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Thomas Shortbull

Education Rapid City, SD

Thomas Shortbull was born on December 4, 1946 in Igloo, South Dakota, which was then an army munitions depot. He was the oldest of 10 children of Norman Shortbull and Elizabeth Prue. In 1948, his family moved to Denver, Colorado so that his father could go to art school through the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Federal Relocation Program. This program sought to provide work skills for Indian people who wanted to permanently leave the reservation. From 1952-56, his family lived in Wanblee and Belvidere, South Dakota. During these four years, his family was very poor, because there were limited work opportunities for his father and mother. Everything changed for his family when his father and mother found work at the Black Hills Army Depot in 1956. An asset in his career was the good education he received through the Provo School System, which provided education to the children of Army Depot workers.. His leadership abilities were first seen when he attended the University of South Dakota from 1965- 1970, serving as the President of the Indian club. After receiving his Master Degree in Public Administration

Progressive, Collaborator and Advocate for Native Americans and Education

from USD in 1973, he was selected as the Coordinator of the Task Force on Indian State Government Relations, that studied the problems that existed between the State of South Dakota and its 9 SD tribal governments. In 1974, the Task Force passed progressive legislation that allowed for cooperative agreements between Indian tribes and the State of South Dakota. One of the problems that the Task Force studied was the gerrymandering of the Indian vote in Shannon and Todd Counties which diluted the Indian vote among three different legislative districts. The Task Force report recommended that Shannon and Todd county be included in one voting district, which would produce a strong majority of Indian people in this district. As a result of the South Dakota and national Civil Rights Commissions endorsing this recommendation, the Justice Department required that South Dakota adopt this voting district in order to have its statewide voting districts be approved in 1980. In 1982, the newly created Legislative District 27 elected its representatives, and he was the first elected elected it's representatives. He was the first Senator from this new district, which included Shannon and

Todd Counties, along with a small portion of Bennett County. The most important work that he has done in his career was being the President of Oglala Lakota College. The most important work of his career was serving as President of Oglala Lakota College from 1975 - 1979, and again from 1995 to 2017. The following background information on Tribal Colleges is presented so that people can understand the important work that tribal colleges do for the people on the Indian reservations in this country. From the time that Indian people were placed on Indian reservation, there was a mentality in this country that Indian people were not smart enough to be professionals. The most famous of these trade schools was Carlyle Indian School. Caryle was a militaristic school with its founder Captain Pratt’s motto being “Kill the Indian. Save the Man” What was meant by this phrase was that this school would extricate the Indian children’s language, culture, and their history from their memory banks and produce a person who was more white than they were Indian. At the trade schools, Indian males and females were taught the traders of that period. Sending young Indian students to trade schools started in 1878 and continued into the 1960s. When he graduated from high school in 1965, there was new era in which graduating Indian seniors were encouraged to go to college. He enrolled at USD, and was one of 20 incoming Indian students. Of this class, only he and another student graduated from USD. When the elders of the Pine Ridge reservation saw these high failure rates, they decided to start a tribal college which became Oglala Lakota College. This college has had great success in producing graduates for the jobs that exist on the reservation. The most effective degrees for OLC students are the Bachelor’s Degree in elementary education and an AA in Nursing. In a recent Diverse Issues in Higher Education ranking, OLC received high rankings as a Top Producers of Degrees for Native American students among all colleges in the United States. With Associate Degrees, OLC was #1 in Office Technology, Construction, and Auto Mechanics; 6th in Education; and 11th in Nursing. With Bachelor’s Degrees, OLC was 3rd in Native Studies, 5th in Social Services; 6th in Business, 7th in Information Technology, 8th in Social Science; 16th in Education; and with its Master Degree in Lakota Leadership, OLC was 5th with Masters Degrees. During his second stint as President of Oglala Lakota College, major improvements were achieved. The College added 7 new college centers on the Pine Ridge Reservation, 1 new College Center in Rapid City, a new Science Center, a Multi-Purpose Building housing a collegiate gym, classrooms for a Lakota Language immersion school, and a new Bookstore building. Employment gains include OLC going from 100 employees in 1995 to now having 320 full time employees, along with 134 adjunct faculty and part-time employees. The College’s budget has gone from $6.8 million in 1995 to 35.5 million this year. The College has gone from $1 million to $48 million in endowments with $1.3 in a maintenance endowment, $25.7 million in faculty endowments, and $21.2 million in scholarship endowments for its college students. In addition, Oglala Lakota College operates a College Center on the Cheyenne River Reservation after this reservation lost their tribal college. OLC administers the Pine Ridge Reservation Head Start Program, a K-5 Lakota Language Immersion School, and General Equivalency Diploma Program. “I believe that the success of OLC was the main reason for my selection to the SD Hall of Fame” stated President Shortbull. “I want to thank the past graduates of OLC, the OLC student body, Board of Trustees, faculty and staff for the work that they have done to make our College very successful”, added Shortbull.

Nominator:James Abbott