly rough week with the 6-8th grade girls.  We had done some worksheets on friendships and qualities we look for in a friend.  This didn’t stop them from bickering and foot-dragging when it came time to help a peer with a kitchen task.  “It’s not myyy joooooobbbbb!”

After our designated hour of class time in the home, we had a special hour of learning at the Rec center. Shoney and Andy took them outside for some friendly competition.  They were given the task of standing shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, and walking about 10 yards while keeping their foot touching their neighbor’s. It was the Stevens girls versus the Pinger girls in a race against time.  They shouted encouragement.  They strategized.  They coaxed.  They urged.  They kept it together.

The next task was to fit all 12 girls into the circumference of a hula-hoop without touching the ground outside the hoop.  Suddenly their differences became assets, and their ability to get close to each other became critical.   The tallest girl stood in the middle and the smaller girls hung off her like a maypole.  The others squeezed and tugged and balanced on one foot to make it work.  In less than 20 seconds, they accomplished what an hour of “talking” about friendship failed to do.  The girls pulled together.  They didn’t leave anybody out of the circle.

At prayers that night, the girls shared that they liked doing the activity.  Did they realize it was all about learning?  No.  I think it was more like putting cheese sauce on broccoli.  All they knew was that they liked it, and that they would try it again if it were offered again.  Works for me.

Last night we cleaned the homes as the kids prepare to go home for break. Laundry! Dusting! Cleaning out the fridge!  Not as exciting as relay races, but important things to learn nonetheless.

We have so much to be thankful for in the upcoming days.  We’re looking forward to a nice break and visits with family and friends.  I hope that all the friends of St. Joseph’s also have an enjoyable Thanksgiving.  Wopila tanka – many thanks!  Claire