CARE Camp

Students in the Sioux Falls Multi-Cultural Center’s summer C.A.R.E. program learn cultural appreciation from renowned Rosebud Sioux hoop dancer Dallas Chief Eagle. Approximately 100 students participate in four summer programs intended to teach equlaity and harmony. Chief Eagle’s classes are amoung the most popular in the program. “I never get afraid when I dance because God made me to dance,” said 9-year0old Rose Sindjeu, a native of Cameroon.

(Video by Sarah Welliver, AIJI Staff)

Enterprise — Due Monday, July 7

Hello Inkslingers and Snapshotters!
Our jumping-off point this week is this Scholar’s condundrum: “I usually can get creative about enterprise stories. But often I have trouble following through on them. I struggle with letting myself get into long enterprise pieces. I am afraid that I will put tons of time into it, and it will never run. Or I’m afraid that it will end up consuming me.”

Who else feels this way? What have you done to overcome this feeling — or what can you imagine yourself doing that might help in overcoming it? How are you doing with balancing your assigned stories with your enterprise work? — Coach Col

Ledes…Due Friday, June 27

Hey Chipsters! Four weeks down for some of you – and a good time to review your goals. I’ll be sending individual e-mails this week reminding you of your goals.

Two questions for our blog this week: One — please share a lead you wrote that you really liked — and tell us why you liked it. (Russel,  please do the same with a photo.) Or tell us about an experience you had about finding and/or revising a lead. 

Two: Some folks are considering going to UNITY — but are concerned about costs and the time away from their internships. Any advice for these Chipsters (esp. if they’ve just graduated and will be looking for a job)?   

At This Coffee Shop, Dark Roasts and Memories of Home

Black Sheep Coffee looks and smells like any other cafe, but many of its customers have known violence, civil wars and suffering in their homelands that normal caffeine addicts could not fathom.

(Video by Tileena Leighton, AIJI Staff)

By Sarah Brubeck

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Black Sheep Coffee looks and smells like any other cafe, but many of its customers have known violence, civil wars and suffering in their homelands that normal caffeine addicts could not fathom.

Abraham, a 24-year-old Eritrean man who fled his war-torn home five years ago to South Africa as a refugee is so afraid for his families’ safety in Eritrea that he will not allow his name to be used. With a new life in Sioux Falls, he now finds himself at Black Sheep Coffee several days a week.

When asked whether he visits every day, Abraham says: “Not every day, but a lot. There’s an Ethiopian restaurant by the corner. People from Africa come here. It’s nice to see people that look like you.”

Outside the cafe located at 1007 W. 11th St., a large Black Sheep Coffee sign states, “Can’t sleep? We can’t help.”

Chipped pea green and tan paint covers the walls of the cafe along with framed artwork, which is often rotated out. The sound of customers slurping their cafe mocha competes with the quiet click of laptop keys and the noise of fresh coffee beans being ground. A chipped chess set sits on a hand-me-down table. Muffled African languages fill the room.

Coffee talk is different in the United States compared with such talk in Africa, Abraham says. In the United States, people will talk about their families without being asked, but ask about politics and that’s rude. In Africa, politics is a daily conversation topic, but ask about someone’s family and that is considered rude.

“A lot of the Ethiopians that come in here are pretty political about what is going on in their country, and they want to tell us about it,” says Adam Haskett, one of the managers for Black Sheep Coffee. “Most Ethiopians are refugees.”

Haskett, the manager at Black Sheep Coffee, says many of his customers are Latino, Asian and Caucasian, but mainly African. The Africans come from countries as varied as Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya. At Black Sheep, they find coffee from home.

“The most popular is the Ethiopian Harrar,” Haskett says. “It’s the largest growing section in Ethiopia where I believe coffee originated.”

Omar Gonzales has lived in the United States since 1985. He came here from Nicaragua with his family to escape a civil war in his country, in which rebels supported by the United States fought against the socialist Sandinista government. He has worked with coffee for seven years and has worked at Black Sheep Coffee for three.

When asked why he thinks Ethiopians are drawn to Black Sheep Coffee, Gonzales says, “I think a lot of it is that we sell coffee from three different regions in Ethiopia. A lot of people will order from the region they are from. A lot of people strictly stick to the light roast, and there are people who just want dark coffee.”

Inside Black Sheep Coffee sits a black chalkboard with colorful chalk filling every square inch. A list of Ethiopian, American and Asian coffees is scribbled on the board. Sumatra and Colombian decafs are listed along with French roasts from Nicaragua, Colombia and Guatemala. At the bottom right-hand corner of the board is scribbled in yellow chalk, “We brew everything here so there.”

“Mainly the African customers like to use a lot of sugar and cream in their coffee,” Gonzales says. “We burn through that. We basically give that away. They usually just order whatever we have brewed up and then add a lot of cream. The previous owner said that’s a big ‘no-no.’ It ruins the coffee.”

After the Vietnam War, Sioux Falls became a haven for many foreign refugees. Lutheran Social Services of Sioux Falls has helped other groups of refugees from the former Soviet Union, Bosnia and Sudan and helped them start a new life in Sioux Falls. Many of the main groups today are from Burundi, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Iraq. Places like the Sioux Falls Multi-Cultural Center also assist people of all cultures in starting a productive life in Sioux Falls.

Abraham left Eritrea because of a war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1961 and ever since the countries have fought on and off. The war ended in 1991, but conflict has persisted between the two nations. After living in South Africa for 10 months, Abraham came to Sioux Falls because his sister already lived here. His sister now lives in Minnesota with her husband.

“I’m very much comfortable here. I’m very much successful here,” Abraham says. “I’m comfortable, but that doesn’t mean everybody is comfortable here.”

Abraham has lived in Sioux Falls for four years. He goes to school at Colorado Technical University of Sioux Falls and his favorite movies are “Mouse Hunt,” “Blade” and the “Tomb Raider” movies. He could speak English before he came to the United States, but the accents are very different between Eritrea and Sioux Falls.

“Three years ago, you couldn’t understand me,” Abraham says. “When I went to South Africa, I had trouble understanding. Good thing about American English is that you hear every word. I could learn it quickly.”

At Black Sheep Coffee, Abraham often sits at his laptop and does schoolwork or makes cellphone calls to his family who lives in the United States, Africa and Europe.

He often drinks black coffee with a cup full of milk and eats a breakfast burrito filled with eggs and covered in red sauce. Abraham lives alone and often finds himself at Black Sheep Coffee between 6 and 9 p.m. on the weekdays.

“Coffee’s coffee for me,” Abraham says. “I just get regular coffee.”

In Eritrea, it is unacceptable to serve coffee to someone who is younger than 18, but it’s perfectly acceptable to serve alcohol to a 10 year old, Abraham says. Abraham tasted alcohol when he was two or three. He says the government doesn’t encourage it, but it’s accepted.

On a Thursday afternoon, Abraham greets a man he calls Sam as he walks up to him, shakes his hand and moves toward the back of the cafe to order his own coffee. Abraham doesn’t know Sam’s real name, but he says he’s been introduced to him as Sam. He also doesn’t know Sam’s last name or anything of real importance about Sam. He’s just an acquaintance and, according to Abraham, the nice thing to do is say hello.

“I’ve met him before,” Abraham says. “I don’t remember his name, but I used to. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen him.”

Even Jonas goes by a nickname. His real name is Yonas, but he goes by Jonas because it’s easier for people in Sioux Falls to pronounce.

To an outsider sitting on the black, cushiony chair against the wall in Black Sheep Coffee, it may seem as if all Ethiopians, Eritreans and Sudanese know each other. Every time a new customer walks into the cafe, the customer greets the Africans sitting outside at black iron tables and customers sitting inside. In Eritrea, it is custom for people to stop, say hello and have a short conversation with anyone they have met before.

On a Sunday afternoon, Abraham and Teseha Hailu, a former Sudanese refugee may seem like good friends to the unsuspecting eye. Talking and sitting together at a table outside of Black Sheep Coffee, they look like they are having a friendly conversation, but they hardly know each other.

“I just borrowed his pen,” Abraham says. “You say hi, bye. If I have nothing to do and he has nothing to do, we’d find something to talk about.”

Hailu has lived in the United States for 14 years. He first lived in California for a year but moved to Sioux Falls because of the job opportunities.

Abraham says he is more likely to talk to an Eritrean before an Ethiopian and an Ethiopian before a Sudanese.

