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News from Indian Country
Pdge 9 Spilyay Tymoo January 26, 2011
Crazy Horse raising final matching funds Spared slaughter,
some bison migrate
into Montana
B y D irk Lam m ers
Associated Press
SIO U X FALLS, S.D.— A
philanthropist’s 2007 offer to
match $5 million in donations to
speed progress on the
m am m oth
C razy
H orse
m ountain carvin g in South
D ako ta’s B lack H ills if the
money could be raised in four
years dum bfounded Crazy
H orse p resid en t and ch ief
executive Ruth Ziolkowski.
Work on the project had been
going on since 1948, and while
Crazy H orse’s face had been
peering across southern Black
Hills since 1998, philanthropist
T. Denny Sanford wanted to see
work on the h o rse’s head—
which will be the largest artistic
detail at 219 feet h igh —
completed in his lifetime.
But supporters hit the $4
m illion m ark ju st before
Christmas, and $100,000 has
come in since then.
“People were very generous
this year at Christmas,” Ruth
Ziolkowski said.
Inspired by Gutzon Borglum’s
carvin g o f nearby M ount
Rushmore, Lakota Chief Henry
S tan d in g B ear propo sed a
memorial to Native American
heroes with a granite carving
near Custer. Ziolkowski’s late
husband, the sculptor Korczak
Ziolkowski, was the longtime
leader o f the project and his
survivo rs
kicked
their
fundraising efforts into high gear
once they received Sanford’s
offer.
“The first m illion was the
easiest to raise because it was
new, we have a lot of wonderful
friends and it just seemed to
come,” Ruth Ziolkowski said.
B y M atthew Brown
Associated Press
Crazy Horse Memorial Fund/Linda M. Uphoff photo
A photo of the Crazy Horse mountain with the 1/34th scale model in the foreground. This blast
was taken in the fall of 2010 and sent 1,000 ton of rock tumbling down the mountain. The
finished carving will be 641 feet long by 563 feet tall.
“And then after that, we didn’t
have a real plan.
“Korczak always said, ‘First
you make a friend, then you
make a dollar.’ We’ve been for
63 years trying our best to make
friends, and I think that has
helped us with this campaign
more than anything else.”
Crazy Horse was a famed
Oglala Lakota warrior and leader
who played a key role in the 1876
defe'at o f the U.S. Seventh
Cavalry at the Battle of the Little
Bighorn in Montana. He died a
year later after being stabbed in
Nebraska.
When completed, the carving
of his image on a bluff about
10 miles southwest of Mount
Rushmore will be 641 feet long
and 563 feet high.
A w elcom e center and
PHOENIX (AP)— The U.S.
E n viro n m en tal P ro tectio n
Agency is praising a clean air
plan put together by the Gila
River Indian Community.
The tribe spent 12 years de
veloping and implementing the
plan that was approved by the
EPA this week.
The plan includes tribal regu
lations aimed at heavy manufac
turing businesses and sand and
gravel plants. They will limit dust
emissions and storage of chemi
cals used in m etal cleaning,
among others.
The tribe also developed its
own inspectors, most members
o f the com m unity about 35
miles south of Phoenix.
The EPA says Gila River’s
plan can be a model for other
tribes as they develop their own
plans to meet national air qual
ity standards.
Cleanup crews
open both lanes of
Wash, highway
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) —
The Washington Transportation
Department says both lanes of
W ashington H ighway 112 in
Clallam County reopened on the
evening of Jan. 20 after state
crews and a Port Angeles con
tractor finished clearing a land
slide.
The highway was closed for
about 21 hours following thejan.
14 slide that buried 150 feet of
road and blocked access to the
Makah Indian Reservation.
Transportation spokesman
Joe Irwin says his agency and the
M akah N ation w ere able to
establish one-way, alternating
“That scholarship fund is proof
of that.”
She took over the project
after her husband’s death in 1982
and shifted the focus to the
carving of Crazy Horse’s face,
which was dedicated in 1998 at
the 50th anniversary and has
helped draw more attention to
the project.
Seven of the Ziolkowski’s 10
children
and
several
gran d ch ild ren w ork at the
m em orial, w hich drew 1.2
million visitors to the southern
Black Hills in 2010. It brings in
millions of dollars every year,
mainly through admission fees.
The family has followed Korczak
Z io lko w ski’s adm onition to
refuse government help and rely
on private enterprise.
Arkansas professor continues to enjoy making pottery
Briefly
EPA OKs clean air
plan for Gila
River reservation
museum have opened on the
property, but completion of the
carvin g, expansion o f a
university and construction of
a medical training center for
Native American students are
still years away.
Ziolkowski has taken great
faith in the growth of a related
scholarship program , w hich
began in 1978 with $250. By the
end o f last year, the Crazy
Horse M emorial Foundation
Scholarship Fund had given
n early $1.5 m illion to help
m o stly N ative A m ericans
atten d in g schools in South
Dakota.
“Korczak always said that you
could do anything in this world
you want to do if you’re willing
to work hard enough and stick
with it no matter what,” she said.
CORWIN
SPRINGS,
Mont.—For the first time since
the 1800s, a small group of
wild bison were herded last
week through fresh-fallen
snow to reach their historical
grazing grounds north o f
Yellowstone National Park.
As pronghorn antelope and
mule deer scattered to avoid
the procession, park employees
and state livestock agents on
horseback pushed the 25 bison
about 10 m iles down the
Yellowstone River valley. It
took about three hours to
reach an open meadow in the
Gallatin National Forest, where
the animals will be allowed to
remain until spring.
