The Many Faces of Lisa White Face

It’s midnight on any day of the week.  Do you know where your kids are?  Not where they said they were going, but where they truly are?

Keeping your kids safe is one of Rapid City Police officer Lisa White Face’s most important missions.  It is her job, certainly, but it’s also a passion that drives her life—and its roots go way back three decades ago to the Pine Ridge Reservation where she grew up.

“It’s sad to say this but many of the kids I grew up with are either dead from the effects of alcohol or suicide, or in prison. Most of the kids I started school with didn’t even make it to graduation,” Lisa says.

Lisa was born in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Reservation to Lakota parents Lenora Apple and Barny White Face.  Her mother, originally from Kyle, was a teacher, and her dad, from Porcupine, was chief of police. “I had three older sisters and one younger brother, then when my dad remarried there were eleven of us,” she says.

Among Lisa’s favorite memories of her childhood was time spent at her grandma’s house.  “We would go stay with my grandma’s and sleep under the stars.  I loved it there,” she recalls.  A typical day there would include all-day play and fishing—and for young Lisa, who had an early aptitude for all things mechanical, it often meant taking something apart and putting it back together again. “I remember we had this toy tractor and I was always fixing it,” she says, with a grin.

(Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘08 FACES)

Learning Curve: Kayaking with Kaija (& Kelly)

Though my name has often been associated with the word, ‘kayak,’ it has nothing to do with my ability to kayak.  Using it to help people understand the pronunciation of my name (minus the final k), kayak was even a nickname of mine through middle school.  So, it wasn’t too much of a surprise when the FACES staff thought it would be fun to have me write a Learning Curve about kayaking.  With the close connection of the word to my name, plus my spirit of jumping right into unknown adventure, I enthusiastically agreed, having no idea exactly what type of learning discovery awaited. 

Though the day of the appointed kayak lesson dawned bright, as time drew nearer, clouds loomed ominously in the distance.  I dressed in plenty of non-cotton apparel, figuring that by the end of the day, I would be soaked from the amazing tricks and rolls I would be sure to accomplish, but drying quickly in the rays of glory I’d receive for my success.  With a name like Kaija, kayaking had to come naturally, right?  The approaching thunderhead couldn’t dampen my confidence. Kelly Lane, of Rapid City, was to be my kayaking guide for the day, and when I pulled up to his house, I could tell that he had been involved in sports for a long time.  His garage looks like a sporting goods store, filled with a variety of shapes and sizes of kayaks, skis, and many other accessories and gear with which to enjoy the outdoors.

(Read the rest of this story in Summer 2008 FACES)

Mick Harrison: Cowboys on Canvas

William Faulkner said that the past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.  South Dakota painter Mick Harrison would agree with that observation.  Mick was there when they buried Sitting Bull.  Maybe not the first time, but certainly when the bones of the great Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and chief were reinterred near Mobridge in 1953.  Mick remembers the event vividly.  The local dignitaries, the old cowboys and especially the Lakota, there in full regalia.  Some of those present had quite likely been with Sitting Bull at the Little Big Horn. That proximity to history, the immediate presence of the past, has much to do with the inspiration for Mick Harrison’s paintings.

Growing up in Mobridge, Mick felt that history all around him.  Mobridge was founded near the site of Evarts, or Old Evarts,  as it is known by locals, and  Evarts had been one of the great railheads for shipping cattle from the Western range to Eastern markets.  Big outfits like the Matador, the H A T, Turkey Track, the H O and others sent thousands of head of cattle across the Cheyenne and Standing Rock Reservations toward Evarts on a six-mile wide, eighty-mile long strip that had been leased from the tribes by the Milwaukee Railroad.  The land that became his grandfather’s ranch sat just at the end of that strip, west, across the Missouri from Mobridge. Mick worked summers for his grandfather, and the ghosts of the old cowboy days always rode near.

(Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘08 FACES)

M.J. Adams – Queen of Cuisine

Funny how you can put two people together–two virtual strangers who spent some or all of their formative years on South Dakota soil–and they feel like instant friends.  This was how it felt when I met executive chef and restaurateur M.J. Adams face to face for the first time.

I knew her by reputation, of course, having enjoyed three or four memorable evenings at her Corn Exchange Restaurant and Bistro in downtown Rapid City during the past decade.  In my stay-at-home-mom life of housework and child-rearing, the Corn Exchange was reserved for landmark birthdays or anniversaries, and I recall these nights as delightful forays into the grown-up, cosmopolitan world of gourmet cuisine—light-years away from happy meals and the mac, cheese ‘n peas impromptu casseroles of my kid-filled kitchen across town.

Looking back on these rare evenings of escape, I remember sampling the sumptuous food  at a simply yet tastefully set table in the colorful and eclectic dining room and wondering about the seemingly mysterious M.J., whose presence was made known only through the clatter and chatter of her nearby kitchen, which, though out of sight, was clearly at the center of the Corn Exchange fine dining experience. 

(Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘08 FACES)

Donnie Williams: Musician with a Mission

Confront your fears; that’s what everyone says. As a guitarist, what scares me most is being on stage with Donny Williams, so I figured maybe the best way to deal with it would be to write an article about him. Why do my knees get shaky when Donny grabs a guitar? Well, there’s his blinding speed; he can play so fast that only dogs can hear it. He once told me he learned to play fast because some club owners “paid by the note.” Then there’s his singing; one minute he’s got a powerful rock and roll growl and the next minute he’s singing “Sons of the Pioneers” harmonies like a choirboy, plus he can scat along with his improvised guitar solos like George Benson. Then there’s the Walter Brennan impression I promised not to tell anyone about. But despite his awesome technical abilities the main thing that makes Donny a great entertainer is the way he looks when he’s playing; the smile on his face, the twinkle in his blue eyes, the pure joy and love of music that come through in his performances.

(Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘08 FACES)