“From a mile away you can tell if they are Ethiopian,” Abraham says. “I can even tell which region they are from. If you meet somebody that you’ve known for one hour, you have to talk to them or it’s rude. If he’s not interested, he has to at least pretend he’s interested. Even if I don’t know him, I can’t just walk out and not say hi.”

Refugee Children Find America Through School

About 90 child refugees, most from Africa, are enrolled in the Family Immersion Center summer program at Jane Adams Elementary School in Sioux Falls. The program focuses on acculturation, English instruction and some academic content. Although many of the students have had some English training in their homelands, none are proficient. The immersion center is one of the first steps in the children’s transitional process.

(Video by Tirrell Thomas, AIJI Staff)

By Amelia Quiroga

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Imagine if the economy put the nation in an upheaval: Fuel is a luxury, money is hardly attainable, and food is scarce. Anarchy spreads through the nation in militia war over commodities, and you have no choice but to flee with your children to a country abroad. You enroll your children in school, and classes are taught in a language in which neither you, nor your children, are proficient.

About 90 child refugees, most from Africa, are enrolled in the Family Immersion Center summer program at Jane Adams Elementary School in Sioux Falls. The program focuses on acculturation, English instruction and some academic content. Although many of the students have had some English training in their homelands, none are proficient. The immersion center is one of the first steps in the children’s transitional process.

Yassin Issak, 14, from Somalia, has lived in South Dakota for nine months. He’s attending the family immersion’s five-week summer school. He enjoys writing, studying science and learning about the human body.

“If I’m learning something good, I can get good job,” Yassin said. “And [be] good worker.”

Yassin lives with his mother, father and four siblings, he said. Three are enrolled in the immersion program. He enjoys living in Sioux Falls because “African and American people, they are same,” Yassin said. “People are people.”

Experts who work with Sioux Falls refugee community have no solid count of the number of child refugees living here. Estimates range from 400 to 800. Kevin Dick, the principal of Jane Adams, guessed that 600 to 800 refugee children live here, but called his estimate a “shot in the dark”

Whatever the number, most refugee children are not proficient in English and need special training to transition into classrooms. Children can find language help through a variety of organizations including Lutheran Social Services, the Family Literacy Center, the Sioux Falls Multicultural Center and at Jane Adams.

For some of the children, Jane Adams is their “first educational experience in the U.S.,” said Pam Meyer, who conducts English testing and placement.

Depending on the time of year they arrive in Sioux Falls, refugee children are usually enrolled in school within the first 30 days, Meyer said. But if they aren’t enrolled by the last day of school, they’re not eligible for summer school classes, she said.

The immersion center’s student program is designed for children who have been in the United States less than a year, Dick said. The children come from homes in which no English is spoken, he said. The summer classes are offered so students stay active in English training.

Before entering the program, the children are tested for their proficiency in speaking and listening. In the fall, the test will include a writing section as well. The classes are divided by age groups but students range in proficiency.

Students show a wide range of ability, said Cheryl Bosma, Jane Adams summer math teacher. “You have to really modify the class for them, based on what they can do,” she said.

Success rates among the children vary, Dick said. Most students stay in the program for one year but are allowed two years.

Children succeed more often when parents, or other family members, have resettled before the student arrives and can provide the children with a stable home. Students have often suffered in refugee camps, Dick said. What they learned to survive might get them in trouble in a mainstream American public school. So teachers and staff at Jane Adams help them adapt. They teach the children that they are safe in school, they will not be tortured or hurt, and they must follow rules, he said.

“Those are lessons that don’t come naturally,” Dick said.

Yassin said that he and his family cannot go back to Somalia, which has seen war, famine and disease since its government failed in 1991. “Now they are fighting,” he said. “But this is free country.”

In terms of maturity, refugee students differ from the average American student, said Clara Hart, summer liaison at the immersion center and a former refugee from Mozambique.

“They have a three year jump in maturity level,” she said. “I don’t see that as a negative, it’s a plus.”

Hart has worked at the immersion center since it opened in 2000 and has lived in Sioux Falls for 20 years.

The immersion center has welcomed several ethnic populations among its student body, Dick said. The newest refugee population is from Iraq and the next will be from Bhutan and other parts of Asia, he said.

“The population changes every year,” Dick said. To know which ethnic population will enroll next, one just has to follow the conflicts of other countries, he said.

Although refugees are “met with different levels” of acceptance, Dick said, the community for the most part embraces the diversity and is accommodating. Sioux Falls represents 74 countries and 56 language groups, Dick said.

Dick and the Jane Adams staff do extensive research on incoming students and their homelands to get a sense of the children’s experiences.

“It’s a way to show them some compassion and care,” Dick said. “If I can be a part of that, then that’s what’s fun and motivating for me. I would miss this at times if I were not around.”

Once a Veterinarian, He Wants to Practice in America

The North Cleveland Apartments in Sioux Falls are home to many refugees like 64-year-old Sudanese refugee Adam Yahya who was a veterinarian and now works at the Morrell meat packing plant.

(Video by April Gregory, AIJI Staff)

By Patrick L. Delabrue

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – After arriving in the United States two years ago, 64-year-old Sudanese refugee Adam Yahya found work at the Morrell meat packing plant. He worked with sausage casings.

Though he is no stranger to animals or hard work, Yahya was disappointed that he couldn’t use his education and professional expertise as a doctor of veterinary medicine. He needs to be a U.S. citizen to work as a veterinarian. But citizenship is still three years away.

Worse, he developed a fungus under his fingernails while working at Morrell, he said.

“They told me I would either have to change where I worked in the plant or leave,” he said. “For me, I decided to leave the place.”

Yahya’s life as a refugee has its beginnings in a coup in 1989. He had been a high-ranking government minister, he said, when the National Congress Party took over the government. Yahya calls the government he worked for Sudan’s “last democracy.”

He believed in his work in Sudan, knowing that caring for animals mattered in a nation that so depended on livestock.

“My main choice in life was to go into the medical line,” Yahya said. “I chose veterinary medicine because we have a wealth of animal resources in Sudan, millions.”

Yahya put aside practicing veterinary medicine in 1987, he said, when he became a deputy governor of the Darfur region of Sudan and then held the position of Minister of Health and Education.

When the NCS came to power in 1989, Yahya’s situation became perilous.

“They told me I was an opponent to the regime,” he said. “A lot of political leaders were imprisoned. They followed us and harassed us.”

Yahya said before agents of the new government took him to prison and subjected him to interrogation. It was a kind of psychological torture, he said, taking him from his cell to repeat the interrogation only to be put back into his cell.

“It was political persecution,” he said.

Though he was not physically tortured, many others from the former government were, Yahya said.

“So either I join them, or go to prison,” he said.
After being released from prison, Yahya applied for a visa to visit Cyprus. “After the wars they discovered I left the country and started asking questions about where I was,” he said.

After that, Yahya said, the new Sudanese govenrment couldn’t get him. “I was already outside the country.”

Yahya said he applied for refugee status in Cairo, Egypt in 2003. The United Nations processed his application to come to the U.S. in 2004. When he received permission to come to the U.S., he wasn’t allowed to choose the city or state. He arrived in Sioux Falls on May 31, 2006.

“Back in Sudan, we know a lot about America in general, but I had no idea what life was like in Sioux Falls,” he said. “My first impression of the city was that it was very quiet and peaceful, especially in the time of year when it is very green.”

Happy to have finally arrived, Yahya still suffered culture shock.

“The way of life here is very different,” he said.

One of the biggest differences is how families relate to one another. He said that in Sudan extended family matters.

“Here, everybody is independent,” he said. “We may not know our neighbors, but in Sudan you know all of your friends and neighbors very well.”

Especially, he said, for those who live in small villages and towns. They know as many people as possible. Drivers will offer rides to strangers.

Since his departure from the Morrell plant, Yahya has found work at Bell Inc., a maker of cardboard boxes. He also works as a part-time interpreter with the Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota, giving advice to recent arrivals on how best to assimilate.

He said one of the biggest challenges for recently arrived refugees is the different values that Americans apply to raising children.

In Sudan, Yahya said, “you can lash your child or beat him if the child does wrong or shows disrespect,” he said. “When they come here, the parents find difficulty when they beat their children.”

In schools, he said, teachers and social workers ask children if they are treated this way and sometimes call the police. “In this case, when the police come and take away the child, for being beaten by their father or mother, we find it very difficult to accept that situation,” he said.

