For more than a half-century, KELO-TV has been watched by people throughout central South Dakota.

But now the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe wants the station to find a new spot for the broadcast tower that was blown down in last month’s winter storms, Seth Tupper of the Mitchell Daily Republic reports here.

.KELO is putting up a temporary tower and will apply to the Federal Communication Commission for a permanent one.

But, as Tupper writes, the old tower was on Medicine Butte in central South Dakota, a site sacred to the Lower Brule Tribe.

“It ties into a whole sacred set of buttes that figure predominantly in our culture, and I would like to have our folks comment more on that,” says tribal Chairman Michael Jandreau. He says his tribe wants to consult with the FCC on the matter.

KELO general manager Jay Huizenga told Tupper that that the old 700-foot tower supplied a television signal for people in central South Dakota, and that there are other towers on Medicine Butte.

And, writes Tupper:

Jandreau acknowledged that there may be little his tribe can do to get KELO’s tower moved, given that the site is not within reservation boundaries or held in trust for the tribe. He is holding out hope, though, and he playfully suggested that perhaps the winter storm wasn’t the only force at work in the tower’s fall.

“When it was built, some of our old men told them that it was going to fall down,” Jandreau said. “It took 53 years, but it fell down.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Eagle Butte, Federation Communication Commission, Gwen Florio, KELO-TV, Lower Brule Sioux, Native American news, S.D.