St. Joseph's Indian School

April showers (will hopefully) bring May flowers to St. Joseph’s Indian School!

Fr. Anthony, St. Joseph's Chaplain — Fr. Anthony, St. Joseph’s Chaplain

Greetings from a water-logged South Dakota.

If it is true that April showers bring May flowers, we’ll soon have flowers all over the place—it has been very wet and rainy the last few days.

Our annual Sobriety Walk took place last Friday. The Sobriety Walk has our students break up into four groups who then leave campus following a flag of one of the directional colors—yellow, red, white and black. As they cross the bridge at American Creek, each group goes a different route that encircles downtown. They return to campus together, walking down Main Street. Upon their return, they went for a special meal in the Dining Hall.

During the march, our students and staff all wore blue t-shirts with the phrase “St. Joseph’s Indian School Stomps Out Drugs”.

This past Wednesday, our students participated in the annual St. Joseph’s Spring Concert/Talent Show. There were 28 acts including vocal groups, piano, guitar, flute, snare, trumpet and clarinet. St. Joseph’s music teacher, Tanya, and art teacher, Dave, were the masterminds behind the show. Most performance selections were from Wizard of Oz, Walt Disney, Fiddler on the Roof and well-known tunes such at The Rose, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Yankee Doodle and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Continue reading “April showers (will hopefully) bring May flowers to St. Joseph’s Indian School!”

Lions and tigers and bears (and dresses), oh my!

Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School!

This past weekend, the National Honor Society and the Explorers Club hosted a dance for 6th, 7th and 8th graders in the Rec Center. Robin, St. Joseph’s National Honor Society advisor, stated it was an “awesome” event.

There were about 80 young people split between St. Joseph’s students and students from the Chamberlain-Oacoma area. The price of admission was either three cans of food or $3.00. Both were donated to the Food Pantry at St. James’ Catholic Church here in Chamberlain. The festivities lasted for two and a half hours. Everyone had a great time dancing, socializing and supporting a good cause by gathering supplies for the food pantry.

Continue reading “Lions and tigers and bears (and dresses), oh my!”

Staying busy and having fun at St. Joseph’s Indian School!

Good day from St. Joseph’s Indian School.

The weather has been great recently. The temperature has been moving up, but blowing winds have also added a touch of coolness. St. Joseph’s students are appreciative of the nice weather—it gives them a chance to get outside and participate in fun activities.

The Rec Center staff has been hard at work scheduling and organizing different programs for the students to get involved in.

There are softball games for fourth and fifth graders in the afternoon and games for the 6th, 7th and 8th graders in the early evening. It sure is a fun experience being able to play under the lights! The younger Homes also have T-ball right after school lets out for the day.

Youth football is active two days a week, which enables our students to interact with youngsters from the Chamberlain area.

Recently there was also a gymnastics camp held at Chamberlain High School that gave our young ladies the chance to work with the gymnastics team and coaches that came in second in the Class “A” State competition this year. Continue reading “Staying busy and having fun at St. Joseph’s Indian School!”

St. Joseph’s students participate in clubs and camps!

Good day from St. Joseph’s Indian School!

This has been an interesting few days weather-wise. You’ve heard the statement ‘March comes in like a lion or a lamb and goes out the opposite.’ The addition of a leap year day kept that truth in place here at St. Joseph’s, since that was the day (not the 1st of March) that got the bad snow storm. The month ended on a wet and windy day which set the tone for more snow on April 1st, and that’s not a joke. One benefit is that the grass is turning green nicely.

The big event of this past weekend was the reception of Sacraments for 24 of our students at Our Lady of the Sioux Chapel – four made their 1st Communion, 16 were Baptized and two made a Profession of Faith. 18 of these students also received the Sacrament of Confirmation.

We were honored to have family and friends join the St. Joseph’s community in witnessing the reception of the Sacraments. As always, several of St. Joseph’s Houseparents, teachers and Family Service Counselors served as godparents or sponsors for the students.

Continue reading “St. Joseph’s students participate in clubs and camps!”

I’m part of this!

Mike, St. Joseph's President — Mike, St. Joseph’s President

Good afternoon from St. Joseph’s Indian School!

Three things in my life came together recently and gave me pause to thank God and say, “I’m part of this!”

A few weekends back, I attended a wedding of an old friend and ran into several others that I literally had not seen in over 30 years. After exchanging pleasantries about life and family, the topic of careers and work came up. In my case, the answer was “Yes, I still work at St. Joseph’s Indian School in South Dakota!” Soon after came questions about my job and a curiosity as to why I have stayed here for so long.

Continue reading “I’m part of this!”

Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School!

I hope everyone had a blessed and Happy Easter. Our students and staff arrived on campus Monday morning rested, refreshed and ready to go for the remainder of the school year. Thankfully, our students were all able to return to campus before the snow began falling.

This week is very special for a number of our students as they are in the homestretch of their preparation for reception of Sacraments (Baptism, 1st Communion and Confirmation). The students prepared by completing our Rite of Christian Initiation for Children (RCIC) Class.

We’ll have a number of students receiving all three Sacraments! Continue reading “Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School!”

St. Joseph’s Participates in Lakota Language Challenges!

Hello! My name is LaRayne. I teach Native American Studies alongside my co-teacher, Allen.