In addition, Yahya said, girls can’t have boyfriends.

“The girls should stay in the house until they are 18 and married,” he said. “So I wish they would take our cultural norms into consideration.”

He said he knows four families who have lost their children to government social service agencies. It affects the parents psychologically when they are not allowed to raise their children as they did in Sudan.

Despite the cultural differences, Yahya encourages families to assimilate by working hard, getting a good education and being good citizens, he said.

“When they learn American values,” he said, “then they can make their own lives, productive lives.”

For now, Yahya’s productive life means work in the box factory. And he looks forward to the day he can once again practice veterinary medicine.

Family Cooks Up the Flavor of Ethiopia

By Andi Murphy

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Once he wanted to help his fellow countrymen and women by flying as part of the Ethiopian Air Force. Now in Sioux Falls he dices beef to help others, who have a story like his, feel at home.

Ojulu Oballa was born and raised in Ethiopia. At the time Ethiopia was involved in a war against Eritrea. Oballa enlisted in the Air Force because he wanted to help his country and make a difference, he said. So he took flight classes and flew helicopters to help people in the rural parts of Ethiopia and those involved in the war.

He became a refugee when the government he served was overthrown, and he fled his country to Sudan via political asylum. From Sudan, Oballa arrived in Washington, D.C., in May 1991.

He earned a pilot’s license and flies privately now. In 1996 he moved to Sioux Falls after visiting an old Air Force friend, who is here.

“I found this place is better than Washington,” Oballa said. “Life is easy.”

In 2003, Oballa got the idea from a friend, who owned an Ethiopian restaurant in Washington, to start his own restaurant.

“I think it’s really good for the community,” Oballa said.

He sat at one of the four small tables in his restaurant, Ethiopian Food and Carry Out. His tall frame seemed too big for the space. Ethiopian Food is a small red-and-white building on the corner of West Avenue and Burnside Street.

An ATM and computer sit lifeless in the corner of the room and a small air conditioner squeaks. A smell of vegetables and cooked meat is strong in the air.

A customer comes in and a bunch of tin chimes makes a loud crash against the glass door. Oballa turns and says something in Amharic, Ethiopia’s national language. It seems this customer is making an order when he gestures with his hands the size of the item and how many. Five.

Oballa turns to the counter and shouts something else to his wife, Almaz, who is busy in the back of the kitchen.

The customer and Oballa speak in Amharic when Almaz comes and smiles and joins in the conversation. They talk for a long while until the new person gets his five large pieces of spongy bread, called “injera.”

Regular customers know Oballa and his wife. They know the menu at Ethiopian Food,  too. In fact, there is no menu to be seen. But for new customers, they have a tattered piece of paper that lists the items under, “Almaz Specialties.” Beef Tibs, Lamb Tibs, Gored-Gored, Alcha-FitFet, and the favorite, Doro Wot are about $7 served on a giant piece of injera.

When Oballa eats the food he serves, his mind wanders all the way back home, he said. Although they don’t import or order anything especially from Ethiopia, they make it as if they were at home.

Oballa slices vegetables and meat and prepares it for Almaz, who does the real cooking.

“I want to make sure that we let other people know what we eat.” Oballa said. “The good thing is that Americans like any food, and they try everything.”

The locals, who are refugees, make up a majority of the surrounding community. They come to Ethiopian Food and sometimes hang out for hours until midnight, said one local, Cham Abela.

“I like the food, and the people, too,” Abela said.

Abela is also from Ethiopia and came to the United States in 1996. He likes Ethiopian Food because it gives him a sense of comfort and brings back memories of home, where he left his sister and mother.

He sat at a table and waited for his order. The TV overhead was so quiet the newsmen for CNN were only background noise.

He remembers when he first saw snow. “This was very terrible, I was like, ‘What is this?’” he said.
Snow is not the only thing refugees have to get used to. They have to get used to not seeing some of the animals that they would see everyday in their country.

“I try to shoot the lion,” John Kanyny said. “If it’s a tiger, it can eat you; if it’s a lion, they know you’re scared and it will leave you alone.”

Kanyny’s face is decorated with long scars across his forehead into his scalp and dots on his cheeks. A mark, he said, you can even see on the skulls of the dead.

Kanyny and his friend Mataew Stanslous are both very tall like Oballa and seem cramped in this small diner.

Their large hands pinched off pieces of injera and scooped up beef tibs, a spicy ground beef and salad.
After they finished their combination platter, Kanyny and Stanslous joined some younger boys, one of whom is Oballa’s son, outside. The boys soared through the air in the strong arms of Kanyny.

Oballa watched his son, Mike, play in the parking lot around the sign that says, “Ethiopian Food and Carry Out.”

“He’s an American boy,” Oballa said.

Language Skill Makes New Life Less a Hard Sell

To a stranger, Les Pietruszkiewicz, 56, a Sioux Falls Real Estate agent and former refugee from Poland, looks like a typical businessman putting in his eight-plus hours a day. Only those closest to him know that a short 25 years ago he didn’t know the significance of a check or how to deposit one, either.

By Jacquelyne Taurianen

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Les Pietruszkiewicz walks into his office a few minutes past 10:30 a.m. on a Thursday. He begins unloading the gadgets that get him through the day: his cellphone accompanies a laptop and desk phone, Palm Pilot, calculator, notebook, portfolio and finally, the ultimate sign of South Dakota assimilation, a personalized, Wall Drug coffee mug.

To a stranger, Pietruszkiewicz, 56, a Sioux Falls Real Estate agent and former refugee from Poland, looks like a typical businessman putting in his eight-plus hours a day. Only those closest to him know that a short 25 years ago he didn’t know the significance of a check or how to deposit one, either.

For a refugee, something as a mundane as a checking account can highlight the divide of culture, economy and understanding.

“When I came … no checks, no checking account in our country,” he said. “I never see check until I get here. A lot of people don’t know how they work or trust the checks.”

A client of his, a new refugee, once came to a closing with 18 checks in hand, ready to pay for the house.

Perhaps better than anyone, Pietruszkiewicz could empathize with the misunderstanding.

Early in his own settlement, a personnel office called him asking him about his untouched payroll checks.

“I had like 13, 14 checks I didn’t cash,” he said. “I kept them at home because I thought, ‘this is the money.’ ”

More than two decades later, Pietruszkiewicz takes the mistakes and misconceptions he once had and turns them into lessons for others new to the country. He does it in the hopes of making their lives easier.

Pietruszkiewicz first left Poland in 1983, escaping from communist rule to a refugee camp in Austria.

When he came to the United States, he had to leave his wife and children behind.

Although he would write letters and call home as much as possible, it was difficult to get through Polish government control and it was expensive. And so, his first years here, he was alone.

Pietruszkiewicz worked several jobs after arriving in Sioux Falls. He worked in construction, left for a job in a plastics company where he made bottles and then left that job when he was hired at a local meat factory.

“I applied to work at John Morrells three times before I got the job because I had no language skills,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “It was very hard because I had no time for class, all I did was work to make money.”

Adjusting to a new language was the hardest part, Pietruszkiewicz said.

That, and being without his family.

Two years and three months after he came to South Dakota, his wife and children were finally granted access to the United States.

And when Agnes couldn’t find work, Pietruszkiewicz opened a family business, The Polish Plate.

“We started to cook because that’s what we know how to do,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “It’s what you do if you don’t know language, you try the best that you can do and we can both cook.”

The Polish Plate had a 10 year run and through it, Pietruszkiewicz continued learning how to overcome obstacles.

He invented a number system to identify food orders instead of words so he and his wife would be able to communicate with customers.

His ability to adapt, creatively at times, and his diverse background made his next transition, into real estate, an easy one.

“I sold my first house to a couple from Latvia who only spoke Russian,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “I speak several languages so that helps me and I was so happy.”

He started in the business to make a better living for his family but stayed because the love he has for the job and love of helping others, especially those in the same situation as he was when he first came to America.

“Oh you’re talking all the time with different people, and you help them,” he said. “That is your service to the public, and it’s good because many people from other countries … Russia, Bosnia … don’t know what to do, where to go, how to get started to get a house, so I can help them.”

He speaks all the Slavic languages and uses them to his benefit every opportunity he gets.

He says he loves talking to people even when it is difficult.

“If I don’t understand or they don’t understand, I ask them to explain it in a different way,” he said. “Eventually, we always figure it out.”

