Tag: Sioux

On an Old Guy

Stan is from the soil of South Dakota. Born and raised. Today, he’s one of the oldest residents to ever hail from the Mount Rushmore State. Being from such a relatively remote area, you might be tempted to think that Stan hasn’t been to many places, but you’d be wrong. Stan’s traveled far and wide across the globe. New York. London. And, as of today, as far as anyone can tell, Stan is in Saudi Arabia of all places. At least parts of him have moved there. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

You see, Stan was named after Stan Sacrison, a decent enough fellow who was out looking at prairie flora one day. It was Big Stan who took our Stan home with him after finding him lying exposed on the side of a sandbank in the grasslands of South Dakota. He was wrapped in a piece of burlap, and Big Stan took him with him. Adoption is always tricky, even in the best of circumstances, and people were indeed curious as to how, exactly, Big Stan came across the foundling. The authorities were certainly interested.

It seems that this type of situation isn’t that unusual in South Dakota; another such incident involved a girl named Sue who was discovered alone near one of the Sioux native tribal reservations in the state. In Sue’s case, she was taken in by an adoptive organization and institutionalized. There was a long legal case over Sue, as the natives claimed that she rightfully belonged to them, but the courts decided she was more of a “finders-keepers” type of situation and allowed the institution to keep Sue.

Meanwhile, Big Stan managed to keep what he jokingly and lovingly called his “little treasure.” But there were issues. Doctors studying Stan after he was brought in found that there were injuries to his back, and there were puncture wounds to his skull and neck. Yes, it was a good thing Big Stan found him when he did.

The problem for finding out more about Stan’s origins–and his death–is that his skeletal system was, well, incomplete. Big Stan didn’t find a human child in the South Dakota grasslands. He found skeletal remains. That’s why I said only parts of Stan are in Saudi Arabia. He was sold for millions of dollars to a private collector.

You see, Stan, like Sue, is one of the most complete T-Rex specimens ever discovered.

On an Embedded Reporter

Mark Kellogg is best remembered as a being a good newspaper reporter. Born in Canada, his family moved to Wisconsin when he was a young man, and he became an American. He grew up there and worked for a time with a telecommunications company.

Later, Mark met and married a woman named Martha. The couple had two kids, daughters. But then, Mark’s wife became sick and passed away. Feeling understandably out of sorts, Mark left his children with an aunt, and he made his way across the American Midwest, working for different newspapers.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of an embedded reporter. Mark was one of the first. Working for the Associated Press, Mark wrangled a plum assignment with the US Army that was on patrol during the war. He soon shipped out with a mobilized regiment and left his desk at the newspaper.

The commander of the military detachment to which Mark was assigned was a noted general, a hero from the previous war. Mark was, understandably, somewhat starstruck by having access to the famous man. He was allowed several exclusive interviews with the general. Mark was captivated by the commander’s charisma. To Mark, this man was everything that was right with America. He began to lose his reporter’s objectivity. Later on, some people would say that this idol worship blinded him from seeing the risks involved in being on the front lines of a dangerous assignment during war time.

For Mark, just being in the great man‘s presence meant the world to him. In his dispatches back to his newspaper, Mark remarked on how he was willing to put his life on the line to follow his hero so that he could report on the great victories that were sure to come. He would spend several weeks with the detachment; he ate what the soldiers ate, he slept where they slept. He was truly embedded.

Sadly, Mark was killed during the war because of his proximity to both his hero and to the front lines. And he was not the only one who was killed. He was also not the only one to blindly follow this military leader into battle.

In fact, more than 200 other men lost their lives following George Custer into battle at the Little Bighorn.