St. Joseph's Indian School

Today’s guest blogger: Jean

Hello! My name is Jean and I am the Residential Coordinator for the 4^th & 5^th grade homes. I came to St. Joseph’s Indian School planning to volunteer for a year or two, but the children and staff proved to be too great of a lure and 31 years later, I’m still here!

There have been many changes over the years, one of which was the addition of the Summer Break Home, which is offered to our students who will be in the second through eighth grades next school year. Part of my job is to help supervise this break home. We have 11 students with us this summer. Unlike most years, all of the students this summer are from the younger grades. They are excited to do almost anything we can come up with! These students are here for a variety of reasons, ranging from an educational need to the desire to continue to be in a setting where they are comfortable and secure.

The kids in the St. Joseph’s Indian School’s summer homes are having a great summer!

The students start off the day with Summer School from 8:30 until 11:30. This is staffed by our Title 1 teachers and they are able to work with the students in small groups on academic needs or on reinforcing the learning that took place during the school year. They went on a field trip last week to the Lewis and Clark rest area in Chamberlain, South Dakota – right on Interstate 90. This is a great place to check out if you are in the area. The students could walk outside from the mezzanine level into a replica of the keelboat or longboat, in which Lewis and Clark traveled up the Missouri River as they demonstrated the possibility of overland travel to the Pacific Coast. The students and teachers also enjoyed a hike in the hills behind the rest area.

On school days, lunch is served in the Dining Hall. The students enjoy visiting with their friends who are attending the Rising Eagle Day Camp, who also eat lunch there. A lot of our other students from the Lower Brule Indian Reservation and Crow Creek Indian Reservation, who went home for the summer, come back for the camp.

Our Native American youngsters love roasting marshmallows! — Our Lakota (Sioux) youngsters love roasting marshmallows!

The afternoons, evening and weekends are filled with outside activities. The students enjoy swimming at the Chamberlain pool (which boasts diving boards and slides), playing in the park, hikes, cooking outside and some trips out-of-town. The students have already enjoyed a trip to the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls and a trip to the Mitchell Aquatic Center with their houseparents. Some friends of St. Joseph’s recently gifted the students with a number of summer activity items ranging from bug spray and sunscreen to giant marshmallows and squirt guns. Talk about a fun time!

The staff for the break home consists of houseparents who may work with a different age group during the school year. Lisa, who normally works with sixth through eighth grade girls, said today that she has a whole new respect for those who work with the younger students! I think we have set a new record for using band-aids this summer. Between bike riding and skateboarding, we have gone through a lot of them. When I saw the students at lunch yesterday, they were proudly showing off their scrapes and battle scars!

Thank you all for your prayers and support. The students remember you daily in their prayers, also!

Today’s guest blogger: Melissa

Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School! My name is Melissa and I’ve worked in the Human Resources Department for the past 13 years.

Although it is summer, campus is buzzing. During this time of year, we add quite a few seasonal staff to work as counselors at our summer camp, help out in the museum and assist taking care of our grounds. This is also the time of year we recruit for any teachers, houseparents and family service counselors that may not be returning. Luckily, the majority of our staff is coming back, and we have very few holes to fill. This is beneficial to our students because relationship building with their houseparents, teachers and counselors is very important.

Other responsibilities that I have, besides recruiting, are working with insurance benefits and employee recognition. This makes every day different and new. For example, in the summer we make root beer floats for our maintenance staff. Summer s tend to get hot in South Dakota and our maintenance staff put in a lot of time modeling the campus homes for our students. It’s always rewarding to do something that will brighten a person’s day.

I feel very fortunate to work in the human resources department at St. Joseph’s Indian School. It is always a blessing when the people you work with are more like family than co-workers.

If you are interested in employment at St. Joseph’s Indian School, let me know…I can be reached by phone at 800.568.4434 or e-mail hrdept@stjo.org.

Have a good week ! 🙂

Today’s guest blogger: Mary Jane

Good morning! My name is Mary Jane, I am Outreach/PQI Director at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

The bookmobile just returned to St. Joseph’s Indian School’s campus Thursday evening. We traveled to 14 Indian Reservation communities up north. During that time, we visited with roughly 120 children and gave out 360 books! (Each of the children selected one new and two used books for themselves.)

During the trip I had the privilege of visiting with several former students. One of the women, Esther from Kenel, graduated at St. Joseph’s Indian School in 1939. She had gone to school here for 4 years.

