Indigenizing HeSapa’s Commercial Airwaves
The specific problem we are working to solve is in the realm of audience (aka customer base).
On an immediate and local scale, KIPI Radio’s capacity to continue and expand our work depends on our ability to reach a much broader listening public. This has a two-fold impact: 1) more listeners will access our decolonized programming, 2) a broader customer base will attract more advertising sales that will in turn support more and better decolonized programming.
On a national and historical scale, we identify the problem to be reversing the impact of colonization: U.S. policies of colonization have been too successful on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. To combat this ongoing colonization, KIPI Radio produces programming designed to reclaim our voices, our history, and our self-determination.
Furthermore, we aim to dislodge the economic disparity as well as the ongoing entrenched and hostile racial disparities in western South Dakota, and in Rapid City, South Dakota, specifically. This goal resonates with combating the overall racial disparities in the United States of America. The erasure of Indigenous people in the collective has had profound effects on the planet. The act of placemaking and peacemaking can only be done by us in relationship to this realm, and on this land.
As Lakota people we are not afraid to have honest conversations about difficult things in a way toward right relationships. We have been committed thus far in that respect waiting on recognition and understanding that seems to be a bit upon us now. Many understand the grave importance of the abundant resources that exist in this time and place, and the possibility that they be directed toward letting us have our own voice to commodify for tribal profit.
Expanding KIPI’s listening area is fundamentally a part of our mission to sustain ourselves and provide jobs and revenue for the tribe. Having a tribal radio station these last 5 years has had an immeasurable impact on our community by increasing access to culturally appropriate news and entertainment and becoming a hub for community information and alerts. In isolated areas across the northern great plains, radio has always been a great connector keeping our communities informed, entertained, and aware of civil alerts and severe weather. Bringing Lakota media to western South Dakota is vital to keeping a thriving vibrant community that welcomes and retains community.
KIPI Radio’s solution is to build a station in Rapid City and amplify our programming budget. This will quadruple our customer base. It will allow us to have the potential to support ourselves beyond the reach of tribal political whim. It will allow us to employ more people in an empowerment zone.
It will bring a tribal voice to the profitable commercial airwaves in Rapid City, South Dakota. The entrenched racial animosity in the Black Hills is ongoing. And yet, still, the Black Hills is an incredibly profitable tourist market.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe owns land in the Rapid City area, and building a tower and transmitting station would allow us to expand our listener base in general, and specifically increase our advertising potential, and critically respond to a wider need of tribal broadcast programming as a commercial radio station.
KIPI Radio is a 5-year-old commercial radio station owned and operated by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. At a time when radio broadcasters from across the country are choosing to contract programming and stream radio produced outside of the region, KIPI Radio emerged to meet a critical need for diversity of voices over the airwaves in western South Dakota. KIPI Radio has three state of the art High Definition (HD) broadcast studios. RCS software, and its compatible computer equipment enables us to program in advance, and broadcast over our two HD channels and subchannels.
Lakota culture-based broadcasting, and with it, its understandings of living in relationship to its listeners and to each other has been absent from the radio waves. KIPI radio makes it its mission to fill that gap.
KIPI is proud of the news and programming we produce. We’ve found a comfortable cultural variety with everything from classic country to HIP HOP and shows like the Wanagi Night Show, the Kiktapo Morning show and KIPI’s Native American focused headline news from across the globe that highlight Lakota cultural values.
Our current listening area is only 12,000 people. KIPI Radio is in western South Dakota: Dewey, Ziebach, and Corson counties whose per capita incomes are near the lowest in the country. Ziebach currently the 4th poorest county in the nation. Agriculture is the main source of income in those counties. And much of that income is to non-indian settlers.
The Urban Indian Population of Rapid City is estimated to be 20% but many tribal folks actively avoid census counts, while poverty and other factors make the community incredibly transient.
The radio technology we would use to solve this challenge is tried and true; while the translators, the transmitters, and software have truly transformed the radio industry. KIPI radio is one of a handful of regional radio stations that is place-based. Many of our competitors contract programming from out of state without any staff at all, while we produce original programming with local staff and community-based. We also reach across the globe via internet streams, giving our station a global reach unimaginable to the radio industry of old.
