A sacred space marks a new chapter for community healing

RAPID CITY – The long-awaited sculpture installation and the official naming of the Beverly Stabber Warne Memorial Plaza was held on Saturday May 31, 2025, at the Remembering the Children Memorial on the west side of Rapid City on the site of the Rapid City Indian Boarding School property (1898 to 1933).

About 200 people came to celebrate and have the one chance to walk the path as the site remains closed to the public with the exception of posted public events. The day was characterized by beautiful, sunny, warm weather, with a slight breeze providing an ideal setting for the occasion.

While the project may have taken longer than anticipated, according to Amy Sazue Executive Director of Remembering the Children Memorial, she said she couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome. “We had to enter into lots of legal agreements, lots of different partners and stakeholders and so it did take a little bit longer, but the integrity of everything that we did remained intact,” she said. “The inclusion of the outside voices and people in the community who wanted to be a part of it remained a goal of ours and something we incorporated the whole way.”

The sculpture, called Tiwahe which means “immediate family” in Lakota, depicts six people standing in a circle. Sculptor Dale Lamphere explained Tiwahe as Sazue knelt at the base. “You’ll notice four alcoves down below at the base. That is an area to hold lighted sage” said Lamphere as Sazue lit sage in the alcove. “The smoke rises up through the 50 stars at the top which represent the 50 plus children that died at the boarding school. The smoke rises through the sculpture lifting their spirits back up.” At night, light from within the sculpture shines into the sky from the 50 plus stars that are cut into the dome. Lamphere said these elements had been incorporated at the instruction of elders. He said that many people had helped in one way or another. “Over the past 4 years, literally more than a 100 people laid hands on this sculpture.”

Sazue told Native Sun News Today that this is one of many events that they hope to hold at the plaza. “In a few weeks, we’ll be installing custom made benches on site.” There are already a few benches along the path, but Sazue said these will be custom made by Marty Two Bulls Jr. They are currently working on signage that they will install in June. They are planning to hold the eighth annual Remembering the Children Memorial Walk on Saturday September 27 at which time they will unveil the plaza that is dedicated to Warne.

Sazue said they will have another sculpture installation. “This is a really exciting component to this project,” said Sazue, “and that is the apprenticeship that we developed with Dale.” Derek Santos was the first apprentice who worked under Lamphere. The installation in the fall will be Santos’. Sazue said she’s excited to continue the program. “Dale has agreed to a long-term partnership with us to allow people to use the studio to do stuff, to do work, really, again, building the capacity in the Indian community to do this kind of stuff ourselves.”

The Indian boarding school system was developed by the federal government to assimilate the Indigenous, by forcibly abducting children from their families and sending them to distant boarding schools, far away from any family influence, where they were stripped of their identities. Many children were beaten, starved and abused. A federal report released last year estimated that more than 900 Indigenous children died in these schools.

Disease was widespread. The Rapid City Indian Boarding School, like the other boarding schools, lacked sufficient resources to employ more than a part-time physician and could only provide basic medical care. This was an era before antibiotics and only a few vaccines existed. The boarding school environment proved especially hazardous due to inadequate sanitation protocols, poor health practices, and insufficient medical resources.

So far, there are the 50 names of those known to have died at the Rapid City Boarding School. But because of the inadequate record keeping – the school kept minimal records of the deaths of students, rarely recorded causes of death, and made no effort to record the disposition of the students’ remains – it’s difficult to find the location of the remains of children.

“So, we do have the 50 names already, but we do have more that we are currently researching. I work my best before we publish anything. But we have two that are pretty close to confirmation and then about six more that we are trying to assess.”

For now, the public is being asked to respect that the organizers are in the final stages regarding tribal agreements, some safety and emergency issues, as well as signage. People are asked to refrain from visiting or trespassing on the site when no one is on site. “Doing so helps us protect the space, ensure safety, and uphold the agreements being made with the sovereign Tribal Nations who have stewardship over this sacred place.”

Once the path is open to the public, there will be signage to let people know the sensitive nature of the memorial path and to remind them to avoid cutting across. “There is an anomaly here on site that is not identified and marked because we don’t want to bring attention right now,” said Sazue, “but I am working with the Tribes on how we do protect that spot and make sure that it’s forever safe.”

The original boarding school property extended from what is now Mountain View Road in the east to Canyon Lake in the southwest and includes the extent of the National Guard training facility. It encompassed Camp Rapid, Sioux Park, Stevens High school, West Middle School, and the Catholic Church across from Canyon Lake.

The entire memorial encompasses 25 acres of land. The trail from the plaza to the top of the hill is about a half mile. Sazue said once it’s open, people should take their time on the trail. “Turn around and look, from the vantage point at the top corner. You can look to the left and see Baken Park and then look to the right and see Canyon Lake. And then you can get a sense of just how big this campus was.”

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