GENERAL: Awards & Honors - City of Rapid City - Citizen of the Month

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (s-navy) (b. February 21, 1933) is an acclaimed Lakota writer, educator, and historian, renowned for her contributions to Native American literature and cul-tural preservation. Raised on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, she is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. She attended Bureau of Indian Affairs day schools and graduated from St. Mary's Episcopal High School for Indian Girls in Springfield, South Dakota, in 1950.

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from South Dakota State University in 1954 and initially worked as an English and music teacher in White, SD, and later in Pierre, SD. After a period as a full-time homemaker raising three children, she resumed teaching in 1965 at Flandreau Indian School, where she taught English, speech, and drama before becoming a guidance counselor. In 1969, she obtained a Master of Education degree from South Dakota State University.

Sneve’s literary career began in 1971 when her manuscript Jimmy Yellow Hawk won a con-test held by the Council on Interracial Books. Following this success, she secured a publish-ing contract with Holiday House, which published Jimmy Yellow Hawk and High Elk’s Treas-ure in 1972. Expanding into non-fiction, she edited South Dakota Geographic Names and au-thored The Dakota’s Heritage in 1973. Over the years, she has published widely, including a history of the Episcopal Church in South Dakota, as well as Completing the Circle (1995) and The First Americans Series, a historical series on Native American tribes.

Her work has earned numerous accolades, including the South Dakota Governor’s Award in the Arts for Distinction in Creative Achievement, the South Dakota Humanities Council Distin-guished Achievement in the Humanities Award, and honorary doctorates from South Dakota State University and Dakota Wesleyan University. In 1996, she received the National Educa-tion Association’s Author/Illustrator Award, and in 2000, she became the first South Dakotan to receive the National Humanities Medal, presented by President Bill Clinton.

Sneve has been an influential voice in literary circles, speaking at literary festivals, Interna-tional Reading Association events, the National Book Festival (2002), and the Native Writers Series at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (2005). With a prolific ca-reer spanning decade, she has authored fiction, non-fiction, short stories, articles, editorials, and book introductions, solidifying her legacy as a significant voice in Native American litera-ture.