Cultural activities highlight Sandoz anniversary

The center’s director, Sarah Polak, said the events helped create awareness of the facility and its programs, and brought recognition to the accomplishments of the past five years.

“We continue to grow and innovate,” she said. “We didn’t just put up a building and become stagnant. Looking back at the goals when the center was first envisioned, we’ve completed almost all of those things in the first five years.”

Earlier this month, the center opened the C.F. Coffee Gallery, a collection of new exhibits dedicated to the beef industry. Other permanent exhibits in the building focus on life on the Plains, Mari Sandoz and the issues of which she wrote.

Since its opening, the facility’s scope has expanded beyond its walls with the creation of the Heritage Trail, the paved recreational path south of campus, and the Heritage Gardens.

A product of CSC’s comprehensive plan, Vision 2011, the gardens were created with the help of Lucinda Mays, public horticulturist and garden educator, and the CSC maintenance crew. There are six different garden spaces, each dedicated to a specific facet of the region’s horticulture.

“Those of us who live here often don’t realize it, but the Pine Ridge is a very unique geographical and botanical region,” Polak said. “Even students from Alliance may not understand the variety of plants we can grow here.”

Since the center’s creation, staff members and volunteers have collected a wealth of historical archives and played host to a lengthy list of temporary exhibits, speakers and community events. With help of faculty members, the center also has assumed the role of hosting CSC’s annual History Day for high school students and has begun generating resources for teachers.

Polak said a challenge of the center’s first years has been making it fit with the campus community and determining how best to serve CSC and the greater public. She said the center is increasingly meeting that objective.

“We’re not like the library, where everyone automatically knows what we do,” Polak said. “However, that provides us a great deal of flexibility. We can do things like the Heritage Gardens, and talk about things like culture, history, literature, the environment and research in ways that other facilities can’t.”

Among the fifth anniversary activities was the annual CSC Pow Wow on Saturday, which attracted five drum groups and about 250 people. In addition to traditional American Indian dancing and singing, the event featured presentations by Jerome Kills Small of Porcupine, S.D., and Rosebud Sioux elder Phyllis Stone. The two storytellers were sponsored by Agate Fossil Beds.

On Friday, Dr. William Bauer, a history professor of the University of Wyoming, drew parallels and contrasts between a pair of American Indians who gained prominence during the late 1800s and early 1900s. They are Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, who lived nearby, and Ishi of northern California’s Yana tribe.

In addition, the 1978 documentary “Song of the Plains: The Story Mari Sandoz” was shown to a public audience Thursday.

 

Photo Information (Clockwise, from top):

Zachary Two Bulls performs a dance during the Chadron State College Pow Wow on Saturday. About 250 people attended the annual event which was presented in conjunction with the fifth anniversary of CSC's Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center.

 

Dr. William Bauer of the University of Wyoming listens to a question from the audience during his presentation Friday night. Bauer's speech examined the similarities and differences between famous American Indians Crazy Horse and Ishi.

 

Jerome Kills Small of Porcupine, S.D., holds a wild turnip while discussing the medicinal properties and origins of plants found throughout the High Plains and Midwest.