As she describes her time here,

St. Joe’s was my home for 4 years, the best years of my life. That’s where I learned to cook. I got to work in the kitchen all four of my years there. It was the best, I was able to try everything we made before the other kids. I wanted to stay on and work there but I wasn’t old enough. So I went to Marty for several years.

Esther said she is 91 years young. She has many, many of her grand and great-grand children living with her in her home in Kenel. We look forward to our return visit there to chat with Esther some more.

Our bookmobile heads to Lower Brule Indian Reservation this afternoon. On Monday we head south to the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Reservations.

Today’s guest blogger: Steve

Hello everyone. I am Steve the High School Tutor/Adviser at St. Joseph’s Indian School and like Scott, I’m a first time blogger!

During the first three weeks of June, I am usually working with our Freshman Orientation Program, that Jenny told you about earlier this week. This year however, I was selected to be the chaperone for the student exchange program with our sister school in Germany, Gymnasium Leoninum Handrup. This school is also administered by the Priests of the Sacred Heart and has over twelve hundred students in grades five through twelve.

Two of our students, D’Kera and Trinity, along with my wife Jan (who retired last year after teaching at St. Joseph’s Indian School for twenty years) and I left Sioux Falls, South Dakota on May 26^th on a sixteen hour trip to Northern Germany. We barely made our connection in Chicago, and unfortunately our luggage did not! It arrived the next day, but too late to supply the girls with any warm clothes for our visit to an amusement park in the Netherlands on a cool and sometimes rainy day. Interestingly, the theme of the park was the American Wild West. The girls noted that they did not have the Native American culture exactly right, it was more like a Hollywood version. Everyone managed to have fun despite the weather, although some of us older visitors skipped several of the wilder rides.

D’Kera, Trinity, Steve and his wife had a great time in Germany! — Steve and the others from St. Joseph’s Indian School had a great time!

Our time in Germany was a mixture of classroom presentations, sightseeing excursions and time spent visiting with teachers and students. D’Kera and Trinity stayed with the families of Anna and Kerstin, and Jan and I stayed at the Monastery which is attached to the school. Our hosts generally spoke English very well, which was a blessing because despite the best of intentions, our German was pretty primitive.

We spent time in the cities of Bremen, Osnabruck, Muenster, Cloppenburg, Pappenburg, Hamburg, Lingen and Berlin. We took a trip to the North Sea, had a tour of the Meyer –Werf shipbuilding facility where they make Cruise Line behemoths that are too large to fit in the Panama Canal and saw remnants of the Berlin Wall as well as Checkpoint Charlie. We toured three Castles and saw several old churches and Cathedrals, celebrating Mass (in German) on Ascension Thursday in the Cathedral of Osnabruck which is over one thousand years old. We attended Anna’s confirmation Mass in Furstenau also in German, of course.

The sights, the sounds and the food were wonderful, but were not as impressive as the generosity and warmth shown to us by the students, teachers, priests and families. Because of this, we got to experience the German culture in a way that is not possible for the average visitor to Germany. We are very grateful to all of our hosts and are looking forward to returning their kindness when Anna and Kerstin visit our school in October along with their chaperone.

We just arrived back at St. Joseph’s late Tuesday evening and are gradually adjusting to time change.

On the road with Fr. Steve

I hope the many guest bloggers we’ve been featuring are helping you gain a fuller view of what is going on around campus this summer. I started a long road trip this past week for meetings and donor luncheons, and now will continue time away for vacation, retreat and SCJ community meetings.

Last week many of our staff and Board of Directors participated in a two-day strategic planning retreat. It’s been four years since our last plan. One reason for St. Josephs’ Indian School’s quality programming is that we regularly take a look at ourselves and see where we need to improve and grow. We have much more work to do over the coming months, but began brainstorming in four areas – student achievement, staff development, financial viability and collaboration with key partners, like students’ families and tribes.

What I appreciate most about these efforts is that as director, I can enlist the energy, ideas and passion of others, so that it’s not my plan, but our plan of where we can go in the future.

I drove to Chicago and Oakbrook, Illinois, where we had two lively and well attended donor appreciation luncheons. When part of a crowd, I find myself wishing for more time with each individual, because we have so many caring people who are part of our tiyospaye – extended family.

One woman showed me a prayer card from St. Joseph’s Indian School in 1954, when she was 12 years old – 57 years ago!

When I pointed that out to the rest of the group, another woman told us that she remembers her family starting out in the 1940’s by sending clothes for our Native American children. We also had new friends, who asked good questions and our excited to participate in our efforts.

