By Frank Van Nuys

For most of us South Dakotans, Latvia is one of seemingly dozens of little countries we colored in on a map of Europe during our Middle School career, perhaps memorizing its capital city (Riga), before moving on to the unit on South America. I mean, who ever came here from Latvia? As it turns out, well, not too many people at all. Yet, of the few Latvians who have made South Dakota their new home, a disproportionate number were doctors. Among them is the beloved Dr. Paul Dzintars, who with his wife Rida, came to the state in 1954.

I first met and interviewed the Dzintars about a year ago while serving as curator for an exhibit on immigrants in the Black Hills for the Journey Museum. Their incredible story surfaced as a brilliant example of the arrival in South Dakota of persons displaced by the traumatic events of World War II and the Cold War. Before we get to that part of the story, however, a little geographical and historical background is in order – regarding both Latvia and the Dzintars.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring ’10 FACES)

By Danie Koskan

Don’t be surprised if one day you hear about a small town South Dakota girl making it big in Nashville. Fifteen-year-old Keenie Word has the pipes to go far and the patience to wait for her time in the spotlight. The Hermosa teenager credits God for those pipes and hopes to honor God by using her voice to encourage and challenge her listeners. “I want to do God’s will,” she says.

That’s a pretty grown-up statement for a high school freshman, but then again, this promising young songstress often acts older than she is.  Keenie blames it on spending so much time during her formative years exclusively in the company of grown-ups. “When I was little, I was always around adults,” she reflects.

Keenie’s family has always been steeped in ranching and rodeo, so Keenie grew up around stock shows and rodeos. Her late father, Grady Word, was a respected cattleman and cowboy, and her brother, Jess Tierney, competes on the pro rodeo circuit.

Rodeo gave Keenie her first taste of stardom. She was 3 when the organizers of the first rodeo in which she competed invited to her sing the national anthem. Keenie may have been small, but she certainly wasn’t shy. She walked right up to the microphone and belted out her own rendition of the patriotic song. “She sang, ‘Hosea, can you see?’ ” Kellie Word smiles, looking back at her daughter’s first performance, “And she’s been hooked to the microphone ever since.”

(Read the rest of this story in Spring ’10 FACES)

By Darla Drew Lerdal

“Good Morning Mr. Phelps,

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to change the face of engineering in South Dakota and in the process reinvent higher education for American Indian students across the United States. If you are successful, you will restructure the foundation of higher learning throughout the country.”

This mission has, in fact, been accepted—not by Mission Impossible’s Jim Phelps but by South Dakot’s Stacy Phelps.  Stacy, with the support of Governor Rounds and State Secretary of Education Tom Oster, is positioning himself to restructure higher education for Native students.  If his transformative ideas succeed for Indian Country, he may have also discovered the remedy for higher education problems all across the United States. Stacy Phelps could be the best thing to happen to education in decades.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring ’10 FACES)

“Carpet Diem” by James Van Nuys

I met them three years ago, shortly after I opened my gallery on Seventh Street in downtown Rapid City. At that time the economy was on the endangered species list but had not yet become extinct so I had a little money available for improvements. I was renting the building and didn’t want to spend much but the carpet looked as though the previous tenants had been doing oil changes on it and it really had to be replaced. I bought carpeting from a local dealer, who told me that he had a couple of installers he regularly worked with. He would send them over to do an estimate on the installation cost.

At the appointed time two women showed up. I was a bit taken aback; firstly, they looked far too young to be in business for themselves, and secondly they were girls—I mean women. But then I figured it out: they probably just did the measuring and estimating—their big brothers, or husbands, or dads would come to do the actual installation. We agreed that the carpet would be installed on the following Sunday, when the store was closed.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring ’10 FACES)

By Beth Palmer

If I’d had my way, I would have met Dale Lamphere 25 years ago.

I was the new kid in the public relations department at Regional Hospital and one of my first assignments was to write about a recently commissioned sculpture called the “Spirit of Healing,” done by a talented, up and coming young artist from Sturgis. I naturally assumed I would get to interview the sculptor, but was told that all correspondence with Mr. Lamphere was being handled at the “upper administrative level.” In other words, a senior vice president would gather pertinent information from the artist and pass it on to me. Dale Lamphere, it seemed, was simply too important to be turned over to a greenhorn writer.

I remember standing in front of Dale’s sculpture in the hospital waiting room, marveling at both is simplicity and complexity, but mostly trying to imagine what kind of creative mind could conceive of something so unexplainably amazing.

(Read the rest of this story in Spring ’10 FACES)

By James Van Nuys

My job as a writer of “Learning Curve” articles for Black Hills FACES magazine is to provide comic relief from the more serious stories while at the same time providing biographical sketches of the people I’m learning from. Unfortunately, the Learning Curve subject for this issue turned out to be intrinsically unfunny, but I did get to spend time with a number of interesting people, and I did learn a few things. For this issue the publishers, Beth Palmer and Ann Henrichsen, were looking for an outdoor winter activity that I could write about but they were having a hard time coming up with something I’d never tried before. Ski jumping was considered, but their insurance wouldn’t cover it, and if I were killed it would be tough to find another art director who would work for minimum wage. Eventually they heard about a snowshoeing class being given by South Dakota Department of Game, Fish, and Parks and it was decided that I would make that the subject of my article.

