Principal is hoping to build on Community Night

RAPID CITY – Central High School sponsored a Community Night on Tuesday evening for the families and students of Central High School and North Middle School eighth grade students. The evening featured a meal, local organizations who were offering their services and information and a presentation from TEDx motivational speaker Jake Danielson.

Terry Lundeen, the principal of Central High School said this is the first year they have sponsored the Community Night. “What we are trying to do is connect our students and families to support that is available within the community,” said Lundeen. “A lot of the organizations that are here might not be known. Anytime we have a family potentially in crisis we want to know who they can reach out to for support. We also want to, as an educational facility, open our doors to the community to work together. We all want the same thing. We want students to be safe. We want their students to be successful in school and we know that school is a gateway to any options you can have in life. We know that we have to work together with people in order to make that happen.”

Now in his second year as principal, Lundeen spoke about the impetus for Community Night. “I was surprised that we didn’t have as many culturally specific events, so we are trying to push into that. I grew up on a reservation myself so it’s a comfortable conversation for me.” Lundeen grew up in Polson Montana on the Flathead Indian Reservation which is home to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes.

“Forty-eight percent of our student body is white, so we have some room to grow in being more culturally responsive. The majority of our students are Native American. That means that 52-percent of our students are diverse in some way. About 20 percent of our student body identify as Native American only.” Lundeen said another 18 percent or so may identify as Native American and another ethnicity and then 10 percent are Hispanic. “We are really a coinflip here and it’s a beautiful thing when you walk down the hallway. It’s probably the thing that we should celebrate most often at Central – our diversity.”

Lundeen said their goal is to begin a regular interaction with the community. “We are just trying to get as many people into the building as possible to develop more trust and open the conversation to find out how we can support each other.”

Some of the organizations that were offering services and information included NDN Collective, Oglala Lakota College, The Journey Museum, I am Legacy, and 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Martina Martinez is the program manager for the Great Plains 988 Tribal Response. “We work with the nine tribes to raise awareness about the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline services. We do trainings, we do presentations, and in May we’ll be holding a crisis response intervention training for first responders.”

She said they work closely with the Helpline and do a lot of outreach. “Last year the calls coming in were for mental health disorders, domestic violence and suicide, in that order and suicide came in third when it has usually been first.” She attributed some of that to more people learning that 988 is not just suicide assistance but also crisis resources for family members.

The program is federally funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), one of the many federal agencies targeted for major funding cuts, layoffs to probationary employees and the dismantling of regional offices. Martinez confirmed that they have lost some staff due to the cuts. “Our grant is for two years, and we are now in our second year. I was told that if we get the money, they can’t take it back but we know that there is that possibility. I was told that they are going to reframe SAMHSA. So, it won’t be SAMHSA anymore it will be something else.” She did say the future isn’t clear.

Another vendor offering a wide range of services to the community, like after school activities, is The Institute of I.ndigenous Am.erica’s Legacy, or I.Am.Legacy for short. This native-led nonprofit organization in Rapid City provides healing for individuals who have experienced a traumatic event.

Founder Erik Bringswhite said that the community needs to address the rate of incarceration. “If we could slow the rate of incarceration. There are alternatives to being prosecuted and confined that we used before colonization.”

Bringswhite is a former gang member who experienced incarceration. His is an important perspective of trauma, addiction, abuse, hardship and healing that is invaluable to those at risk and needing help.

Principal Lundeen said that they were excited to be able to host Jake Danielson. Danielson has a full-time job as a graduation coach for the Office of Indian Education. “He helps students reach graduation and he works only with our Native American students,” said Lundeen.

But Danielson is also an exceptional and well-known professional speaker who won a spot in the Inaugural TEDxWestminster 2025 event held March 8 in Westminster, Maryland. TEDx is a grass roots initiative created in the spirit of TED’s overall mission to research and discover “ideas worth spreading.” TEDx brings the spirit of TED to local communities through the TEDx events.

The theme of the Westminster event was ‘What Now, Neighbor?,’ an exploration of how small and large acts of kindness, dialogue and understanding can transform the local community and the broader world.

Danielson said for Community Night he wanted to talk again about the message he gave to his freshman students at the beginning of the year. “Every single decision that you make matters. I know a lot of us, we are getting older, and I know that we feel like the wheels are just turning and you might be asking yourself what you are even doing anymore.”

He acknowledged that life is difficult and can begin to feel like a hopeless, repetitive grind. “But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about being the best possible versions of yourselves, outside of work, because the majority of your life is spent outside of work. Most of us, all we think about is what we’re going to do for work, how we’re going to pay our bills and how we’re going to take care of ourselves. But there is so much more to life than that.”

Danielson grew up at Pine Ridge. He watched friends and relatives living in despair. But he had everything going for him – playing on the college basketball team and getting on the honor roll. He had a job, money and friends. And then attempted suicide. “I was 21 years old when I tried to take my own life. Being from Pine Ridge, I knew what it was like to struggle. I watched my friends struggle with addiction, struggle with alcohol, people I cared about were dead. I watched people drop out of school. I watched people who didn’t have homes. What did I have to complain about. I had it all, so I didn’t feel like I had a right to complain about it. So, I never told anyone what I was going through and eventually that weight was too hard to carry.”

Danielson said he was in a treatment facility in Sioux Falls where his family and friends came to visit him every day. He realized he had support and resources. “I learned that it was okay for me to struggle even though my life is good.”

He said it has still been difficult the last three years. Life is kind of like that. “But what I have been able to do the last three years that has changed my life was me waking up every single day and asking myself ‘What’s a little thing I can do today to make things better?,’ and now I’m doing things that I never imagined I would be doing three years ago.”

Danielson said it’s the little steps you take every day that can make a difference.

If you missed Danielson’s presentation at Community Night, he said the presentation he gave at Chadron College in 2024 is very similar and available on YouTube.

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

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