One long time friend Ray, got tickets for our St. Joseph’s Indian School’s crew to attend a White Sox game. Other fun activities for our two high school students, Nick and Shawn, included the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier, lots of good food, and walking around the Chicago Loop to see the astounding variety of people, buildings and activities.

My SCJ community has a house of studies in Chicago, and I stayed on for a meeting of our vocation and formation meeting. People often talk about the shortage of vocations and the need for more vocations. Brother Duane reflected that the real key is not more, but good quality vocations, and for each member of the Congregation to strive to live our charism of helping others know of God’s love to our fullest ability. One entertaining part of the meeting was to look at various videos found on YouTube that “advertise” religious life. I pray that my work and life do attract others to join us.

On Monday night I came home to Indiana, for time with mom and dad, and my own tiyospaye – extended family. I love the work at St. Joseph’s Indian School, and know that time away for rest, recreation and family relationships will help me carry on that important work when I return with more patience, insight and enthusiasm.

I’ll periodically check in on the blog while on the road. In the meantime, enjoy all the updates from a good variety of staff who make St. Joseph’s Indian School all that it is.

Today’s guest blogger: Dixie

Dixie, the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center Director at St. Joseph's Indian School.

Hello, my name is Dixie. I am the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center Director here at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

Are you planning your summer vacation? Take in one of South Dakota’s best kept secrets and visit the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center . . . more than just a traditional museum, the Akta Lakota Museum provides visitors with a living lesson on the Native American way of life – both past and present.

Each year, over 25,000 guests take time to visit the our on-site museum! In addition to folks from countries throughout the world, every state in the union has been represented by visitors to the museum. You don’t want to miss this unique opportunity to view one of the most fascinating highlights of the Chamberlain area!

With over 14,000 square feet of display space, a culturally aware layout, color-coded time lines and a gift shop boasting Native American-made items, there is truly something for everyone at the Akta Lakota Museum!

From the minute you arrive on St. Joseph’s Indian School’s beautiful campus, you know you are in for a treat. So, whether you’re out with the family, in town with a large group or passing through by yourself, you won’t want to pass up an opportunity to visit. Hop to see you here! Check out our website for driving directions to the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center!

The Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center is located on the campus of St. Joseph’s Indian School, 1301 North Main Street, in Chamberlain, South Dakota. The museum’s current hours are 8-6 Monday – Saturday and 9-5 Sunday. For more information call 800-798-3452 or visit www.aktalakota.org.

Today’s guest blogger: Jenny

Hello everyone, Jenny here. I am the High School Residential Coordinator here at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

The High School Summer Program has been busy! We had 25 kids join us on May 30^th for our many summer activities. Ten freshmen students are taking part in a three-week orientation program. During this program, they attend classes at Chamberlain High School (CHS) in the morning. These classes allow them to get comfortable with the layout of the school and get to know some of the teachers as well as become familiar with the expectations at CHS. Once classes are over, the students return to campus for lunch and then head to the Rec Center to burn off some energy. In the afternoon the freshmen attend ‘Expanding the Circle’ classes taught by several rotating program staff. The ‘Expanding the Circle’ curriculum offers culturally relevant activities that allow Native American youth to explore who they are, what skills they need, and what their options are for life after high school. Along with all of this, the freshmen take part in three college visits as we start preparing them for the future.

In addition to the freshmen we have 11 students here for driver’s education classes. This class is typically offered through the public school, but was discontinued in recent budget cuts. In response to this St. Joseph’s Indian School offered to host this class on campus. Some of the kids were nervous to get behind the wheel and some were very excited!

We have two high school girls and two high school boys assisting with the Rising Eagle Day Camp, they have said that they enjoy working with the kids who are attending camp, but they are tired at the end of the day! Two boys are working with maintenance, gaining skills and helping out. One student is working as an intern in the Development Office, she has stated that she really enjoys her work and has been keeping busy. A student who is interested in culinary arts has been helping at the dining hall to get an inside look. Another student is working at the Thrift Store part-time and at the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center part-time. He said recently that he enjoys talking with the visitors and donors. All of our students have gotten great reviews from their supervisors; what a great sense of accomplishment for everyone involved!

Needless to say, our houseparenting staff have been keeping busy as they keep track of everyone’s work schedules, activities and recreation. It takes a dedicated set of people to keep the homes running smoothly when everyone’s going in different directions!

Today’s guest blogger: Scott

Hello everyone from Scott, Family Services Counselor at St. Joseph’s Indian School for 18 years and first-time blogger. I provide counseling services and am a primary family contact during the school year for 6^th-12^th grade boys. Once the school year ends however, I change hats and become part of the admissions department and get to travel the state to visit with families I work with during the school year.

