James Hallum

My name is James Hallum, my Dakota name is Wiyaka Koyake Wicasta. I live on the Santee Sioux Indian reservation in northeast Nebraska. I am an enrolled member of the Santee Sioux Nation. For over 20 years I worked at the Nebraska Indian Community College as a Tribal extension director. My job was to put together activities that dealt with cultural activities, healthy lifestyles or anything educational. I have helped with powwows, buffalo kills, helped start a starquilt sewing guild where they in turn have helped others learn to make star quilts, ribbon skirts, shirts. Also have coordinated moccasin making workshops, regalia making, beading. Healthy cooking and nutrition, diabetes education and prevention, smoking cessation, as well as helped start the first Native American radio station in Nebraska. With this tool we advertised all the above as well as language learning on the radio, plus running PSAs for drug awareness, alcohol and lately the covid pandemic. I have and still actively participate in the Dakota 38 horseback ride from Lower Brule to Mankato, Minn, which ends December 26th which was the date of the largest mass hanging in the US in 1862. From this ride I have started others, always to honor and remember our relatives who suffered from atrocities at the hands of the US Government from the back of a horse.

Grantee Information

Year(s) Awarded: 2022