Posts Tagged ‘Wanblee’

2
Oct

On Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Wanblee’s Guardian Eagles revive Neighborhood Watch

   Posted by: admin    in Gangs, Law and Order, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

nativesun
Every Saturday, Buffalo Post features stories from Native Sun News, published in Rapid City, S.D.

By Randall Howell
Native Sun News Correspondent

WANBLEE –– Tag used to be a school-yard game.

That kind of tag is rarely played by school children anymore.

Today, the word has taken on a new gang-like meaning, often referring to a graffiti-based, black-paint “tag” or symbolic territory marking on the exterior walls of a house or public building, such as a post office.

And, a significant number of Wanblee residents say they have had enough of that kind of tag to last several lifetimes.

“They (graffiti vandals) have tagged and retagged some buildings around here many times,” said Phyllis Swift Hawk, a long-time Wanblee resident and one of those re-organizing and rekindling the community’s five-year-old, unimplemented Neighborhood Watch program.

“The initial momentum ran out of steam somewhere along the line,” said Swift Hawk, who is helping spearhead the revival of the program, which has Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Department of Public Safety cooperation and blessing. In fact, Sgt. Larry Romano reportedly has been assigned to the community, though the Wanblee Law Enforcement substation has been shut down after the building recently was condemned as structurally unsound, according to Swift Hawk.

“We have to do something to turn this thing around,” said Swift Hawk, who noted that the fading away of the first such program left community members awash in a subsequent sea of drug use, under-age drinking and vandalism.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

No Comments
18
Jun

Clarence Wolf Guts, last Oglala Lakota code talker, dies at 86

   Posted by: admin    in Code Talkers, Native veterans, Oglala Lakota, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Here’s a story you’ll want to read in full. It’s by Holly Meyer of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal:

Clarence Wolf Guts sits on the steps of his son's home in the town of Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (Steve McEnroe/Rapid City Journal)

Clarence Wolf Guts sits on the steps of his son's home in the town of Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (Steve McEnroe/Rapid City Journal)

When the towers of the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2001, Clarence Wolf Guts asked his son to call the U.S. Department of Defense to see if the country needed his code talking abilities to find Osama Bin Laden.

Wolf Guts was in his late 70s at the time, so his son, Don Doyle, did not make the call, but said the request personified his father’s love of country.

“He still wanted to help. He was trying to still be patriotic,” Doyle said.

Wolf Guts, 86, the last surviving Oglala Lakota code talker, died Wednesday afternoon at the South Dakota State Veterans Home in Hot Springs.

A Native American code talker from World War II, Wolf Guts helped defeat Axis forces by transmitting strategic military messages in his native language, which the Japanese and Germans couldn’t translate.

“He’s the last surviving code talker from the whole (Lakota) nation. It’s going to be a little like the passing of an era,” Doyle said.

The 450 Navajo code talkers were the most famous group of Native American soldiers to radio messages from the battlefields, but 15 other tribes used their languages to aid the Allied efforts in World War II.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

4 Comments
Back to top