The move could provide at
least some re lie f from
government-sponsored mass
slaughters o f the iconic
Western animals, often called
buffalo. Past winter journeys by
bison seeking to graze at lower
elevations have been blocked
over fears that a disease carried
by some could infect cattle.
D uring the last m ajor
m igration, in 2008, 1,600
Yellowstone bison were killed
—about a third of the park’s
total. Yet progress toward
ending the slaughters remains
tenuous. Deep snow in
Yellowstone’s interior has set
the stage for another major
migration to lower elevations
this year. Hundreds of bison
could yet be captured and killed.
“It seems like the progress is
slow, but it’s slow because it’s so
complex,” said Colin Campbell,
Y ellow stone’s acting super
intendent. “In all reality, there will
always be limits, like there are
with any wildlife species.”
Wildlife officials said the Forest
Service land where the 25 bison
will be allowed to roam is roughly
2,500 acres, or less than four
square miles. If this year’s “test”
operation goes well, the number
of bison allowed eventually could
be increased to 100.
Governm ent agencies and
private conservation groups
agreed to pay more than $3
million to establish a bison travel
corridor through the Royal Teton
Ranch, a sprawling property just
north of Yellowstone owned by
the Church U niversal and
Triumphant.
Electrified fencing now lines
the dirt road through the ranch—
newfound tolerance for bison in
M ontana has lim its. C ritics
dubbed the route the “corridor
to nowhere” because bison that
try to migrate much farther will
be turned back or killed.
“You can’t treat bison like
livestock. This is a wild animal
and they’ve set up a livestock
operation” said Stephany Seay
with the Buffalo Field Campaign.
To keep close tabs on the
animals, they received ear tags,
radio collars and, for females,
tracking devices implanted in their
vaginas in case they abort their
young.
traffic on Jan. 15. Bruch and
Bruch Construction got crews
to the remote site and began
clearing away 3,000 to 4,000
cubic yards of material.
Conservatives
want $90 billion
more in cuts
WASHINGTON (AP)—
House conservatives vowed
last week to slash domestic
program s w ell beyond the
already steep spending cuts
promised by GOP leaders in
the midterm election campaign
that put Republicans in control
of the chamber.
A proposal unveiled by the
Republican Study Committee,
whose conservative members
make up about three-fourths
of
the
H ouse
GOP
conference, called for bringing
domestic agency budgets down
to the 2006 levels in place
w hen R epublicans last
controlled Congress. T hat’s
about a $175 billion cut from
current levels and roughly $90
billion more than the cuts
promised by Republicans last
fall.
B ehind
the
scenes,
conservatives are pressuring
GOP leaders to deliver on a
promise to immediately pass
legislatio n cutting C abinet
budgets by $100 billion this
fiscal year, which began Oct. 1
and is already one-third over.
Agencies have been operating
at 2010 rates and will at least
until a stopgap spending bill
expires March 4.
W hile conservatives are
p ressin g for deeper cuts,
appropriators are looking to
protect budgets for agencies
such as NASA, the FBI and
Indian Health Service.
B y L uke Jo nes
The Daily Citizen
SEARCY, Ark.— “What you
have is earth, fire and water,” he
said. “That’s pretty much all you
have in pottery no matter what
you do.”
The speaker was Paul Pitt, a
professor of fine art at Harding
University, or as he is sometimes
known, Coyote Clay. Pitt has been
making pottery since 1965 and
has an acute fascination with
primitive cultures.
“I have such an interest in
closeness to the earth that
primitive cultures really get my
attention,” he said. “I really
appreciate people who can live
off the land and survive without
go ing to W al-M art for
everything.”
Pitt grew up in Memphis and
was hired by Harding in 1971,
where he has taught art classes
since. While selling his pottery,
Pitt began to find difficulty in
pitching “primitive art” that did
not actually come from a Native
American. The solution to his
problem, as it turned out, came
from a young man named Sky
Hawk.
“He was one of my students,”
Pitt said. “When he found out I
had trouble marketing because
my pieces were not made by a
real Indian, he said, ‘I’ll adopt
you.’”
Sky Hawk is a member of the
Neches tribe and, after his father
died, he became Chief White
Eagle. According to the Neches
tribe’s official website, they broke
off from the Cherokees in the
early 19th century and settled in
the Ozarks.
Pitt said White Eagle gave him
his Neches name, Coyote Clay.
“I didn’t really like (the name)
at first,” Pitt said. “I looked up
‘coyote’ in the dictionary, and it
said he was a ‘mischievous pest.’
But that’s white man’s viewpoint.
Indians don’t think of coyotes in
the same way.”
Pitt said the more virtuous,
Native American qualities of the
coyote fit him well: Their singsong
yelps parallel Pitt’s flute-playing;
their small size and high speed
correlate to Pitt’s love of running;
and they burrow into the earth,
reminding Pitt of his love for the
planet.
In fact, in 1987, Pitt dug his
home into a hillside near the edge
of town.
“It’s not just to save energy,”
he said. “It’s because I like caves.
I really enjoy seeing how simplicity
can be very practical.”
Pitt said it took eight years to
convince his wife to try it out,
but the result was a great success.
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Oregon State Fair & Expo Center
Salem Pavilion
2 3 3 0 17th Street NE, Salem , OR
Doors open at Noon
Grand en try - 1 p.m.
Break - 5 - 6 p.m.
Powwow ends at 9 p.m. JT
Tribal vendors can contact us at
k
1-800-422-0232
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