Hello and greetings from Mike and the Pinger Home!
Mike, a St. Joseph’s houseparent
After spending my first 11 years at St. Joseph’s Indian School in the William Home with fourth and fifth graders, I have moved! I am now in the Pinger home with fourth, fifth AND sixth graders. The school year is off to a very fast start – it is truly hard to believe that the first nine weeks end today!
As always, the start of the year brings on many new things. There are new staff, new kids and new memories to make. Powwow is truly one of my favorite days of the year. Watching the kids get prepared and the practice they put in to their dancing leading up to the big day. We were delighted to have both Miss St. Joseph’s and Jr. Miss St. Joseph’s – Shawnna and Diamond – in our home. We’re so proud of them!
Diamond, Jr. Miss St. Joseph’s, and Shawnna, Miss St. Joseph’s, are both in the Pinger Home.
Things can be hectic this time of the year too. We have girls in cross country and volleyball as well as a large number in martial arts. Trying to find a schedule that makes sense can be difficult at times, but the girls can adapt to most anything and we seem to make it work. With volleyball and cross country winding down, it means that basketball season is right around the corner, so I will add coaching and refereeing to my list of things to do.
Next week, we will be time to start our morning walking group. Last year, the girls set the bar pretty high by getting in over 21,000 laps in the rec center gym. That is over 1,000 miles! This group is out to set a new record and raise the bar again. We will keep you updated on our progress.
Thanks for your support and we hope you enjoyed our first blog from the Pinger Home!
Throughout the school year, St. Joseph’s high school students visit various colleges and trade schools as they consider their future. Last week, several or our seniors, juniors and sophomores traveled to the University of South Dakota to learn more about the campus and classes offered there.
On the trip to USD, our students were thrilled to catch up with St. Joseph’s alumni Errol and Wyatt, who graduated in 2014 and now attend the University of South Dakota. It was great to have their insight about the transition from high school to college. Thanks guys!
You may have heard about the recent difficulties at Chicago’s airports. The ripple effect of this disruption in air travel made it all the way to South Dakota. Our team going to the donor luncheon in Chicago this past weekend had their flight cancelled. In an effort to keep our scheduled events, the decision was made to drive to Chicago.
Everything went great!
St. Joseph’s high school students visited USD and met up with alumni Errol and Wyatt.
Justina and Treyah did a great job speaking to our donors. The trip was made extra special by a visit from Fr. Steve Huffstetter, SCJ, past Director of St. Joseph’s and our current Provincial Superior. He joined the team for the Saturday lunch and sightseeing. Fr. Steve grew up near Chicago and was excited to show the team the local sights.
During the donor events we hold in different cities around the U.S., two of our Lakota (Sioux) students share with our benefactors how their generosity touches the lives of the children who attend St. Joseph’s. Our next luncheon will be in San Francisco, California in January. You can register online or call 1-800-584-9200. We’d love to have you join us if you are in the area!
Within the next few days, St. Joseph’s will be hosting exchange students from Germany. In June, we send a couple students to visit Germany and France. In the fall, our European counterparts become our guests and visit St. Joseph’s Indian School. They will attend a few days of classes with our students at Chamberlain High School, do some sightseeing and make a presentation of what life and school are like in Germany.
I hope that everyone has a great week. May God continue to bless and reward you for your generosity.
Hi everyone! My name is Robin and I am the Department Chair for Special Education at St. Joseph’s. I am also the instructor for Fast
Robin, St. Joseph’s Special Ed Teacher
ForWord. I just want to say first and for most I LOVE it here at St. Joseph’s Indian School!
There are so many wonderful opportunities for our students as well as staff. We care for the WHOLE CHILD – mind, body, heart and spirit! I believe that’s really important. We try to give our students the best education possible by introducing new and exciting programs, but also incorporating “tried and true” techniques. Sometimes it feels as though there is not enough time in the day to accomplish all that we would like, but we do our best!
Along with new and exciting ways of learning, there are always tried and true methods used in the classrooms.
One of the things I do is work with the Fast ForWord program. This program works with the cognitive mind by teaching and re-teaching the brain how to think, find information, retain information and recall it. To the students, it’s a computer game. I currently have eight students working with this program. We are looking at a few more students to see if they would benefit as well.
