The Bell County Museum, Temple College, KISD, and Temple South Rotary Club are partnering on a special event. Ernie LaPointe, great-grandson of Sitting Bull, will present a program entitled, The Great-grandson’s Insight on Sitting Bull and the Lakota Culture. The free lecture will be held at the Temple College Pavilion on Monday, April 27, 2009, at 7:00 p.m.

Ernie was born in 1948 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. He attended public school in Rapid City. He joined the military in 1966 and was stationed Korea, Turkey, and Germany, and all over the United States. He completed one tour in Vietnam, from 1970 to 1971.

Ernie is a Sun Dancer and lives the traditional way of the Lakota and follows the rules of the sacred pipe. On his mother’s side he is the great-grandson of Sitting Bull and Seen By Her Nation Woman, Grandson of Standing Holy (Sitting Bull’s youngest daughter whose Christian name was Mary Sitting Bull), and Urban Spotted Horse.

In 1992 Ernie was given the opportunity to speak about Sitting Bull direct blood descendants at the induction of Sitting Bull into the Hall of Fame of American Indian Chiefs at Anadarko, Oklahoma. Since then he has had numerous invitations from Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota, and the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana to speak about his heritage.

Ernie is a frequent guest at the Fort St. Joseph Museum in Niles, Michigan, and is a lecturer for Go Native America Tours. The History Channel asked for assistance in two documentaries (Command Decisions and History Hogs) in 2004 and 2005. He finished his two-part DVD series, The Authorized Biography of Sitting Bull By His Great-Grandson. He is working on his first book that will be published this year by Gibbs Smith Publishing.