• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Crazy Horse Memorial sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski was busy rough shaping the 219-foot-tall horse's head when he died in 1982, leaving his dream of honoring the Oglala Lakota warrior with a mammoth mountain carving in South Dakota's Black Hills in his family's hands.
• Widow Ruth Ziolkowski knew she had to keep the work going, but she decided to shift the focus to completing Crazy Horse's 90-foot-tall face to boost interest and bring in more donations.
• "If Korczak had lived, he would have carved the horse's head. He could have explained why to everyone and the world would have been happy with it," said Ruth Ziolkowski, president and chief executive of the memorial. "But it made good sense to be able to prove to people that we really could carry on and keep it going."
• The Crazy Horse Memorial on Tuesday commemorated the 65th anniversary of the monument's dedication -- and the 15th anniversary of the completion of the warrior's face -- with a 654-ton morning blast.
• Crazy Horse was a famed Oglala Lakota warrior and leader who played a key role in the 1876 defeat of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana. When completed, the carving of his image on a bluff about 10 miles southwest of Mount Rushmore will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high.
• Work on the project, funded entirely by private donations, has been going on since 1948.
• Tuesday explosive-charged rock removal, a ceremonial version of something that occurs throughout the year, cleared rock from the 360-foot bench directly underneath what will one day be the horse's muzzle.
• Spaced 20 feet apart, the 11 benches on Korczak Ziolkowski's blueprints serve as access roads that will eventually allow carvers to perform finishing work on the horse's head, said mountain director Monique Ziolkowski, the sculptor's daughter.
• As rough work continues on the final bench, finishing work will soon begin on the warrior's outstretched arm, which points to the sacred lands where Crazy Horse's ancestors have died.
• "We're going to work from Crazy Horse's hand down and we're going to concen

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