Pietruszkiewicz knows the benefit of helping people in life and business. He receives about 95 percent of his referrals from word of mouth.

“People in the community talk,” he said. “I will sell a house to their cousin and then when they are looking, they are told ‘go to Les, he will help you.’ ”

This holds true for more than just housing.

“I told them it’s for life,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “You call me, not even related to house … something happened … you call me. They get an accident, call me and ask what to do. So I tell them to, or I will call the police and sometimes I go the accident.”

Other times Pietruszkiewicz is requested by Lutheran Social Services, the organization that helped him resettle, to help with translations in an emergency.

“Sometimes I have to go to help immigrants to get papers … or if they’re in the process to do green card or naturalization,” he said. “I sold a house to a Bosnian couple. Now I don’t speak Bosnian but for example Russian, Czech and Polish. That would be easy to communicate with Bosnian because they are similar. So if they talk slowly and I talk slowly, we can communicate.”

Dan Hoiland, 52, a former boss and longtime friend tells this story:

“I will never forget the guy that needed help after a heart attack,” Hoiland said. “He was in danger of losing his house. And Les didn’t want to see that happen, so he helped him refinance and the guy still has the house today.”

Sioux Falls is “familiar” now and there’s more help in the community for immigrants and refugees, including from him.

“I love talking to people and being able to help them,” he said. “It’s a little different (today), but it’s still difficult for people and I understand that very well. I understand what they feel because I felt same way before.”

Bosnian Woman Seeks Job, Finds Love

By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Amra Topic found someone she could relate to, someone who understood how difficult life was.

After she fled her native Bosnia and arrived in Sioux Falls, S.D., she was looking for a job, safety and a better life.

What she wasn’t looking for was love. But that’s one of the first things she found.

As Amra began adjusting to her new life in the United States she met a man named Srdjan at an English language class at the Lutheran Social Services refugee and immigrant program. Srdjan was also a Bosnian refugee.

Amra and her family left Bosnia eight years ago, four days before her 28th birthday, to escape the civil war. The place she called home had become full of guns, hatred and death.

When they arrived in the United States from Croatia, where they had been for a year after Bosnia, Amra was not only in an unfamiliar country, she had only three months worth of English.

“I had to start from scratch,” she said. “I had to learn the language and the system of this country. I had to make something of my life here.”

Her first job was at the Circle of Hope day care as a teacher’s assistant. She took the job, she said, because it was a great way for her to not only to practice her English but also to continue learning. After a year, Amra became a teacher at the day care and taught for three years.

Amra went on to work three part-time jobs, all at once. She worked at Wells Fargo Bank as an operations clerk, the Lutheran Social Services as a Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian interpreter at an outreach clinic as a nurse.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Amra said. “I like working part-time jobs.”

When Srdjan, her then boyfriend, now husband, wanted to go back to school in Wisconsin, Amra went with him and by the time she came back to South Dakota, they were married and Amra had become a mother.

“I wanted to have a child,” Amra said. “It was my time to be a mom.”

But it didn’t take Amra long to get back to work and get back to helping people. She now works part time as a Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian interpreter for the state of South Dakota making house calls with nurses.

She also works for the Women’s Health Outreach, helping women get the medical attention they need.

“It is what I like to do,” Amra said.

Amra finds connection to home, Bosnia, through Bosnian pop music, drinking Turkish coffee and keeping in touch with family.

But her family at home, her husband and daughter, are her main priorities.

“I’m focused on my family,” Amra said.

Bio-Diesel Proposal Raises Corny Questions

By Sarah Brubeck

VERMILLION, S.D. – A proposal to build a bio-diesel plant here has some citizens curious about the plant’s cost, location and any possible environmental effects.

Rural Energy Marketing, L.L.C, a company from Luverne, Minn., has held four meetings in southeastern South Dakota over the last two months to explain plans for a biodiesel plant. Estimates of the cost of the plant are between $80 million and $90 million, but that price continues to increase, said Loren Forrest, operating manager for the plant. The group has hosted meetings in Vermillion, Yankton, Elk Point and North Sioux City.

“A lot of the concern is carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere,” said Jack Powell, a retired professor at the University of South Dakota who taught quantitative business analysis and is president of the Vermillion City Council. “One of the complaints is the corn-based ones they have now puts more carbon dioxide in the air. This one claims their process captures it.”

The proposed plant, if built in Vermillion, would be located northwest of town on the north side of Highway 50, Forrest said. It will break down corn stalks into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. After going through a clean-up phase in which impurities are taken out, the material goes through processes that use rare metals such as iron and cobalt to convert the gases into a liquid, mostly diesel fuel, Forrest said.

“We’re just here to inform the public so they can be pro or con,” Forrest said. “This is what America needs more than anything.”

Forrest started Rural Energy Marketing in 2004 intending to produce ethanol. But then Forrest heard about the thermal chemical processing at a biomass conference in Minneapolis and changed his focus to biodiesel. He was former project coordinator for an ethanol plant at the Heron Lake BioEnergy refinery before leaving that project for REM.

According to an REM Powerpoint presentation on the company’s Web site, between 60,000 to 70,000 acres of contracted corn stalks will be needed to run the plant, which will consume 400 to 500 tons per day. This will allow the plant to produce between 14-17.5 million gallons of diesel fuel each year.

“I think it holds a lot of promise,” said Powell, the Vermillion City Council president. “It seems to me we’d be taking another step to renewable energy. Right now, I don’t know what they’d do with corn stalk and if it would be a new, safer process.”

Others aren’t so sure about the proposal.

“I think it’s extremely dangerous to use good farm land to feed our cars rather than our stomachs,” said Dean Spader, a retired criminal justice professor at USD. “I think we should use rich soil to make food than to create fuel.”

Spader was raised on a farm and currently lives on 2 1/2 acres on the east side of Vermillion. During the June 3 election regarding a proposed $10 billion oil refinery for neighboring Union County, Spader paid attention and attended meetings. Union County residents voted in favor of the refinery, 58-42 percent. Hyperion, a Dallas-based company, has proposed a refinery that will process 400,000 barrels of oil each day.

“If there’s one thing that really disappointed me about that project was that many of our leaders made a decision before getting all the facts,” Spader said. “I hope people of this community listen to both sides before making a decision.”

Powell questioned the accuracy of the cost figures Rural Energy Marketing presented at the meeting he attended, but believes the project is worthwhile.

“If you could convince people of that nature that this is an environment-safe process, then I think you could prevent the kind of disagreement like Hyperion,” Powell said.

“Hyperion is bringing oil from Canada with a pipeline and taking that crude oil and turning it into fuel for things like airplanes. Part of the concern there is pollutants are going in the air, and this is suppose to prevent it. They are talking about several of these in the area.”

Spader believes a bio-diesel plant would help Clay County’s economy, but he said the economy is not the only factor to consider.

“I always make decisions based on good and bad development,” Spader said. “I like to look at short term economic and long term environmental.”

Spader also stressed that the price of corn is at an all time high. Corn is $8 a bushel and that shows the risk of using more land for fuel instead of using it for food. The amount of cropland available in the last 50 years for each individual has shrunk from half an acre per person to one-fourth an acre per person, Spader said.

Many people in Vermillion area are still unfamiliar with the project.

When e-mailed, few Vermilion city council members had heard of the project and those that did said they knew little about it. Mayor Dan Christopherson declined to comment saying he didn’t know enough about the proposal.

“I’m still learning,” Powell said. “If what they say is true, it’s economic and environmentally safe. Why would people be against it? You’re taking a bi-product that has no use and making something out of it.”

When asked if he thinks more people should educate themselves about this, Powell said, “Absolutely, otherwise you operate from ignorance. Some people would rather not know. I absolutely agree people should learn as much as they can about this.”

Kruse’ing Down the Lane

By M. J. CASIANO

VERMILLION, S.D. – Mike Kruse Jr., 26, has a wife, daughter and son. He runs Empire Bowl in Sioux Falls and loads UPS trucks 20 hours a week.

Somehow, he finds time bowl.

“It’s hard to do,” said Kruse, who lives in Vermillion and has broken into the professional ranks. “But we make it work.”

“Well, he does have some time off during the summer when the bowling season is slow,” Randy Svendsen said. “The shop is also slow during the summer. He finds time.”

Kruse took up the sport at 5, and has bowled competitively since he was 10, when he averaged 125. By age 13, he averaged 206.

Since then, Kruse has recorded nine 300 games and six 800 series games.

