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Tribal chairman seeks better collaboration on deadly storms [1]
['Joshua Haiar', 'More From Author', '- January']
Date: 2023-01-12
PIERRE — A tribal chairman said Thursday that better collaboration is needed among tribal and state officials on deadly storms.
Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Chairman Peter Lengkeek delivered the annual State of the Tribes address to lawmakers at the Capitol in Pierre.
“A single life lost is one too many,” he said. “If we are able to collaborate and work in partnership successfully in the future, we must address and correct the dynamics of our relationship, so that the lives of all South Dakotans are protected.”
Lengkeek said nine deaths occurred when two winter storms hit the Rosebud Reservation last month. The fatalities included a 12-year-old boy with health problems who couldn’t be reached in time by emergency responders, an elderly man found bundled up in his home who’d frozen to death, and a man who froze to death in a ditch, according to Rosebud officials.
Lengkeek referenced the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s disaster declaration during the storm, as well as declarations by the Crow Creek and Oglala Sioux tribes. He said the declarations were meant to raise awareness.
“But emergency services were slow to act,” Lengkeek said.
The Rosebud Sioux Tribe issued its disaster declaration Dec. 16. The Noem administration has said it was responsive to tribal requests and communicated with Rosebud officials during the storms. Gov. Kristi Noem activated the National Guard on Dec. 22 to help with efforts on the Rosebud Reservation.
On another topic, Lengkeek said mental health and substance-abuse services for youth need attention.
“The only way we can change this is by working together,” Lengkeek said.
Calls for more respect were also a theme of the speech.
Lengkeek said schools should teach the history and culture of the tribes in South Dakota.
“There are a lot of South Dakotans who do not understand the history of the nine tribes within our state’s boundaries,” Lengkeek said. “Oceti Sakowin history is South Dakota history.”
The Legislature too often entertains and gets caught up in manufactured cultural conflicts like critical race theory, according to Lengkeek.
“We need to address the biases that have existed for generations,” he said.
The speech also touched on a new effort to honor tribal veterans with a monument.
During World War I and World War II, hundreds of tribal members from South Dakota served in the U.S. military, using their Native language to send covert messages. They were known as “code talkers.”
Lengkeek and other tribal leaders are calling on lawmakers to fund a monument to honor code talkers during the current legislative session, which began Tuesday and continues until March. The total budget for the project comes to about $850,000, according to a presentation to the State-Tribal Relations Committee after the speech.
The monument would feature the names of the code talkers on a large slab of granite carved in the shape of South Dakota, with renderings of their medals on the other side, and be located on the Capitol grounds.
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[1] Url:
https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2023/01/12/tribal-chairman-seeks-better-collaboration-on-deadly-storms/
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