Custer, South Dakota

June 26, 2017

We saw both antelope and bison in the distance on our drive from Crawford to Custer.  We thought it a good sign.

The city of Custer has about 2,000 people and an equal number of t-shirt or rock shops.  The tourist nature of the area wasn’t our reason for selecting Custer–we loved being a stone’s throw from the Black Hills and within easy drives of other beautiful spots.

We ran an errand to the charming 1940 post office and found a poster advertising music at the Tatanka Barn [Tatanka is means bison in Lakota] in nearby Custer State Park.  Pegy Douglas and the Badger Sett Band gave us a wonderful introduction to Nebraska’s first poet laureate, Badger Clark.  Douglas wove together Clark’s biography with poems set to music, some by Douglas herself and some by other writers.  Jane was familiar with one of Clark’s poems, “Spanish Is the Loving Tongue”, set to music by Billy Simon and recorded by Bob Dylan, Ian and Sylvia, Tom Paxton, and Emmylou Harris, among others.

You can hear the Badger Sett Band perform one of Clark’s pieces at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d09-vqtZzY.  And here is Badger Clark’s poem, “A Cowboy’s Prayer”.

We took advantage of two other programs at the Tatanka Barn while we were in Custer.  In one Joyce Jefferson portrayed “Aunt Sally”, a cook in George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry. She told us what it was like to be the first white woman in the area.  Sally was an African-American and a former slave but, since she wasn’t Indian, the Indians considered her to be white.

Gib Young portrayed former Theodore Roosevelt who was responsible for the establishment of 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, 4 national game preserves, 5 national parks, and 18 national monuments during his presidency, protecting some 230 million acres of public land.   Roosevelt lived and worked in the Dakotas 1884-86 when he took a break from his political career.   Wind Cave National Park, Devil’s Tower National Monument, and Jewel Cave National Monument were all established while Roosevelt was President.  Young was believable and entertaining–rewarding answers given by audience members with a “Big Stick”, a pencil.