His father, Mike Sr., started his son in bowling because of his own passion for the game. The older Kruse is a board member on the United States Bowling Congress.

Some may know the younger Kruse from the USBC, or perhaps from his top score of 297 at the Prairie Inn bowling lanes in Vermillion.

“I don’t bowl there that much,” he said. “I go to Suburban Lanes more often.”

Kruse is a member of the Professional Bowlers Association, in a region that includes  North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska.

He is “an extremely outstanding bowler,” said Svendsen, a teammate from Volin, S.D. “I’d rank him very high with the bowlers in his region and state.”

“I won my first title in Raytown, Missouri,” Kruse said. “It paid out $2,500.”

Although he has come close, Kruse has not yet made it on a televised EPSN tournament.

“I was about three matches away from getting on TV,” Kruse said. “I got seventeenth out of 580, ended up winning $2,000.”

That’s chump-change compared to what is possible in the PBA’s national top 64.

“If you are in the top 64, you get a $1,800 check even if you finish last every week,” Kruse said. “That’s $50,000 in a four-month season.”

Getting to that point is a challenge, but the money would offset his feuds with another professional, Pete Weber.

“Weber and I have a personal problem,” Kruse said. “We got in a little fight.”

At the Masters, an amateur event, Weber thought Kruse wasn’t giving him enough lane courtesy.

“Some words were said,” Kruse said. “He made a 150, and I made a 250. I made the cut and he didn’t.”

But Weber isn’t the only competition he has to worry about.

Injuries are an athlete’s worst enemy, and Kruse is recovering from arm surgery.

“I had an odd thing,” he said. “The ulna bone was too long. It was rubbing on the other bone, and it caused pain.”

Kruse had an inch taken off his ulna bone and had a five-inch metal plate and seven screws put in his arm.

“It’s doing pretty good though,” he said. “I’ve got about another month and a half of rehab.”

Then there is competition and adversity that can be helpful, too. His father is also a talented bowler.

“We’re pretty even,” the son said. “I guess it just depends on the day. Our skill levels are pretty close.”

Whenever the two enter a doubles tournament, they split the prize money.

“That works out pretty good,” he said. “I had a better year, but it can go both ways. ”

In fact, in 2001 the two were the first father and son to bowl 300 in a doubles event.

“Since I was ten I’ve always wanted to be a pro bowler,” Kruse said.

Well, he has done just that, and in a mannerly way.

“He’s very kind,” Svendsen said. “One things that sticks out is that he’s never arrogant about the success he’s had.”

Some of that could be attributed to the strong relationship he’s had with his father.

“They are about as close as it gets for father and son,” Svendsen said. “They sit together like pieces of a puzzle.”

Killer Plants. Right.

By M. J. Casiano
One hour and 31 minutes of my life is gone, and I want it back.

At least the Pepsi and popcorn were tasty, and the movie was free.

Despite the mixed reviews, “The Happening” grossed an estimated $32 million and was the No. 1 international title this weekend, according to “The Hollywood Reporter.”

How? I have no idea. The whole time I wondered when it would get better.

It never did.

From Mark Wahlberg’s bad acting to the terrible story plot, it was bad from start to finish.

In fact, it was so corny in parts it made me laugh out loud. Wahlberg’s acting reminded me of watching a high school play. His lines were ridiculous, and he delivered them in a whiney and irritating voice.

His character was an obstructionist school teacher in Philadelphia. He leaves by train with his wife (Zooey Deschanel), best friend (John Leguizamo) and his daughter after hearing that a biological attack has hit New York. Leguizamo goes to Princeton, where his wife was sent by train, leaving the daughter with Wahlberg and Deschanel, who were off in search of safety elsewhere in New Jersey.

The scare, better known as the green effect, is blamed for the Northeastern breakout and deaths. Therefore, throughout the whole movie, people are running from plants because they are sending out a deadly hormone to humans.

Plants. Really?

As characters in this dismal plot, the plants took on lives of their own. People talked to them, rubbed them, tried to comfort and appease them. And yet, each time the wind swirled, people lost their ability to think, repeated themselves and eventually committed suicide. By movie’s end, people in other corners of the world showed the same symptoms. I had to wonder whether the plants had gotten to the producers, director and/or actors.

All I’m trying to say is that if you want to spend $7.50, don’t spend it watching this movie. Go get yourself a fast-food meal or maybe a gallon of gas.

Guys React to ‘Sex’: ‘Whatever dude.’

By Tess Brinkerhoff

Even guys can enjoy a night out with the girls.

The “Sex and the City” movie opened May 29, and women weren’t the only ones sitting in theater seats.

“Yes, I watch the “Sex and the City” episodes, with my mom and sisters because they control the TV,” said Ethan Williams, 21, of Page, Ariz. “I was skeptical about it at first but it was really funny.”

The movie is based on the popular TV show. It might be a girly show, but guys watch it, too. In “Sex and the City” best friends — Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte — come together for Carrie’s wedding with Mr. Big and experience so much more.

If Williams could be any of the characters, he said he would be Samantha because he could be promiscuous without feeling guilty about it.

“My favorite part of the movie is when Charlotte poops her pants because she was so paranoid about Mexico, then she accidentally drinks some water,” Williams said.

Williams saw the movie with his mom and two sisters and said there were other guys in the theater, too.

“I can’t recommend it to my friends. My friends already give me crap for watching it,” Williams said. “They are like, ‘whatever dude, you watch ‘Sex and the City’ and I am like yeah …. Whatever.”

Not everyone is cut out for movies like “Sex and the City.”

“All the girls bug me. I would rather watch a ninja panda any day than watch girls shop and talk about sex,” said Krista Leman, 19 and of Ninilchik, Alaska.

Todd Mechling, 47, instructor in the Contemporary Media and Journalism Department at the University of South Dakota, has not seen the movie but has seen bits and pieces of the television show when flipping through channels.

“I read a review that said it was mainly a chick flick, for better lack of term, and that most women that go into it wouldn’t want a man with them,” Mechling said.

On the other hand, some guys would see it if they got dragged along by a girl.

“I would probably go” if a girl asked, said USD student Brett Beyeler, 21. “I’m a nice guy like that, but I wouldn’t go on my own free will. It’s not really my type of stuff,” he said.  “I just don’t really look forward to seeing it at all.”

The popular TV show’s weekly watchers enjoyed seeing the girls’ final debut on the big screen.

“I liked it because I like relationship movies because it makes me reminisce about my own,” said Angela McClurg, 20, Des Moines, Wash. “It was a very upbeat movie, long yet enjoyable.”

‘Sex in the City’ is a Worthy Chick Flick

By Jamie Hughes

The girls are back, and this time everything’s changing.

When you see the four Malono-teers make their switch from the small screen to big screen, expect a few surprises.

In the beginning, it seems like these four New York women have closed the book on their open, sexual lifestyles. Miranda, played by Cynthia Nixon, and Charlotte, played by Kristen Davis, settled down in the series, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones who ever will or that they lead boring lives.

Charlotte experiences the least dramatic change in the movie, but she finally gets two children — everything she’s ever wanted — in two different ways.

Miranda and Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, don’t end up so lucky.  These two  both undergo drastic changes in their relationships.  Steve, Miranda’s husband, played by David Eigenberg, does the unthinkable and leaves Miranda with a broken heart and broken trust. John James Preston, aka Big, played by Chris Noth, bails out for the last time – at the altar.

And yes, Samantha may have even settled down, too.

The changes the girls make, and undo, in their lives take the movie to a higher level of excitement than the show ever did.  The overall theme isn’t about finding love anymore; it’s about losing it.

After Miranda and Carrie are both devastated, the contrast between the two characters’ coping skills highlight the underlying differences that make the characters come to life as real people.

This movie has a happy ending, if you don’t end up hating a few of the characters before you get there. And yes, it might be long, about two and a half hours, but the witty dialogue, great acting and the contemporary lesson in the human condition make it well worth the cost of admission.

Caterers Spread Food Across Campus

By Krista Leman
VERMILLION, S.D. — Sizzling on the grill, the scent of fish enveloped the kitchen. Squash and zucchini filled a tin pan to the brim and waited their turn to cook.

Laura Jones, 22, started working with Aramark as a college sophomore before working her way to the top.

Aramark not only caters for events but also is responsible for food service on the USD campus. The staff has many students who work together and have little conflict in the kitchen, she said.

