Youth runners stop at Bear Butte for prayers before 400-mile relay

The runners from Northern Cheyenne Reservation left Lame Deer, Mont. yesterday. The group of some 100 people stopped at Bear Butte in South Dakota Friday afternoon for prayers before the group caravan continued on to Fort Robinson in Nebraska. The kids are going to begin a 400-mile relay back to Montana tonight, beginning at 10:30 p.m. They are doing this to commemorate the past while looking to the future. See some of my previous posts for a more information on the run. The group will spend the day at Fort Robinson as part of a day of education. A number of speakers and presenters will talk to the youths about leadership and tribal history related to the January 1879 breakout from Fort Robinson where the Cheyenne had been imprisoned for relocation to Oklahoma. They broke out of the jail and tried to go back to their homelands in Montana. Most of the them were killed by the U.S. cavalry.

Some made it home.