Year's event roster honors the vision
This is a year of milestones at Crazy Horse, the world’s largest mountain sculpture that is a tribute to a Lakota leader and to Native American culture.
May 3 is Korczak Day, the 60th anniversary of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski’s arrival in the Black Hills in 1947.
“We have made a lot of friends and believers in this project since Korczak first arrived,” said Ruth Ziolkowski, Korczak Ziolkowski’s widow and president and CEO of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. “I think he would be proud of the progress we have made together. On May 3, we will honor him and Henry Standing Bear. Korczak always told me if we didn’t continue the dream, his life would have been wasted. We are working very hard to carry on.”
Admission to Korczak Day is three cans of food per person for the KOTA Care and Share Food Drive.
For the third year, over Memorial Day weekend, the open house at Crazy Horse will also mark the resumption of the multimedia laser light show, “Legends in Light.”
“The enthusiastic response the show receives tells us that our visitors enjoy this educational and unique method of storytelling, which has reconciliation as one of its goals,” Ziolkowski said.
June 2 and 3 mark the 22nd annual Crazy Horse Volksmarch hike to the face of the sculpture.
“The view of the Hills is beautiful from ‘up-top’ and the Volksmarch provides a once-a-year chance for people to hike up the mountain and see for themselves the progress,” Ziolkowski said. “As they stand on Crazy Horse’s arm and look down, it is a wonderful opportunity to personally view the dramatic changes taking place on the horse’s head.”
The 17th annual Crazy Horse Stampede rodeo and Gift From Mother Earth Celebration is set for June 13-15.
“We’ve learned more than I ever thought we would about rodeos, but it is one of the weekends we look forward to with great anticipation,” Ziolkowski said.
June 26 is the spectacular night blast commemorating Ruth Ziolkowski’s 81st birthday and 131st anniversary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn
The Labor Day weekend open house is Sept. 1-3, and Sept. 6 is the night blast commemorating the 1877 death of Crazy Horse and 1908 birth of Korczak
Ziolkowski.
For more information about special events at Crazy Horse, go to: http://www.crazyhorse.org.