“The work environment is usually pretty smooth,” Jones said. “We work well together and are there for each other.”

Her elbows placed on the buffet table, Jones explained their meals provide protein, starch and vegetables.

They pick the menus themselves with advice from the chef. With most of the plates consisting some sort of meat, it’s difficult for the workers to come up with vegetarian dishes.

“We don’t want repetitive meals,” Jones said.

Kelly Johnson, a teacher at the American Indian Journalism Institute and a vegetarian appreciates the effort made to provide variety. She said they are inventive and give good options, including seafood and vegetables.

“They’re doing better than just trying,” Johnson said. “They are actually doing it.”

If it were her choice, AIJI student Codie Wyers, 19, said she would vary the dinners and drinks.

“Not just different types of meat each night and something green,” she said.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, ingredients are shipped from Sysco, the headquarters in Houston. The company’s motto is “People and Products You Can Count on.” A plate of Aramark food can cost $11.99 to $13.99. Deserts are $2.50 to $5.

Preparation for meals is no easy task. Beef needs to be set out, marinated, primed sometimes a day in advance, and salmon is started at least five hours before being served.

Jones described serving big groups as being crazy but exciting. Their biggest event is usually the Youth Leaders Lunch-in, where they serve 700 to 1,000 people.

With its routine, Jones finds her work at times tedious but enjoyable.

“It’s nice getting to know everyone,” she said. “We remember people that return, even if they don’t realize it.”

The Story of a Garden

By Patrick L. Delabrue

Here’s flowers for you:
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,
And with him rises, weeping.
Perdita, speaking in William Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale”, act 4 sc. 4,1. 103-6

VERMILLION, S.D. — Riding the crest of a warm, summer breeze, a crescent-eyed robin lands in the birdbath that is the centerpiece of the Shakespeare Garden on the University of South Dakota campus.

It dips its head in and out of the water, drinking and singing before flying into the cloudless early June sky.

Surrounding the birdbath is a geometrically precise arrangement of 79 species of esoteric flowers and herbs.

The base color of the manicured green grass jumps over the black soil and climbs up the stems of the flowers before exploding into a multitude of whites, yellows and light purples.

A white peony bows from the top-heavy flower and the rains that fell in the previous days. Its glory is fleeting; a peony flower’s prime lasts from mid-May to mid-June.

Visitors to the garden show interest in its geometric precision and display an appreciation for the color, smell and beauty the garden offers to a person seeking respite, a quiet lunch or a few minutes with a book.

That’s what brings Sally Slama to the garden.

Slama, a secretary in academic affairs at USD, lives in Yankton and can’t go home for lunch. Instead, she comes to the garden when the weather is nice.

“I like to come and look at the flowers,” she says. “I walk around the gardens and see if there’s anything I want to add to my garden at home. It’s a nice, relaxing place to come for lunch.”

The garden’s formal dedication happened on April 23, 1988, the observed birthday of William Shakespeare.

According to the USD Web site, the idea for the Shakespeare Garden was born during a conversation between two retired professors, William O. Farber and Raphael Block.
Block was fond of the section of the Huntington Garden in San Marino, Calif., that highlights flowers, herbs and shrubs mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings. He was inspired to implement the same kind of garden on the USD campus. The USD Emeritus Club took responsibility for funding the garden’s construction and the labor and materials needed to for its maintenance.

Cindy Gehm, 51, has been in charge of maintenance and landscaping of the garden for the past 13 years.

With black soil under her fingernails, Gehm, wearing dirty jeans, a gray long-sleeve shirt and a headscarf with a print of the Rocky Mountain National Park, toiled in the garden along with supervising three summer workers to pull weeds and plant annuals.

“Shakespeare Garden has a plan,” she said. “It’s very weedy, and when your dealing with a garden that has a lot of herbs and perennials, often the perennials and herbs will look like the weeds, so I’m instructing them on what are the weeds and what needs to be kept.”

The garden’s original design was the responsibility of Joseph Hoffman, the university’s head gardener, but Gehm now oversees the garden.

“What I did three years ago has rearranged it some,” Gehm said. “Trees have grown, the soil got bad and things weren’t growing very well so I redesigned it somewhat, but I kept all the same plants.”

Gehm’s three summer workers weed and plant under the shade of Shakespeare’s trees: ash, dwarf cherry and linden.

Garden Offers Respite for Patients

By Amelia Quiroga

VERMILLION, S.D. — A red 1941 pickup sits in the middle of the Healing Garden at the Sanford Vermillion Medical Center. The truck’s flatbed complements the raised cedar flowerbed in casings that hold newly cultivated foliage waiting to bloom. A small, red barn stands at the other end, accompanied by a wooden ramada for sitting under on a warm, sunny day.

The garden is intended to give patients, visitors and staff a place for therapeutic healing and meditation. It was originally designed for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, said Gene Lunn, director of the Dakota Hospital Foundation. The 6,000-square-foot garden, unveiled Monday, is reminiscent of rural life of past decades and helps patients, many of whom were once farmers, regain some memory, he said.

One example involved a nursing home resident who was formerly a truck driver. He became worried when the garden truck’s lights came on at night to illuminate the garden, Lunn said.

“That was our first clue as to how this healing garden really works,” Lunn said. “Here’s someone sitting in the dementia unit and all of a sudden he can see that truck out there, and it brings back memories from years ago,” he said.

The garden’s healing concept also helps in rehabilitation therapy from strokes, joint replacement, heart failure and other conditions needing therapy, said Bob Brockevelt, Sanford’s rehabilitation manager. Strolling around the garden helps the patients’ motor and function skills because the patients stop, reach out and bend over, he said. The garden helps the patients’ motivation to regain strength, so they can get back home, Brockevelt said.

“They relate that to when they were at a better time in their lives,” he said. “It’s just plain motivation.”

The garden is also a place of interaction between the patients and therapists. “The more interaction they get with you, the more they trust you,” Brockevelt said. Walking around the garden and talking about the plants helps patients develop a relationship with the therapists.

The garden’s ribbon cutting ceremony was held June 16, and included speeches by Gerald Yutrzenka, president of Dakota Hospital Foundation board of directors; Amy Thiesse, director of nursing of Sanford Care Center Vermillion; Gene Lunn, Dakota Hospital Foundation director; and Timothy J. Tracy, CEO of Sanford Vermillion Medical Center.

The idea for the garden was first conceived in 2004. Funding for the garden began with a contribution from a family whose relative had received care at Sanford, Lunn said. From there, the hospital raised money from other sources.
The garden is open to the community, Lunn said.

Art Institute Director Set to Retire

By Jacquelyne Taurianen

VERMILLION, S.D. – John Day will spend the next two weeks teaching students about painting, drawing, printmaking, poetry, photography and graphic design with assistance from other professional artists, before he hangs up his training tools once and for all.

This summer marks an end to Day’s 18-year contribution as program director to the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute.

The program began in 1960 when Oscar Howe, artist and University of South Dakota professor, wanted to create a venue for Native Americans artists to advance their skills.

“He wanted to allow Native American artists to break free from stereotypical clichés of what Indian art was,” Day said. “It’s not always watercolor on paper with illusionism and traditional dances.”

Howe was determined to show students Native American art has no definition.

“He believed art is self-expression and that people shouldn’t be dictated by what to create simply because of who they are and where they come from,” Day said.

In 1970, Howe gave up his work with the institute because of poor health. The institute remained on hold until Day, a close friend, reinstated it in the summer of 1991 along with Bobby Penn, a Howe protégé.

The institute was reopened to high school and college students from all over the country “with all the principles and values that Howe established in the beginning,” Day said. “And we have been running it that way ever since.”

Day says things should change regularly in administration to keep programs ever evolving and growing for the better.  For that reason, he sees his retirement as necessary.

“I am a born anarchist,” Day said. “You attack a system that works before it becomes inbred and silly.”

He may see retirement as necessary but his time spent at the institute will not soon be forgotten.

The institute and Day have propelled multiple students to obtain college degrees and go on to be professional artists.

“This is such an important project,” Day said. “I’ve seen lives changed because of the time kids spend here.”

After four years spent transitioning out of his job as program director, Day leaves former students and faculty in charge of the Institute.
“This (summer) is the last shot at getting people in place,” he said. “We currently have a very supportive system, from both faculty at the program and at the University. I’m not worried the future of the program.”