They love it! The boys and girls are motivated and look forward to coming each day. We start earlier than normal Friday mornings (7:30 am) as Fridays are busier than other days. Despite the early hour, they are here right on time!
I have two who have “leveled up” already this semester, after just two and a half weeks – I am
St. Joseph’s gives the Lakota children opportunities to learn in different ways.
so proud! There are a couple of other students who are so, so close. Keep your fingers crossed for them!
I am so proud of this group, as I am of all the students of St. Joseph’s Indian School!
Have said lately how much I LOVE it here? Thank you for your support!
St. Joseph’s seventh and eighth grade football team is working their way through the season and learning a lot!
Last week, they took on the Warriors from a school in Pierre, South Dakota. The team was looking forward to taking on the boys from Pierre and saw some familiar faces. Excited as they were, the opposing team seemed to triple ours in numbers AND size!
The boys played hard throughout the game and had no complaints about being tired or needing a break. We had an early injury, which kept a player out for much of the game. This led the young men to have to play “Iron Man Football” and have no breaks because we had no one left to substitute in.
St. Joseph’s Braves got their first victory of the football season last week!
After the injury, the team’s spirits seemed to falter a little. However, the support of our fans in the St. Joseph’s Indian School crowd helped pep them back up! There were a couple of long drives plays by the Warriors that lead to scores that brought St. Joseph’s down by 14. Our Braves did not stop fighting, however, and came back to score the go ahead points in the middle of the 4th quarter!
All that was left was to stop the Warriors from scoring and run out the clock… However, the Warriors were marching down the field determined to score and take back the lead.
The Warriors had the ball at about the 15 yard line, looking to score, when Harold intercepted a pass to stop their drive! The boys then ran the final minutes off the clock to secure our first victory of the season.
The crowd went wild!
Both of us coaches are extremely proud of how well the boys played. That they did not let up on their efforts on the field in the face of adversity. It is as very good sign of things to come in the future.
Final Score = St. Joseph’s Braves 26 PILC Warriors 20
You can watch some of the game here – St. Joseph’s Braves are wearing the yellow jerseys.
All St. Joseph’s students learn to swim so they can have fun and be safe in the water.
A fall crispness is in the air and the trees continue to decorate themselves – it is a great time of year to live in South Dakota!
In addition to football, volleyball and cross country, St. Joseph’s first graders are learning how to swim so they can fully appreciate our pool. During the harsh South Dakota winter, swimming is one of the main activities for the Lakota students – we want to keep them active when it’s not nice enough to play outside.
It is certainly a lot of fun, but it’s important for them to learn how to swim so they can be safe in the water wherever they are.
The Explorers, a community-focused group of junior high students from the Chamberlain area, gathered recently to elect their officers for this year. Two St. Joseph’s students were elected to office — Ben won the race for Secretary and Joe won the Treasurer position. These young men do a variety of fundraisers to help the community.
They have raised several thousand dollars over the years to aid local citizens who need a helping hand, help with the up-keep of local baseball fields and build the fishing pier at American Creek.
St. Joseph’s junior high boys are part of Explorers. Joe and Ben, on the right side of the front row, are Treasurer and Secretary.
There’s also an educational component to the group. Later in the year, they will make a visit to the State Capital in Pierre to see how our government functions.
As the month of September ends, we would again like to thank all those who came to our powwow. It was an honor to have so many friends visit! The prayer requests made by those who visited Our Lady of the Sioux Chapel have been passed on to our students and we are praying for your intentions.
May God continue to bless you with good health, much happiness and reward you for your generosity toward the Native American students attending St. Joseph’s Indian School!
St. Joseph’s fifth graders recently completed a week-long science class called Starbase Project NOVA. The week culminated with a field trip to the South Dakota Air and Space
Brock, St. Joseph’s fifth grade teacher
Museum located next to Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City. Maybe you saw our pictures on the St. Joseph’s Indian School Facebook page?
During the week, the Lakota (Sioux) students learned about science, technology, engineering, and math – all through hands-on activities and experiments. They loved it!
Some of the activities were designing a space shuttle seat for Eggbert, their passenger, to allow him to safely land on his return trip from outer space. In this activity, they also learned about the importance of wearing seat belts while traveling.
Students programmed a small robot to go through an obstacle course.