I enjoy the change of pace during this time of year. It keeps the job interesting. After 18 years, the relationships with kids and their families make me look forward to each year here.

Last week, I traveled to Yankton, South Dakota to interview a family of four kids between grades second and seventh. They are being raised by their grandmother. I always enjoy meeting new kids and families at interviews. It doesn’t take long to become attached and have hope for the kids to come to school here. This family will wait for our mid-July admissions meetings to find out if the kids have been accepted.

Tomorrow I will travel to the Rosebud Indian Reservation to visit five young men and their families. I’ll get to visit most of the towns on the reservation and will take the boys to the Buffalo Jump in downtown Mission. It’s a classy little restaurant/coffee shop and most of the proceeds go back to education on Rosebud’s Indian Reservation.

The next day, a colleague and I will make our annual trip to Lower Brule/Crow Creek reservations to visit our kids and families there. In all, we usually visit about 10-12 kids on this trip. One other nice thing about these trips is that we always run into former students and families on these trips, so it’s always fun to re-connect with friends on the summer trips.

I work with the high school boys and several of them are still on campus, either in driver’s education classes, the high school preparatory program, or working in different jobs on or off campus, so it’s nice to run into them from time to time when I happen to be on campus in the summer.

Today’s guest blogger: Maija

Meet today’s guest blogger, Maija!

Here’s what’s been happening in the high school world at St. Joseph’s Indian School …

The freshmen–Claire, Nate and I–took our annual trip to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, along with one senior, Erin. We visited Red Cloud High School, Oglala Lakota College and attended the powwow at Pine Ridge. The trip is always an adventure, as we drive through some beautiful areas in our state. We watched horses play, saw plenty of deer and elk and watched eagles and hawks fly free.

The visit to Red Cloud is a special treat. The freshmen toured the grounds of the high school, visited the chapel, enjoyed the wonderful art exhibit and hiked up to Red Cloud’s grave site to pay respects to the great Sioux leader. Our tour guide Ron, is very knowledgeable about Lakota (Sioux) culture and history, and readily shares stories and facts with our group. He quizzed our students about Lakota history and culture and although he had them stumped a few times, they did well!

We also stopped for a visit at Oglala Lakota College. They have a “walk-around” museum which covers over 200 years Lakota history. The tour ends with a video about the importance of continuing education for Native American people and encourages young people to find a positive path in life and help others. Our guide Marilyn, shared stories of Oglala Lakota College’s students success’ as well as stories about her children and grandchildren.

The weather for the Pine Ridge Veteran’s Powwow was beautiful, with a warm breeze blowing and plenty of sunshine. We visited some former students and met several relatives of current students. The dancers and drum groups were amazing to watch and hear. Our senior Erin, talked about the regalia her relatives made for her and how she can’t wait for St. Joseph’s Indian School’s powwow. Kyran said he wished he had brought his regalia so he could dance at the powwow. Everyone honored the veterans with a special prayer and dance as well. We would have loved to have stayed for the whole event, but we had to get back to Chamberlain, which was a good thing, as about an hour into our drive, the weather changed, the sky grew dark, and there was a tornado warning!

We made it home without any problems, safe and sound.

Today’s guest blogger: Foster

Hi, I’m Foster, today’s guest blogger and groundskeeper here at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

Besides myself, I have 6 more people helping me with the grounds maintenance (5 are seasonal help). We have had a cool wet spring; bad for me, but great for anything green and growing.

We just finished up planting flowers, trees and re-seeded bare spots in the turf. We are busy keeping up with mowing, trimming, weeding and watering. On rainy days, we are helping with the remodel of the Stevens and Mathias home, tearing out walls and pulling up carpet. I guess you could say we are helping with the destruction, not the construction!

A view from above - St. Joseph's Indian School

I look forward to this time of year since our peonies are just coming into bloom and our linden trees will soon follow. I get lots of inquiries from visitors on our linden trees, their sweet fragrance is noticed all over campus!

The irrigation system for our turf is taking some time in getting it up and running. We didn’t turn it on at all last year, as we had so much rain. We pump water from the river to irrigate our turf. It is quite a feat to place the pump in the river each spring. Due to the high water level of the Missouri River, and the possibility of it going even higher, our pump house could be flooded. What a contradiction, we might not be able to irrigate due to flooding!

In addition to those duties, we are also responsible for street and parking lot maintenance. Crack filling and seal coating of our asphalt areas will be a big job later this summer. I hope those of you reading this will get a chance to stop by our campus and checking us out. Take care and have a great summer!