A new Dakota language dictionary launched by a team led by a teaching specialist at the University of Minnesota represents a historic effort to preserve and revitalize the language.
Tuesday, November 15, 2022 - A new book produced by Cankdeska Cikana Community College on the Spirit Lake Reservation serves to preserve and promote the Dakota language and oral history. Mni Wakan: Place Names and History of the Spirit Lake Dakota is co-authored by the college’s Dakota Studies instructor Louie Garcia of Spirit Lake, and author and illustrator Mark Diedrich. Alicia Hegland-Thorpe visits with honorary tribal historian Louie Garcia at the college and college president Dr Cynthia Lindquist. ~~~ Harvest Public Media report on rural water conservation. ~~~ The Energy and Environmental Research Center at UND has been studying the use of "salt caverns" to store natural gas, hydrogen, and other materials. The study area is western North Dakota, in the Bakken. What makes this different from carbon sequestration is the materials stored in the caverns will be used for bio-refining and petrochemicals. Prairie Public's Dave Thompson visits with Charles Gorecki, CEO
Biography
Dr. Beth Weatherby became the 22nd chancellor of the University of Montana Western on January 15, 2015. She and her husband, Steve Kramer, moved to Dillon from Marshall, Minnesota, where they were both faculty members at Southwest Minnesota State University.
After ten years as the director of SMSU’s Creative Writing Program, Dr. Weatherby served there as Dean of Arts, Letters & Sciences for five years and then as Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs for eight years.
While at SMSU, she founded the New Works Faculty Forum, the Women’s Studies Program, and Connect, a networking organization for professional women in southwest Minnesota. She served on the advisory council of SMSU’s American Indian and Dakota Studies program, and on the boards of the Minnesota Agricultural and Rural Leadership Program, United Way, and the Southwest/West Central Higher Education Organization for Telecommunications and Technology.