I was dubious about the idea from a comic standpoint because, as every student of comedy knows, falling down is one of the most fundamental of all humorous procedures, and I didn’t think that would happen with snow shoes. “Don’t you just put them on and walk?” I asked. I had almost carried my point when, by coincidence, Beth and Ann’s brother, Pete Swisher, called and said that he had just snow-shoed to the top of Harney Peak—when the temperature was 20 below! This sounded like it had more comic possibilities, what with potential frostbite and amputations and what-not, so we decided that following the initial lesson, I would go for a grueling hike with Pete.

(Read the rest of this story in Winter 2010 FACES)

By Danie Koskan

Jeanne Prentice lives life with arms wide open.

The 53-year-old Spearfish woman “catches” babies for a living. She tends to expectant and laboring mothers and welcomes their sons and daughters into the world. And she does it all from the comfort of home.

Jeanne holds the distinction of being one of South Dakota’s first legal homebirth midwives. She moved her Wyoming practice to Spearfish in July 2008 after changes in state law permitted her and other licensed and certified nurse midwives to help women give birth at home. Jeanne figures she’s assisted in enough births to populate a small town. “I’ve caught a couple thousand,” she said.

Jeanne views her services as more of a lifelong calling than a business. Jeanne’s great-grandmother was the community midwife in her small Pennsylvania town. Her father served as a gynecologist and obstetrician in the U.S. Army. She was 15 when her father extended a dinner invitation to the nurse midwife who assisted him. Jeanne remembers eagerly listening to the German woman over dinner as she described her role in the birth process and plucked anecdotes from her storied vocation.

(Read the rest of this story in Winter 2010 FACES)

By Beth Palmer

Looking back, it was an incredibly brave thing to do. New to the United States with only a smattering of English words, Mila Belakova bought a ticket to the first annual FACES Live show at the Elks Theatre in downtown Rapid City. Magician Josh Balt was on stage, asking for a volunteer for his next trick–and Mila raised her hand. Mila and Josh’s confused exchange and the fizzled trick seemed to fit perfectly with the laid-back magician’s humorous style, and the audience laughed appreciatively.

A few months later we needed to come up with live music for the downtown Art Crawl at the FACES office/James Van Nuys Gallery. Art director and master guitarist James Van Nuys knows hundreds of guitar-wielding guys who love nothing more than to take time out of their busy schedules and play for free to a crowd of five or six people–but this was to be “Ladies Night” and we were stumped.

It was a long shot, but James pulled out his music file and produced a business card with Mila’s name, the title “Russian Pianist” and a phone number. As it turns out, she had handed him her card after the FACES Live show.

(Read the rest of this story in Winter 2010 FACES)

By Michelle Muellenburg Pawelski

When someone asks Aaron Kaufman about his line of work, the 30-year-old California native smiles proudly and says “I shear sheep.”  It is a reply that raises many an eyebrow and tends to generate a lot of interest.  Aaron will describe the long hours working in extreme temperatures–from below freezing to sweltering heat–and detail the exhaustion of dealing with headstrong mammals. He’ll mention getting up early the next morning to do it all over again. He will then tell the inquisitive party that he can’t see himself doing anything else.

“It definitely sparks conversations,” Aaron said of his career choice. “Some people look at me crazy and say ‘I didn’t know people still did that.’”

The fact is that the skills of a sheep shearer are now in higher demand than ever. Fewer and fewer people are entering the centuries-old profession,  due in part to the grueling and labor-intensive work. Shearing requires physical strength as well as strength of character –two qualities you can instantly detect within just a few minutes of meeting Aaron.  In an average 8-hour shift of clipping wool, Aaron burns as many calories as a seasoned runner completing two marathons.  “I’ve always enjoyed hard work …the harder the better.” he said.

(Read the rest of this story in Winter 2010 FACES)

By Mallory Schwan

K.J. Groven has never been able to picture himself as a nine-to-fiver. As a child in Norway he dreamed of being a farmer and as he grew up the idea of living an independent life remained important to him.  While he may not have ended planting fields back in Norway, his independence and doing what he loves are still the cornerstones of his life. As a blacksmith and woodworker, he is working steadily to master an ancient and complex Norwegian style of log-building, the most familiar local example being the Stav Kirke chapel in Rapid City. This unusual profession allows KJ to make his own schedule—along with his own tools, his own house, and his own art.

Born in Skien, Norway in 1974, a young KJ—whose full name is Kjetil—grew up thinking he would take over the farm his grandfather owned and his own father had been raised on. He describes growing up in a town much like Rapid City in size, with a sister city of almost the same size nearby. It is a bustling little area in Telemark County, a place famous for its skiing style. Skien and the surrounding county are over a thousand years old, and much of the traditional Norwegian art and woodwork that inspires him can be seen near where he grew up. If you asked about the winters in Norway, KJ will assure you they’re not as bad as Americans think.

(Read the rest of this story in Winter 2010 FACES)