They also built miniature rockets made out of straws, pieces of notes cards used for wings, and clay for the nose tip. Their objective was to use a special launcher to try to land their rocket on a specific target. If their first launch wasn’t successful, they were given opportunities to make modifications to their launch to try to reach their desired target.
A chromatography experiment using different black markers asked students to determine which marker was used to write a special note.
Elephant toothpaste!
They even programmed robots to maneuver through an obstacle course.
A favorite activity of many was creating “elephant toothpaste.” In this experiment, students mixed several ingredients to create a chemical change resulting in the “elephant toothpaste.”
On their field trip, they were able to take a guided tour of the South Dakota Air and Space Museum, make space food (pudding) using powdered ingredients and take a virtual tour of outer space in the GeoDome.
St. Joseph’s 5th graders really enjoyed the week. Some of their comments about Starbase were, “it was awesome,” and “we got to do some really neat experiments.”
The trees are beginning to change color in South Dakota; the sun is not up as early and is going down earlier each night. Mornings and evenings are much cooler than they have been.
With autumn comes football, and it is homecoming week at Chamberlain High School! Football players are busy preparing for their game on Friday night; tonight Homecoming Royalty will be crowned. One of our high school students, Shawn, has been nominated for king. Maddy, a candidate for queen, is also part of our St. Joseph’s Indian School family – her father Mike is St. Joseph’s Director. You might remember that last year we were in a similar situation. Congratulations to everyone who has been nominated!
In their first home game, St. Joseph’s volleyball team swept their opponents – Go Braves!
Last week St. Joseph’s girls’ volleyball teams got into action. They hosted Todd County’s sixth, seventh and eighth grade teams and swept all nine games! Everyone was excited about the victory, but the girls know they need to keep working hard as they get ready to play some tough teams in the coming weeks.
The St. Joseph’s Braves seventh and eighth grade football team will have their home opener tomorrow night. Go Braves!
The St. Joseph’s Braves seventh and eighth grade football team will have their home opener tomorrow night.
I hope you all have a wonderful week and take the time to see the beauty of creation all around you as Mother Earth begins to
brighten things up with the changing of leaves and cooler temperatures.
May God continue to bless you for your generosity towards the Lakota children at St. Joseph’s Indian School. We greatly appreciate your support, prayers and concern!
Once powwow is over, most look to take it easy for a day or two, but St. Joseph’s fifth graders are off and running this week with Starbase!
Space shuttles zip down the line with fragile cargo in the Eggbert experiment.
The program combines science, technology, engineering and math to deal with various problems and challenges.
Monday the students conducted the ‘Eggbert Launch.’ After devising ways to protect an egg strapped into the model space shuttles they were given, the shuttles were launched down a wire into a head-on collision.
The Lakota students came up with some unique ways to protect the eggs as they slid to their fate, but only one survived completely. Taps were played over four of them, two were deemed to have survived but needed a trip to the egg hospital.
Tomorrow, the class will make a trip to Rapid City, South Dakota to visit Air & Space Museum at Ellsworth Air Force Base, get hands-on with space food and view constellations in the dome from the Journey Center.
Nateela, LaShawn and Barrett devised a way to keep their egg from cracking in a head-on collision as part of the Eggbert experiment!
Joe was named Eagle Staff Bearer; Diamond, Jr. Miss St. Joseph’s and Shawnna, Miss St. Joseph’s.
Powwow activities started last Thursday when two busloads of visitors went on a tour of the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Indian Reservations just north of Chamberlain. A ‘meet & greet’ Thursday evening allowed our visitors to ask questions of our Child Services Staff.
Friday, guests gathered for various cultural activities at the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center. Later that day, the students gave tours of their classrooms. Afterwards, everyone gathered at the rec center for the announcement of our powwow royalty — Miss St. Joseph’s, Jr., Miss St. Joseph’s and our Eagle Staff Bearer, who would lead the Grand Entry on Saturday.
Mr. Dallas Chief Eagle then presented a hoop dance. Friday concluded with the annual Tiyospaye Banquet, where we drew for a Lakota Star Quilt (won by a benefactor from California). There were also silent auctions and the live auction of hand-painted piece by Del Iron Cloud, a St. Joseph’s graduate and our Distinguished Alumni Award winner.
Saturday did indeed live up to all the predictions and was an answer to our prayers. The sun was out with no clouds in the sky, but it was a bit breezy. As the day progressed, it warmed up and turned out to be a beautiful day, great for the dancers.
