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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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).
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 1st place among all 7th graders by spelling ‘pharmacy’ correctly and Charlie won 3rd place among all of the 6th graders. All in all, St. Joseph’s students came home with three 5th places, one 4th place, one 3rd place and one 1st 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!”
Good Day from St. Joseph’s Indian School! The mild weather has continued and most of our snow and ice is gone. We know, however, that there is still a lot of winter left which can bring some challenges.
I hope you are having good weather wherever you are at.
Lots of things have been happening here at St. Joseph’s recently! The start of the month saw St. Joseph’s taking part in Catholic School Week activities. The theme this year was Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service.
There was a different activity each day of the week to fulfill the theme.
Valentine’s Day is a wonderful day, but unfortunately, it sometimes causes people to feel lonely and detached from the world. This year, we decided to help St. Joseph’s high school girls “spread some love!”
The girls spent a recent evening practicing the Lakota values of generosity and belonging. Each girl was able to decorate as many cookies as she wanted.
St. Joseph’s recently handed out academic hardware to our high school Homes with the best academic averages and the least amount of missing assignments. The first award went to those who have maintained a 3.0 or higher grade point average for the entire semester. We give a shout out (and a prize!) to Listella, Sarah, Reyna, Hope, Camron, Danielle, Ashley, Martina and Trey for achieving this high standard!
The high school Home with the highest GPA went to the Hogebach home! They also captured the award for least missing assignments, which I’m sure helped them secure the high GPA they are boasting.
Since the seniors are in a new program this year, the two senior homes competed against one another. The Senior Girls Home won with a 2.90 GPA and also captured the least amount of missing assignments. Their efforts also enabled them to win the award for most improved GPA as they went from a C grade up to a B-.
Last week in the school library, we celebrated the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. I started out each class by asking the students what they already knew about MLK. Some of them knew quite a lot, and others (depending on their age) not so much. They were quick to volunteer what they did know: He was shot! He worked to make whites and blacks get along! He had a dream!
I talked to them about what King’s dream was—that his children would not be judged by their skin color, but by their insides… “the content of their character.” Then I asked the students to write down what their dream for the future was: two sentences, please, or one sentence plus a picture for the younger students. I let them know that the dreams would be posted in the library and in the hallway.
Asking kids about their dreams is exciting because you never know what you’re going to get. Some students were confused because they “could never remember their dreams when they woke up.” This led to some discussion about the difference between your dreams at night, and the things that you hope about for the future.
Dreams ran the gamut from immediate (Claire will give me some candy) to long term (I want to go to college, get a job and take care of my family). There were a lot of future NBA/ NFL hopefuls, as well as potential nurses, teachers and doctors. Some students wanted to meet (or beat) their icons, like Stephen Curry and Adele. Others wanted to vote for a Native American presidential candidate. And one kid wanted to go the evil genius route and rule the world. Bwa ha ha.
Many students had dreams of seeing better things in the world, like no war, bullying or ISIS. They would like people to stop fighting and doing drugs. They dreamt of having their Lakota (Sioux) culture and language preserved, and of going to powwows and sewing regalia. One student wished that single moms didn’t have to work so much that they couldn’t spend time with their kids. Another dreamed of having lots of money so they could help out their family.
Some students were quite adamant that they had “no dreams.” I wasn’t quite sure whether they meant that they were in full-on despair, or that their “dream” was to avoid having to write two sentences. Maybe both?
It is risky to talk about dreams, because maybe they won’t come true. Or maybe people will laugh. Or maybe their dreams have been stomped on enough that they aren’t worth having. I don’t know. I just dared them to dream anyway—even if it was just that we would have candy for lunch.
What I do know is this: being at St. Joseph’s helps these students reach for their dreams. They are able to be connected to their culture, get an education and give back to their communities. Maybe playing for the St. Joseph’s Braves or the Chamberlain Cubs is their first step towards playing for the Golden State Warriors, and maybe graduating middle school/high school is their first step towards a teaching degree.
Thank you for supporting our students and staff as we reach for the future.
Hello! My name is LaRayne. I teach Native American Studies alongside my co-teacher, Allen.
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!
Good day from a snowy South Dakota.
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.