I want to take a minute to tell you all about our recent language challenges!

We had two Lakota/Dakota language challenges during the month of February. They were both fun, rewarding and confidence-building for all the students involved.

We had rendezvous challenges with the reservation school that borders our community, Crow Creek Elementary. We traveled there once, and they visited us once. Teachers from each school worked together to prepare the students in specific areas of food, family, days of the week, seasons, numbers, colors, school terms, animals and stages of life.

Each school came up with two questions from each category and the students went to work studying.

Lakota Language Challenge.jpg Both challenge meetings came down to the wire, and we had to use a tie-breaker question at the end to decide the winner. It was a split on wins. We won at home, and they also won on their own turf!

Continue reading “St. Joseph’s Participates in Lakota Language Challenges!”

Good day from a snowy South Dakota!

Good day from a snowy South Dakota.

Although we wanted rain more than snow, we’ve had two days of snow this week that has come down looking like it is going to bury everything, but then it lets up and melts quickly. The grass seems to like it as it is starting to turn green in spots. Hope you’ll have wonderful weather for all the new Easter outfits.

You may recall that I recently mentioned the Chamberlain Cubs had qualified for the State ‘A’ Basketball tournament in Rapid City, SD. They won their first game in a bit of an upset against Sioux Valley. St. Joseph’s own, Davis, went wild again scoring 20 points, grabbing a number of rebounds and making steals all over the court. Their next game was against the #1 seed, Sioux Valley Christian, which had several players over 6’4’’. It was a hard-fought battle, but their height eventually stymied the Cubs. The third game saw Chamberlain in the lead until the last few moments, when opposing Dakota Valley got hot. The Cubs were hurt by poor free throw shooting, only making 5 out of 14 attempts, and came up short when Davis’ three point try, as the horn sounded, rimmed in and came out.

They ended the tournament with a fourth place finish—we are very proud of them!

Another bright note was the fact that the Cubs’ cheerleaders won the Spirit of 6 Award! The award is given yearly in memory of the Rapid City Central Cobblers’ cheerleaders who were killed in an airplane crash coming back to Rapid City from the State ‘A’ tournament in Sioux Falls in March of 1968. To honor their memory, the South Dakota Peace Officers’ Association has been giving out the award to the best cheerleading squad at the ‘AA’, ‘A’ and ‘B’ tournaments since 1970. The award is given on the basis of those who exhibit best crowd control, best dress, sportsmanship and enthusiasm.

St. Joseph’s is proud to have two students–Irene and Danielle on the squad. Congratulations to the cheerleaders.

Continue reading “Good day from a snowy South Dakota!”

It’s A Wonderful Week at St. Joseph’s Indian School

Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School!
The weather here has just been tremendous! We were in the high 60s and low 70s recently. The kids think it is great that they can get out and be active and not stuck inside due to several inches of snow and cold weather. We do need moisture, but would like it as rain. The students are getting ready to head out for their Spring/Easter Break and have already signed up for softball and track and field when they get back, which is another reason we hope the snow will not return!
I may have mentioned that the Chamberlain High School Boys’s Basketball team has qualified for the State ‘A’ Basketball Tournament being held in Rapid City this year! Two St. Joseph’s students are on the varsity team—Danny and Davis, who played the game of his life in the Region Championship game a week ago. Davis was the game-high scorer with 18 points, made great defensive plays and steals, had a number of assists and rebounds and held Cheyenne Eagle Butte’s top scorer, with a 26 point per game average, to only 10 points.
The team had a pep rally at school yesterday morning and left shortly after for Rapid City. They play their first game today! Classes at the high school have been canceled for the next two days so people can go out to support the Chamberlain Cubs. Their first game is set for around 1:15 PM on Thursday, so any spare prayers will be greatly appreciated.

Additionally, two more St. Joseph’s students—Irene and Danielle – are varsity cheerleaders and will be there to guide the student body in cheers of support. Go Big Red!
This past Tuesday we had the award ceremony for the winter sports, including boys basketball and cheerleading. Those taking part in encouraging the teams here at St. Joseph’s did very well and showed real talent. We hope they’ll continue their interest as they move into their high school years (following the example of several fantastic St. Joseph’s girls on the varsity and junior varsity cheerleading squads).

Continue reading “It’s A Wonderful Week at St. Joseph’s Indian School”

Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School!

A few weekends ago, St. Joseph’s principal, Kathleen, and I took St. Joseph’s spelling bee contestants to the annual Corn Palace Regional Spelling Bee on the campus of Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota. The spelling bee had two divisions—Local and Regional. St. Joseph’s was represented by multiple spellers in the Local division and three in the Regional.

Our students came through in a big way. Savannah captured 1^st place among all 7^th graders by spelling ‘pharmacy’ correctly and Charlie won 3^rd place among all of the 6^thgraders. All in all, St. Joseph’s students came home with three 5^th places, one 4^th place, one 3^rd place and one 1^st place! We are very proud of them and their efforts.

Leap Year Day saw the bottom fall out of our beautiful weather. What was supposed to be only an inch or two of snow turned into nearly 5 inches! The snow unfortunately caused our last home basketball game to be postponed, but the game was able to be made up the following week. Continue reading “Greetings from St. Joseph’s Indian School!”