The morning began with the dedication of the new playground equipment. We were honored to have the benefactor who was the driving force behind the project present to help cut the ribbon with Miss St. Joseph’s.
St. Joseph’s Eagle Staff Bearer led Grand Entry, followed by St. Joseph’s veteran alumni carrying the flags.
Afterwards, our grass dancers helped bless the powwow grounds and prayers were offered asking the Great Spirit to help the dancers do their best and to make the whole day a rewarding experience for everyone. The Colors were carried by an Honor Guard made up of military veterans who were St. Joseph’s alumni. All veterans were invited to march in following the colors. Veterans were invited to introduce themselves, tell what branch of service they served in and where they have been stationed. We were especially honored to have a World War II veteran with us.
Another highlight of the day was the presence of Mr. Casimir LeBeau, one of two surviving members of the student body that started at St. Joseph’s when the school opened in 1927. He shared some thoughts with the crowd and then became the centerpiece as the 64 alumni who were present gathered around him for a group picture.
As the competitive dancing came to an end, we had Mass at Our Lady of the Sioux Chapel. Several of our dancers attended in full regalia and danced accompanied by St. Joseph’s drum group. After Mass was over, everyone gathered for dinner and prizes for the dancers and drum groups.
It was a wonderful weekend! Be sure to watch our powwow video and consider making plans to attend our 39th powwow on September 19, 2015!
We thank you for your many prayers. May God’s blessings continue to be with you and yours.
In all the excitement of powwow on St. Joseph’s campus this weekend, our 2014 seniors are experiencing a whole new kind of excitement: the next chapter!
The Sheehy Home, including houseparent Mike, Errol, Cody and Wyatt.
They have taken their next step in their lives, whether to college, technical school or something else.
Mike, one of St. Joseph’s houseparents, had the privilege of taking one of the boys to college:
My wife and I have been houseparent’s at St. Joseph’s for six years now. Our first two years were in the 6th-8th grade community. The last four were in the high school program.
One student, Errol, has been in our homes for all six years. Watching him become the young man he is has been a privilege. He graduated with honors as member of the National Honor Society.
In July I received a call asking if I would be willing to drive him to the University of South Dakota so he could register for his classes and finalize all the paper work. I quickly agreed and counted it as another privilege.
On our way back to his house that day I asked him what his plans were for getting to school in August. He smiled and said, “Well, I was hoping you would take me.”
I was glad to help and we made plans for the move-in day. When August arrived, another one of my graduates, Cody, was playing basketball with my home in the gym. Cody would be leaving for South Dakota State two days later. I told him I was going to pick up Errol and take him to college the next day and asked if he wanted to ride with me. He said sure he would like to go.
The next day, most of the ride they debated which school was better and why the other one should transfer. Once we arrived at Errol’s new home for the next four years, we were happy to see Errol’s roommate, Wyatt, was also moving in. Wyatt is also a graduate from St. Joseph’s Indian School.
Errol, Wyatt and Cody on move-in day!
Of course they were laughing about how they were going to fit everything into such a small dorm room and they realized their rooms at St. Joseph’s were much bigger, not to mention they had air condition and the dorm room doesn’t. Once settled, in Errol ask if we could drop him off at the Native American Center for his orientation class. We pulled up in front and I was expecting to say our goodbyes, but Errol and Cody both got out and went inside…
I had to circle the block and find a parking spot.
When I went inside the meeting had already started, so I motioned for Cody to come with me and waved bye to Errol. Errol waved back and said thank you.
As Cody and I started out the door towards the car he said “What about Errol?”
“He is staying here,” I answered.
“We are leaving him?” Cody asked.
I said yes.
Cody asked again, very thoughtfully, “We are leaving him here all alone?”
“Yes Cody,” I replied. “We are leaving him here all alone. He’s in college now, buddy.”
After a moment’s thoughtful silence, Cody said “I can’t believe we are leaving him here all alone.”
I reached up and put my hand on Cody’s 6’4’’ 290lb. back, and reminded him that in two days his mother would drive him to South Dakota State University and watch as he moved in to his dorm room.
“Then,” I said with a quiet voice, “she will then leave you there. And you’ll be in college too.”
We rode in silence for a few miles, not entirely sure where the most sniffles were coming from. After a few minutes, Cody broke the silence.
