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visitor center and succinctly describes the pipes' significance to Plains' tribes:
• "The stone is our blood, red as our skin. The opening of the bowl is our mouth and the smoke rising from it is our breath, the visible breath of our people. The pipe is our most sacred possession...it is the heart of all our ceremonies."
• Today, though, tribal members don't seem to have the same reverence for the pipe because of the growing focus on technology, said Erickson, who recalled gathering to carve pipes when he was a child with extended family members.
• "We are dying," he said. "In the last six years, we've had five pipe makers go."
• But for those who continue to put in the time and effort to quarry the stone and carve the pipes, it's worth it.
• "They're not dedicated to the quarry. They're dedicated to the spiritual side," Erickson said.
•

guard during a botched escape attempt will have his execution scheduled for the week of Jan. 12, the state's attorney general announced Monday.
• Attorney General Marty Jackley said the warrant of execution for Rodney Berget was issued and Berget's execution will be scheduled between Jan. 12 and Jan. 18. The warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary will select the exact day and time.
• Berget, 51, pleaded guilty to killing prison guard Ronald Johnson on Johnson's 63rd birthday in April 2011. A judge sentenced Berget to death, but the South Dakota Supreme Court overturned the sentence, ruling that that Circuit Judge Brad Zell improperly considered a statement Berget made to a psychiatrist. Berget then sought a new sentencing hearing in front of a jury.
• Zell denied that request and resentenced him to death in May.
• Berget's lawyer did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
• Berget was serving life sentences for attempted murder and kidnapping when he tried to escape with Eric Robert, who was serving 80 years for a kidnapping conviction.
• The two men attacked Johnson while he was alone in the prison in an area where inmates work on upholstery, signs, custom furniture and other projects. Robert put on Johnson's uniform and tried to move a large box, which Berget was

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