Oglala Lakota College holds 51st Annual Graduation Ceremony

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) -Tassels, diplomas, and celebration. Oglala Lakota College held its 51st Annual graduation ceremony on Friday with more than 200 graduates.

The class of 2024 took center stage at the graduation ceremony in Kyle, South Dakota, and was met with cheers from family and friends in the stands.

“This is our biggest graduating class in 50 years. We’ve been here since 1971,” the school’s Enrollment Management Director Stephanie Sorbel said.

The graduates are made up of 109 Associate, 68 Bachelors, and 12 Masters degrees along with other certificates. Sorbel believes the ceremony is different than other college graduations.

“We lead them in with the Akicitas, and the flags, and our president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, he helped lead them in.”

Oglala Lakota College Registrar Anthony Barajas knows how significant this occasion is for graduates.

“A lot of us are graduates from here and we’re actually helping to continue that cycle. So, as more of us, were trying to get more and more people to get on the community for employment. That’s our whole purpose here,” Barajas said.

Barajas says all the hard work put in by the graduates didn’t come easy.

“A lot of us come from a lot of, from a place of poverty. And somehow, I worked my way off of a little house in a dirt road to Registrar and that’s what we’re hoping to do to help everyone else,” Barajas said.

“They say we’re the poorest county or the poorest reservation around. And so to have this opportunity to go to college and to get your education, that education no one can ever take that away from you once you get it,” Sorbel added.

Barajas says it’s rewarding to hand out diplomas to the graduates.

“Last year I was in the crowd, this time I’m with the crowd handing it out. It’s a lot better to see a lot of my students. I was actually a GD student teacher, so a lot of my GD students are actually graduating now. So, it’s super exciting for me,” Barajas said.

The Oglala Lakota College Class of 2024 is ready for the next chapters of their lives and looking to make an impact in their communities.

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.

Copyright 2024 KEVN. All rights reserved.