Legend of Pat Pumpkinseed

Pat Pumpkinseed and his grandson, Shane Star '13. Copyright Red Cloud Indian School

 Legend of Pat Pumpkinseed

By Shane Star '13

In 1973, Patrick Pumpkinseed began working at Red Cloud as a teacher's aide and bus driver. Then the next year, he became a teacher in the middle school, a role in which he remained until 1983. He taught three subjects during this time: Physical Education, Lakota Studies, and Science. Pat also coached basketball, football, and track while he worked in the middle school. After 1983, he began working at the high school in the counseling department. He worked there for 10 years and then moved to the front office and worked as an ISS coordinator and attendance officer. After a few years of working in the front office, he moved back to the counseling department and has continued to work there.

This year is going to be his 40th consecutive year working at Red Cloud, but also his last. He is going to retire because his grandchildren are graduating from high school this year. He has been thinking about retiring for some years now but decided to wait until his grandchildren, Justina Bagola and myself, graduated.

He says that there has been a lot of change to the school since he started. First of all, the schooling system is a lot different. Students used to stay all week long for school instead of going home every day. They stayed at the school in dorms and went home on weekends. So he only had to do bus runs on Mondays and Fridays. The students also had no geographical boundaries- it didn’t matter if you lived far away. Students still got picked up unlike today where you have to live fairly close. He also says they had mandatory church every morning and all of the students had to go.

Pat reflected on his most memorable moments at Red Cloud. "I have too many," he said. "Every time I see a familiar face, like a former student for example, a memory of them begins to play in my head of when they were attending school here."

We will all have positive memories of you too. Red Cloud is going to miss you, Gramps!