Mrs. Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
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Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, an enrolled member of the Rosebud
Sioux Tribe, was born and grew up on the Rosebud Reservation. She attended
the Bureau of Indian Affairs Day School at Oak Creek and St. Mary's School
for Indian Girls at Springfield. She earned her B.S. degree in English and
History at South Dakota State College (now University) in 1954, a
master's degree in Education and Guidance from South Dakota State
University in
1969, and received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1979 from
Dakota Wesleyan University, Mitchell, South Dakota.
Dr. Sneve began her illustrious career as educator and writer in 1954 as a
teacher of English at the White Public High School in White, South
Dakota. Through the years, she continued to teach in reservation
and public high schools, later moving into counseling positions in the
Rapid City public schools. From 1988 until her retirement in June 1995,
she held joint appointments as Associate Instructor of English at
Oglala-Lakota College (Rapid City Extension) and as counselor at
Rapid City Central High School.
Her distinguished writing career includes publications of numerous
articles, essays, and poems; scripts and dramatizations for television;
and countless presentations, lectures, readings, and workshops. She is
best known, however, for her short stories and her books for children and
adults. Through these stories, Sneve accurately portrays her native
heritage.
She is the 1997 recipient of the Living Indian Artist Treasure Award
presented by Northern Plains Tribal Arts and South Dakotans for the Arts.
Other awards include the 1996 Author-Illustrator Human and Civil Rights
Award from the National Education Association; the University of Nebraska
Press Native American Prose Award in 1992; the 1984 Writer of the Year
Award from the Western Heritage Hall of Fame; the South Dakota
State Counselors' Association 1996 Human Rights Award; and, the 1996
Spirit of Crazy House Award from Black Hills Seminars' Youth at Risk.
Dr. Sneve's paper is entitled: "History from small places--Women of the
Circle."
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2 November 1999, lrb
