2018 – Education,

(1940-2022) Dr. Lionel Bordeaux (Sicangu Lakota) was a long-time educator and the second president of Sinte Gleska College on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. President Bordeaux was the longest serving college president in the United States. He received many honors over the years, including Outstanding Educator of the Year by the South Dakota Indian Education Association, and was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame. 

He attended Black Hills State Teacher’s College where he earned a B.A. Bordeaux completed his graduate studies at the University of Minnesota. But before completing his doctoral dissertation, Stanley Redbird Sr., founder of Sinte Gleska College, approached Bordeaux and told him he was looking for an individual who had academic credentials, but, more importantly, who knew the tribal language and history of the Sicangu Lakota. Redbird explained that medicine men had held spiritual ceremonies and directed him to seek out Bordeaux, who was to withdraw from his doctoral studies and return to the Rosebud reservation, where he would serve as president of Sinte Gleska College. On February 3, 1973, Lionel Bordeaux was inaugurated as president of the college, a position he held until his passing on November 16, 2022.

Lionel Bordeaux.mov from Cheyenne and Arapaho Television on Vimeo.