If we Lakota have any expertise in anything, it’s place, and specifically He Sapa. The radio technology and resources we’re asking for will help to rectify a wrong still ongoing with no end in sight. Colonial displacement is one of the most obvious mistakes that the modern era owns. This solution could help to mend some of the past mistakes and point the populace in a better direction together.
We see KIPI Radio as an olive branch; a perspective, and a learning tool for ourselves, and our neighbors. Understanding each other and the land in relationship to one another is tantamount to the mission KIPI radio has to be a true reflection of our community. That expression of creative wholistic indigenous values is absent from mainstream culture to its detriment.
This solution will directly impact the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and the Urban Indian population in Rapid City, South Dakota in a multitude of ways. We offer quality high-paying creative employment and culturally appropriate indigenous-created programming over the HD airwaves, on Social Media, and on YouTube.
KIPI is owned and operated by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and under the Cheyenne River Economic Development Corporation (CREDCO) led by J.D. Williams. J.D. was at the helm of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Telephone Authority for over 40 years. CRSTTA is the oldest American Indian Owned telephone authority in the country.
KIPI Radio’s station manager is Chas Jewett. Chas is a lifelong resident of South Dakota minus a couple short stints in Minnesota and Washington, DC. She has been an organizer who has spent her career building relationships between cultures in South Dakota. She spent nearly 20 years in the Black Hills area. Since taking the helm, KIPI has prioritized producing quality and culturally appropriate news and programming, long term sustainability, workforce investment, and development.
Seth Picotte is the Executive Producer at KIPI and has been with KIPI radio since the very beginning in one capacity or another. Seth has an intimate working knowledge of all the state-of-the-art equipment that KIPI radio has.
Carl Petersen is the Assistant Station Manager and serves as KIPI’s technologist. Since coming on board Carl has brought our website in-house and has helped develop our KIPI Radio App. Carl is an award-winning game developer and an excellent journalist who has a keen understanding of radio technology.
Troy Eagle Chasing “SiouxperNatural” is a lead content director and an award winning musical producer.
Colette Keith has a 30 year career in broadcast journalism after being the youngest Administrative Officer for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.
Our leadership is a direct reflection of our community. We all grew up in the area, left to receive our degrees and returned home to be of service to our tribe and communities. Our worldviews have been impacted by travel, by ceremony, by education, and experience. We all come from different tiospayes (extended families), we have lived experiences as farmers and ranchers, as performers, as artists, as athletes, as activists, as organizers. We can give accurate reflections of grassroots tribal perspectives, because we have them. We can tell stories that can’t be told from a colonial lens. We can share ideas and understandings that haven’t ever been mainstreamed—but definitely should be.
- Promote culturally informed mental and physical health and wellness services for Indigenous community members.
- United States
- Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model that is rolled out in one or more communities
With the support of the Solve grant, KIPI Radio will bring a tribal voice to the profitable commercial airwaves in Rapid City, South Dakota. Reaching Rapid City and the Black Hills will help us to tap a profitable tourist industry. Waves of commerce followed General Custer illegally into lands we still hold legally under the Treaty of 1868. After everyone stole our gold, the banker Rushmore paid for some stone faces to be carved and other gimmicks came after that continue to generate trillions of dollars for non-Indian profiteers whilst we lead the poorest counties contest decade after decade.
- Financial (e.g. accounting practices, pitching to investors)
Chas Jewett's has deep roots in both communities: Eagle Butte and Rapid City. When she began to have memory there was always the kitchen tables and the tribal politics discussions. When she was 8 years old she did her very first political act by distributing fliers for her Aunt Iyonne's run for chair person in 1980. To say that a part of her identity is intertwined with her tribe would be an understatement. She is humbled at the opportunity her boss and her tribe have given her and is committed to KIPI radio's success, and proud of the honor of working on such a worthwhile endeavor.

Station Manager