State: community name change to Little Wound would require election

This blogger has been arguing for Lakota names on South Dakota's geographic features for nearly thirty years. 

The South Dakota Board of Geographic Names spent more of their time renaming the Squaw Humper Dam than on the proposal to change the name of a local jurisdiction to Oglala Lakota County. Democratic former State Representative Kevin Killer, now president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, backed the name change of the South Dakota county from one based on white conquest and helped get the issue passed in 2015.

Last fall, the Medicine Root District executive board voted to change the name of the town Kyle to Little Wound on the request of community members, led by Marcell Bull Bear, Lakota elder historian and Oglala Lakota College instructor. According to Rory Mennenger, Secretary of State’s Office, Elections & Federal Project Coordinator, the statutes that apply for the changing the name of a city appears to require an election. Little Wound was one of the Oglala chiefs who believed education was one of the answers for a better future for their people. [Lakota Times]