Newly-built skatepark in Mission hopes to make a difference on Rosebud Reservation

MISSION − Skateboards rip on freshly poured concrete in front of a yellow house with murals adorning boarded windows just off the busiest street in a town of roughly 1,100, marking the end of the third build of the Rosebud Skatepark Development Project.

The project has been five years in the making and has resulted in three parks total, with parks in Parmelee, Antelope and the latest park in Mission, known as the Yellow House Skatepark or Oyate Park.

The skatepark is unique.

It twists around a house.

It's shaded by trees and fenced off on a high-traffic street.

It’s known as a ‘DIY’ park, or “do-it-yourself,” a cost-effective way to build a quality, one-of-a-kind park.

Clay Shank, originally from California, ended up more than roughly 1,500 miles away from his home state after doing some film work in Fort Thompson, on the Crow Creek Reservation in central South Dakota, where they had just finished their skatepark built. As a 30-plus-year veteran himself on a skateboard, that moment got him into the South Dakota skateboarding scene.

After meeting friends on the Rosebud Reservation, Shank said they always felt it was a good idea to get a good skatepark built in the area.

"Pretty much anywhere you put a skatepark, you're going to have kids playing and having fun ... These locations are for them. In itself sends a good message," Shank said. "If you have a kid who really gets into skateboarding, a skatepark means an awful lot to him or her."

This project has taken some collaboration including Marlies White Hat; Sen. Shawn Bordeaux, who represents District 26 which encompasses Mission; Rosebud Rentals; generous donors; volunteer workers and "amazing circumstances," Shank said.

At Sinte Gleska University in Mission, White Hat serves as the director of SGU Tiwahe Glu Kini Pi, a children’s mental health center.

Under that program, she said, they facilitate a Society of Care, a group of about 20 partners on the Rosebud Reservation including education, community members, and different systems that have been meeting monthly for 12 years with a goal to improve the lives and mental health of children and families on the Rosebud Reservation to network and work together on activities or projects.

A couple of years ago, White Hat said, students at South Dakota State University enrolled in a landscape architecture class toured the communities of Antelope and Mission and performed a safe walkability and healthy activities assessment, then met with the community to see what they were interested in. The class returned with 30 or so recommendations, White Hat said.

Some of those weren’t quite feasible, she said, but some included healthy activities, upgrading parks, city pools, displaying community art and so forth.

Shank has also been a part of the Society of Care, White Hat said, and he has been going to meetings every month and is known as a community volunteer. A couple of years ago, the Society of Care applied for an award from Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and was granted. That award was used to purchase the concrete poured for the newest skatepark as part of the project.

“There aren’t a lot of things for children here to do unless they’re involved in school sports programs, and that’s limited … Not every child can compete, so these other community activities are really helpful for children, keep them happy and healthy," White Hat said.

Skateparks serve as a way for people to express themselves, Mission park ‘unique’ 

Dillon Two Eagle, 25, lives in Valentine, Nebraska but said he frequently travels to the new skateparks as part of the projects.

“I want to see it how I see any other skateparks, thriving, you know what I mean?” Two Eagle said. “Kids coming in and shredding. (Being) utilized, this skatepark is different than anything I’ve ever skated.”

Two Eagle was born in Nebraska, but said he grew up on the Rosebud Reservation when he started skating 18 years ago after finding a board in Parmelee.

“(There was) nothing really to skate, man, walking up and down the street. A lot of gang issues too, on top of it. But just trying to rise above and skateboard, it wasn’t always the case due to no skate spots,” Two Eagle said. “Let alone those skateboards … Just cause I wasn’t able to get to a city as most people can, so I was forced with riding Walmart, generic boards and everything. Compared to now, it feels like a dream to come to a skatepark, that's so real where you grew up."

He tries to make the more than 30-mile drive every day he can, he said.

Another skater at the park, Mac Munson, from California and one of Shank's friends also called the Mission park different than anything he’s ever seen.

“DIY parks are just sick because it’s super agreeable as a skater skating and it’s got some real personality,” Munson said. “... There’s many examples of park types that might cost a lot of money but end up being not just not the coolest skateparks.”

The park is all concrete, which Shank said often outlasts its builders, and is typically cheaper than wood parks as of recent. And when built properly, they are durable to frigid South Dakota winters.

For this project, there were no blueprints, Shank said.

“I just spent so many hours imagining, I’m not kidding. There’s plenty of downtime when I wasn’t building or anything, and I would just visualize, visualize, visualize," Shank said. "I think that’s the kind of stuff that you’d need to be a longtime skater to have the vision of where you’ll end up going."

Before building in South Dakota, Shank had previously worked on projects in California, Arizona and New Jersey.

And, past projects in South Dakota also inspired this project to happen, Shank said, referring to the Wounded Knee 4-Directions Toby Eagle Bull Memorial Skatepark in Pine Ridge built by a group of individuals including Walt Pourier, from Pine Ridge, Jim Murphy, Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam and Mark Hubbard.

“(Hubbard) and that crew that built that Pine Ridge park really set off a lot of inspiration for people all over. All the hype that came out of that solidified the belief that ‘Oh, skateparks are good to have on reservations,’” Shank said. “For all the different reasons, all the problems that reservations have and all the advantages of skateparks, it’s a pretty good mix, and that was in my head when I stumbled upon Fort Thompson.”

White Hat also mentioned another previous project in White River, about 20 miles from Mission, where Keli Brings Three White Horses led a movement years ago through a Sinte Gleska University policy, where she’s employed at the museum, to bring a public skatepark to the town of nearly 600 people after hearing a desire for one from her sons and his friends.

While the park sits on city ground and operates as a city park, Brings Three White Horses said it was tribal youth who built the park in addition to tribal donations and a grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation, now known as The Skatepark Project.

That park, known as Lords of Prairie Dogtown, opened in 2010 and was a collaboration of entities such as the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, the Tony Hawk Foundation, the City of White River, South Dakota State University, Sinte Gleska University, South Central Resource Conservation and Development, O’Bryan Construction, American Ramp Company, Tribal Youth Affairs and the local tribal youth, according to the Tribal College Journal.

Project aims to make skateboarding accessible on Rosebud

While at the Yellow House Skatepark, Shank has boards he's able to share with riders and now that the construction phase is over, he said he's ready to start giving goodies and boards to interested people.

"(I'm) really proud of the work that Clay has done bringing Marlies (White Hat) and myself and others together to support this effort to bring skatepark activities to the Rosebud Reservation," Bordeaux said in a voice message. "Being that it's Clay's third effort, it's exciting seeing half a dozen kids up there (June 22) and he was handing out skateboards... I know my kids were excited... It's going to get quite a bit of use."

Shank said there’s also not a lot of options on the Rosebud Reservation for skaters who need spare parts or have broken boards.

“We’re super frugal and adaptive to what we have, and I still believe it’s hard, frankly, on Rosebud to get a good skate scene going because of how far everything is apart and how kids will get their boards stolen or they don’t have a place to buy the part to repair,” Shank said. “It’s not as easy as I thought it would be.”

As of June 22, Shank said he has seen an increase in the number of new skaters stopping by the park. And, with the two previous parks opened, Shank said there’s a wide variety of users who utilize the parks.

For now, the community is limited and the next step for the project is uncertain, White Hat said.

“It’s pretty well finished for now and as more see it and it’s summer, so we’ll have more youth out there,” White Hat said. “Maybe the demand will grow then.”

To support the program, visit https://www.clayshank.com/skateparks.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Rosebud Reservation skatepark project has been 5 years in the making