John Williams: Life is Sweet . . . upon the seat of a bicycle built from two

By Kaija Swisher

Whether running up Spearfish Canyon, disc-golfing around BHSU, or biking to the Crow Peak Brewery, John Williams is familiar with the adventure the area has to offer.  “There’s an abundance here to partake in,” says the 2002 Spearfish High School and 2007 BHSU grad.  “I love to hike, bike, run, camp, backpack, disc golf, rock climb—there are so many activities that I sometimes have to cut some out!”  John keeps on the lookout for anything unique and different, full of fun and adventure, and has set the bar at least twice as high through his most recent activity: tall biking.   

Seated up on a tall bike built of two bicycle frames stacked on top of each other, John finds that most people give second or third looks as they try to figure out what they are seeing.  He has begun to anticipate the four main questions he gets from people about the bike: How the heck do you get on?  How do you get off?  Doesn’t it hurt when you fall off?  Why would you build something like this?  John is ready with the answers, and patiently explains and shows people the basics.  “If you can imagine having to get on a horse, you have a stirrup you have to step into, which is a little over your knee level,” he says.  “When you are getting on the bike, the pedal in down position is at about the same place.”

Jerry and Elaine Doll Dunn: Racing Hearts

By Danie Koskan

In love and running, sometimes you have to go the distance.

It was the fall of 1993, and 47-year-old Jerry Dunn was in the thick of a year-long endeavor to run 104 marathons when he found himself at the starting line of the Mount Rushmore International Marathon.

It was just another race. Jerry lived by the same schedule week after week: Work four days back home in Indiana, fly out to the next race, run, fly back and start the whole thing over again.

There was little time for anything else — romance included. Besides, he’d been married before, and marriage hadn’t worked out too well.

South Dakota seemed an unlikely place for second chances. But there she was.

Elaine Doll was something of a local running icon, having earned the name “Wonder Woman” for her post-40 athletic achievements.

The two runners exchanged pleasantries. Jerry was smitten. Sure, geography posed a problem, but he wasn’t about to let Elaine get away.

“I figured it was all or nothing,” Jerry said of his dogged determination to woo Wonder Woman.

Elaine eventually agreed to a date.

The fairy tale ending didn’t immediately follow. Elaine soon learned she had bladder cancer, but she didn’t take the disease lying down. She beat cancer. Jerry, however, wasn’t as easy to shake. He wanted to marry her.

Elaine had been widowed and divorced, raised seven children and now relished her newfound freedom. The single life suited her. Marriage, even to a great guy like Jerry, could change all that.

Jerry persisted and changed her mind.

The promise of unconditional love, Elaine said, “was a big draw.”

Less than two years after their first marathon encounter, the couple wed on the run. In true Dunn fashion, they went the distance and ran the Walt Disney World Marathon on their wedding day. Ten miles into their 26.2-mile undertaking, they stopped to exchange vows in front of Cinderella’s Castle.

(Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘09 FACES)

Will Collins: Tour of Dreams

By Bill Schulz

It was twenty feet, just twenty feet . . .  Wil Collins faced the biggest putt of his life and would soon realize the fulfillment of his lifelong dream, and he didn’t even know it.

Born on August 24, 1978, Wil grew up on Nicklaus Drive in Rapid City just a short distance from Arrowhead Country Club. At age two he would play in the yard with his plastic golf clubs. At age five he would win his first golf tournament using an adult golf club his Dad had sawed down for him. As chronicled in the Rapid City Journal,

Wil Collins of Rapid City was the four-hole champion at Meadowbrook Golf Course. Collins Is only five years old, but captured the eight-to-14-year-olds’ four-hole division at the course on Wednesday…Collins says he’s not quite sure if he likes golf enough yet to turn professional.

The uncertainty ended three years later during the 1986 Masters when Wil realized that he did indeed want to be a pro golfer. “I went to my father’s work with him on Sunday morning. I remember watching Nicklaus make his back nine charge to overcome Greg Norman and others. When Nicklaus won, I had goose bumps cover my body; I still get them now even as I recall that moment.”

Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘09 FACES

Learning Curve: Rock Climbing 101 – Partners in Climb

 By James Van Nuys

My eyes popped open at 3:30 AM. It was the Fourth of July and it was the last day of my life. I suspected that my Maker had “issues” with some of the things I had done but I knew that a detailed confession of my sins would make me several weeks late for my appointment, so I just said, “Sorry–for everything,” and got out of bed. On the last day of your life even the most mundane objects assume an unaccountable poignance–your pillow, your toothbrush, your pile of dirty laundry; all these inanimate bits of the universe suddenly seem like your best friends as you bid them farewell. Even the llama in your front yard (don’t ask) is bathed in an ineffable radiance of nostalgia and you regretfully ask yourself: “Why did I not treat it with more sympathy and understanding?” Too late for all that; you are going rock climbing today.

 Rock climbing. Surely this was the most dangerous of the “Learning Curve” assignments I’d gotten myself into–but did it actually meet the criteria of a Learning Curve? These articles are supposed to involve something you haven’t done before; something outside your comfort zone. But hadn’t I been climbing since I was a few months old?

Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘09 FACES

Cover Story: Terra’s Territory – Terra Houska’s job is a walk in the woods

Terra Houska was in college when she heard the slang term “skins” for the first time.
”I had no idea what they were talking about. I asked, ‘what tribe is that?’” she says, breaking into a smile that brings out the dimples in her cheeks.

“I guess I was pretty naïve.”

It’s mid-June, and Terra and I are enjoying burgers at the Firehouse in downtown Rapid City. She’s on a tight schedule, breaking for lunch from the weeklong Forest Protection Training Program she’s attending in Rapid City. Technically, this training means she will be authorized to conduct limited enforcement activities in the forest like issuing warnings and violation notices.  In other words, if she catches me cutting down my Christmas tree on Inyan Kara Mountain in the Wyoming Black Hills without a permit, she can bust me for it.

Between bites of our burgers, we’re jumping around among topics–her family, her job as a wildlife biologist trainee for the U.S. Forest Service, her athletic endeavors, her roots both on and off the reservation.

If Terra is naïve, it is a naivety of the refreshing kind, born of an attitude that instinctively finds the positive in everything she encounters. After spending only a few minutes with this exotic-looking 29-year-old woman of Bohemian and Sioux descent, one thought comes to mind: here sits one contented and happy person. She has an understated zest for life that is contagious–a quiet yet powerful energy that makes you want to sit up straighter in your chair just being around it. She’s accomplished things, met goals—oftentimes against the odds. She’s a role model for Natives and non-Natives alike, though she’s much too polite and humble to ever bring that much attention to herself.

Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘09 FACES