The Dirty Work of Tracing a River’s History

By Jacquelyne Taurianen
VERMILLION, S.D.— The slow, slurping sound as she dislodges her sunken boot from the mud makes her realize she is far from home, standing in the middle of what used to be the Missouri River.

Twenty-year-old Amy Radakovich said spending her summer doing research isn’t as bad as it sounds.

“It’s one of those things you just don’t mind doing,” she said. “It’s really exciting.”

Radakovich is one of 14 students from the University of Texas-Arlington Research Project who will spend eight weeks mapping changes in nearly 40 miles of the Missouri River, from Sioux City to Yankton, S.D.

“We’re trying to teach the fundamentals of research and mapping soil and sediment of the Missouri River flood plane,” said John Holbrook, Radakovich’s instructor. “We are out here looking to see where it’s changed, how fast and why.”

Holbrook teaches a one-week class in Texas in which students learn to identify features that indicate past courses and channels of the river and other geology basics. The week is followed by a month of hands-on research in and around Vermillion.

Arrival on June 8 cut the summer months short for those participating, but one summer is nothing compared to the life lessons taught.

“The more stuff you learn, the more you know where you want to go in your career,” Radakovich said.

Selected because of its central location to the majority of research sites, Vermillion will be home to graduate and undergraduate students from various colleges and universities for the next two months. They will live at one of the town’s motels.

While the people are new every year, the program remains consistent. It has spent several summers mapping up- and down-river, following the same basic geological principles from year to year.

“They begin by looking at air photos and existing maps to try and identify old river deposits and channels,” Holbrook said. “Once they think they have a spot and the area has been cleared (for gas or electrical lines), they go out in the field with hand-drills to get a sample.”

The samples are used to determine the amount and number of changes in the Missouri River.

“It has undergone several major changes and wouldn’t be recognized as the river that Lewis and Clark had once traveled,” Holbrook said.

Radakovich and her research partner, Aaron Soultaire, 27, worked together to select points they hypothesize are old riverbed locations.

“It’s like a game,” Soultaire said. “We go out, poke a hole and hope we got it right. If not, we pick a new spot and do it all over again.”

Students will take samples drawn from each site to the University of Nebraska to confirm or refute their hypotheses.

“Ultimately, we want students to learn about research,” Holbrook said. “And this program gives them that opportunity.”

Up with Upward Bound

By Angela McClurg

VERMILLION, S.D. – Chuck Swick understands the importance of guiding high school students toward success through the Upward Bound program.

He used to be one of those students.

Now Swick, 60, is director of Upward Bound at the University of South Dakota. It’s a position he’s held since 1972.

Upward Bound is a federally funded summer program that starts in early June and ends in early July.

The program prepares students for college with courses, preparatory workshops and assisted college searches. Students live on campus, so they experience what it’s like living as a college student.

“I thought it would be fun because it got me off the reservation for six weeks,” said Pauline Jackson, 18, a senior in the program. “We don’t have a lot of outlets.”

Jackson said there is not a lot to do on the Rosebud Reservation, where she lives. There are no stores and the nearest fast-food restaurant is 30 miles away. She wants to attend a four-year college and major in business or technical administration.

Students in the program must have completed ninth grade, have a need for financial and academic support and be a first-generation college student.

The hope is the students continue their education after high school. The program offers counseling, tutoring and numerous educational and cultural activities.

“The goal is to get the kid an education,” Swick said.

Between 70 and 90 percent of students go to college after the program. Less than .09 percent drop out, Swick said.

Swick was a junior in high school when his counselor urged him to join the program.

“He twisted my arm,” Swick said. “But I thank God I ended up going. I don’t know where I would be today.”

Swick relates to many of the students he recruits. He didn’t have a lot of money and was raised by a single mother.

“My mom never went to college so I didn’t get that knowledge that comes with some parents,” he said.

Most of the students in Upward Bound are Native American, Swick said. Many of their parents never went to college, so they either don’t feel obligated to go or they don’t know how.

“This year a good number of our seniors are going to college with the Gates scholarship,” Swick said.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates funded the Gates Millennium Scholars Program with a $1 billion grant to assist minorities striving for academic excellence. Many of the students who enroll in Upward Bound come back every summer.

“We don’t lose very many,” he said.

There may be a future Upward Bound student as a new director.

“I plan on taking over when I’m older,” said Renelle White Buffalo, 20. “I don’t know what I would do without it.”

White Buffalo has been a student at the program for four years and is in her second year as a mentor.

White Buffalo has seen a change in confidence in the students she has mentored.

“They come in thinking they want to go to college not knowing they actually can,” she said.

The students who drop out of the program are people who fall in with the wrong crowd, she said.

Shania Laysbad, 18, is another senior in the bridge component part of the program. The component helps students enroll in college by teaching them how to write personal statements, research colleges and anything that can get the students on their way.

The best part about the program is making new friends, Laysbad said. Laysbad received the Gates scholarship to the University of South Dakota and will attend this fall.

“It also takes the fright of going to college away,” she said. “I want to graduate with a major in pre-med because I want to be a doctor.”

A Heaping Helping on Main Street

By Codie Wyers
VERMILLION, S.D. – Smelling of coffee and bacon, the Market Street Café has a way of hooking people in.

“The food is good,” said Tim Woehl, a regular customer at the cafe. “I come in every morning except Mondays because they’re closed or else I would be here then, too.”

Owners Gary and Crystal Monk first met by playing cribbage on the Internet. Cribbage is a card game played on a board with pegs. The object is to be the first to score 121 points or over.

“We hit it off right away,” Crystal said.

When asked who is the better cribbage player, Crystal laughed and smiled.

“I am, of course,” she said.

Gary owned a cafe in Newcastle, Neb., before he opened the cafe in Vermillion. Jim Abbott, University of South Dakota president, was a regular customer in Newcastle.

After Crystal moved to Nebraska, Abbott suggested the couple move to Vermillion and start a cafe in a building he owned.

They liked the idea and now the Market Street Café in downtown Vermillion has been open for three years.

Gary said business is good and they have had full tables of customers.

Most popular on the menu is the Good God Almighty hash browns. The cafe is known for its breakfast.

Abbott’s usual breakfast at the cafe consists of two eggs sunny-side up, whole wheat toast and orange juice.

Running a cafe has its humorous times, such as when a student employee was told to put a box of potatoes in the oven. Gary found her attempting to shove the box and all into the oven.

Gary is from Maine, but he lived in Newcastle most of his life. Crystal is from Nova Scotia.

Crystal moved from Nova Scotia to be with Gary five years ago. They have been married for three years and said they enjoy running the cafe in Vermillion.

Gary and Crystal said they are welcomed in Vermillion and love the town. Crystal said customers are happy to have the couple in Vermillion, but say they miss the scenic drive to Newcastle.

LaMere Speaks with His Hands, with Passion

Students at the American Indian Institute blog about a talk given by Frank LaMere, a superdelegate in the Democratic party and citizen of the Winnebago tribe. LaMere spoke with students at AIJI following a dinner in the Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota.

Jamie Hughes: It’s not every night someone gets to eat dinner with a superdelegate. Frank LaMere will be the chair of the Native Caucus at the Democratic National Convention this summer. However, LaMere didn’t speak about politics really, or being a superdelegate, until asked. Rather, he explained to us our responsibilities as journalists.

“Always put your best foot forward and do the right thing,” LaMere said.

LaMere also touched a point that is close to home for journalists. When Tileena Leighton, a fellow student, asked him why he wanted to make a difference, he told us he grew up with a healthy disrespect for authority.

He said this wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but he had seen how his people were treated by law enforcement and didn’t like it.

This reminded me of what I have been reminded of since I was 15. The media is a watchdog over the government. We, as journalists, must always be skeptical.

Codie Wyers: LaMere is a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and has accomplished many things in his life. He has led a grass-roots effort in Sioux City that led to the passage of the Iowa Indian Child Welfare Act in 2003; he works for the Casey-Center for the Study of Social Policy Alliance in Woodbury County, and also is a superdelegate.

By doing all of these things LaMere has a way of inspiring not only Native Americans but also people of all races. It seems at times impossible to help people and actually make a change, but LaMere has a way of making it seem possible, not only through his speeches but his actions as well.

Krista Leman: With passion, his hands helped tell his stories. LaMere worked hard to help Native people and push issues into the open. His voice cracked and his eyes watered as he talked about helping Indian children and their struggles with child welfare. He is a fearless man with nobility and the will to make changes for Natives.

M. J. Casiano: LaMere spoke of views on today’s indigenous people and his life. He even told everyone his definition of a superdelegate. “A superdelegate is seeing to give voice to native people and to impact he process that governs our lives,” he said.
Natasha Kaye Johnson: I remembered this man was a super delegate, one of only four Native American super delegates, at that. As he tried his best to hold back his tears, I wondered how his demeanor was when he publically addressed other politicians. Did he cry when he talked about the hardships our people still endure today? How did he talk to non-Natives? Pull yourself together, I thought. Maybe he felt safe there with a bunch of young students. Or perhaps it something else. Maybe he wanted us to understand the power of storytelling and the oral tradition, and the best way to do this was sharing personal stories of struggle and defeat.

Natasha Kaye Johnson: I remembered this man was a super delegate, one of only four Native American super delegates, at that.  As he tried his best to hold back his tears, I wondered how his demeanor was when he publically addressed other politicians.  Did he cry when he talked about the hardships our people still endure today? How did he talk to non-Natives?  Pull yourself together, I thought. Maybe he felt safe there with a bunch of young students. Or perhaps it something else.  Maybe he wanted us to understand the power of storytelling and the oral tradition, and the best way to do this was sharing personal stories of struggle and defeat.

‘I Have Always Wanted My Own Salon’

By Codie Wyers
VERMILLION, S.D. – Waxing off half a girl’s eyebrow two weeks before her wedding and accidently coloring a customer’s hair pink were the beginning of Amy McComsey’s career as a stylist.

“Yes, it was bad,” she said. “But they still came back to me.”

McComsey is the owner of Amy’s Whoopti Do Hair Salon. Open for three years on Sept. 12, the salon has customers that come in regularly.

“My oldest customer is 96. She comes in every Friday morning at 10 and brings me goodies along with the ‘Enquirer’,” McComsey said with a smile.

McComsey said she came up with the salon’s name after getting ideas from the Internet.

“I am a fun person so I wanted a fun name,” she said.  “I have had customers come in and say they stopped by just because they liked the name.”

As McComsey cut her husband’s hair with rhythm and flow, she began to talk about her seven-year career as a hairstylist.

The humming of the hair clippers sounded like music flowing with the movements of McComsey’s hands.

Originally from Onida, S.D., McComsey’s desire to be a hairstylist began at an early age.

“I was always cutting my Barbie dolls hair off,” she said.

After high school, McComsey attended the Lake Area Technical Institute’s cosmetology program in Watertown, S.D. It is a 15-month program–three months are for training, and 12 are for practicing on customers.

“It takes 2,100 hours of training to be licensed in South Dakota,” McComsey said.

After finishing at the institute, McComsey moved to Vermillion to work at the Vermillion Beauty Shop. She worked there for four and a half years.

McComsey said she loved her work so much she decided to open her own hair salon.

“I didn’t want to work under someone else and I have always wanted my own salon,” she said.

McComsey said she enjoys coloring hair the most. She does foil, all over color, and pulls through a cap.

Her least favorite thing to do is updos for events such as prom and other celebrations, but McComsey said she still does it and puts 110 percent into every updo.

“I have always wanted to be a hairstylist,” McComsey said. “I have never wanted to do anything else.”

Art Institute Teaches Native Principles

By Angela McClurg
VERMILLION, S.D.  – The Oscar Howe Institute brings a new image to the traditional style of Native artwork, a popular, growing field.

Oscar Howe founded the institute in the 1960s to teach young Natives how to incorporate their culture in art. Howe was an art professor at the University of South Dakota and a well-known Native American artist.

Kieth Braveheart, 25, has attended the institute for seven years and is now the program coordinator.

Braveheart said Native artwork is ready to “blow up a new scene” and turn in a new direction.

“It’s not going to be the same old picture of an Indian with a feather,” Braveheart said.

It’s important to change the view of Native Americans, he said. Instead of having a white man identify Native culture from a book and tell the sad story of Native people in United States history, Natives need to identify themselves, Braveheart said.

“We need to gain back control,” he said.

It’s not easy teaching the students about Native artwork when many don’t know about their heritage.

Dan Dismounts, 17, from the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota, said he doesn’t know much about his culture but is eager to learn. Dismounts art teacher recommended he apply to the institute.

“I plan on becoming a graphic designer,” Dismounts said. “It seems like it would be fun to learn another form of artwork.”

Jimmy Black Spotted Horse, 17, is also from the Rosebud Sioux tribe and said he knows a little bit about his culture.

“Most of it is just history,” he said.

Many of the students draw their artwork from interests and not necessarily their heritage.

Gerard Desheuqu, 18, from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said art calms him down.

“I just draw anything,” Dismounts said. “I learned how to draw skulls.”

The popularity and value of Oscar Howe’s artwork has inspired other Native artists to pursue careers as full-time artists.

Linda Boyd, manager and founder of the Prairie Star Art Gallery in Sioux Falls, sells handcrafted artwork from more than 900 Native American families.

Crafts in her store range from the $1 popcorn to $20,000 paintings, including works by  Howe.

“I have become like a local Indian service,” Boyd said.

Rob Tigert, the manager of the Tigert art gallery in Vermillion, keeps a stock of Howe’s work.

“They sell well,” Tigert said. “I get a lot of requests for them.”

One of Howe’s most famous pieces, “Woman Scalp Dancer,” retails for $60,000 on askart.com.

Don Montileaux, 60, from the Oglala Sioux tribe, is a full-time artist. He is nationally known for his ledger artwork, a traditional style of Native art, in which Indians would trade goods for ledger books and draw on the pages as a type of diary and to catalog their history.

“This old artwork is taking a brand new form,” said Montileaux who teaches at the institute. “These are young guys and girls all presenting it in a new way [and] with their own influence.

“It is easy, it is simple, but it’s still a traditional form of artwork.”

Montileaux describes his effort to teach these students as a lifelong experience.

“Give somebody a fish, feed them for a day. Teach them how to fish, feed them for a lifetime,” he said. “I teach them the basics and how to present their artwork to a show… so I’m teaching them to feed themselves for a lifetime.”

Veterans Outspoken About Views

By Ethan Williams

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — On the corner of one of the city’s busiest intersections, St. Louise Avenue and 41st Street, Vietnam veteran James Wainscoat sits in a lawn chair under an Army Special Forces cap and a blue-and-white umbrella in front his pewter Chevy suburban. With Hillary Clinton signs staked in the grass on either side if him, he waves at people who honk and chant, “Hillary, Hillary,” as they drive past.

Veterans make up about 13 percent of the voting population and are some of the hardest people to poll, with military regulations that limit the expression of political opinion of enlistees and restrict access to governmental veteran agencies.

“I judge first for commander in chief,” Wainscoat, 67, said of voting. “She shows a tenacious spirit of a warrior. I look for a warrior’s heart; you don’t have to be in combat to have that.

“That gal’s like Joan of Arc. I’ll follow her down to hell.”

A mile-and-a-half west down 41st Street, Navy Vietnam veteran Judy Baxter makes Democratic National Committee get-out-the-vote calls at the Obama headquarters in comfy green sweats.

Obama “strikes me as a man who listens,” she said, while avoiding local television camera crews because of her attire. He’s open to mentoring, she said.

“This man is coming from nowhere,” Baxter, 64, said. And all the Democrats are eager to help him.

Baxter said Obama is smart enough to know that he doesn’t have military experience.
He made a believer out of very cynical politicians, she said.

Unlike Wainscoat and Baxter, active duty members of the military are restrained by Defense Department Directive 1334.10.

At the Army National Guard Armory, Sgt. 1st Class Ted Deloy described his daughter as an avid campaigner.  As a uniformed soldier, he is not supposed to openly support any candidate, although he has a strong belief in one party.

Voting is a right and duty of every American, Army National Guard Capt. Tom Krull said.  We are choosing our commander in chief, he said.

For veterans out of uniform, their political opinion in uncensored.

“Hillary is a real treasure,” he said.  She’s made mistakes, but she learns from them, she said.

“The only thing going for Obama is he’s a good-looking black man,” he said. “Obama is an unknown. A good place for him is vice president.”

On the other hand Baxter was open to the prospect of Clinton as president.

“Hillary sounds tougher than any of the guys,” she said.  Clinton would make a capable commander in chief.

She said either Obama or Clinton would get the United States out of Iraq.  “They’ll do it intelligently,” Baxter said.

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