The Monument , formerly known as Rushmore Plaza Civic Center and Rushmore Plaza , is a 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m) exhibition center , in Rapid City, South Dakota . The Monument is the main event center for the Black Hills Region, serving Western South Dakota , South West North Dakota, North West Nebraska, and Eastern Wyoming.
8-810: It is home to many large annual events, including the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo & Rodeo Rapid City, Lakota Nation Invitational , the Black Hills Homebuilders Expo, South Dakota High School Activities Association Tournaments, the Rapid City Rush ice hockey team of the ECHL , and the Rapid City Marshals of Champions Indoor Football , who in 2024, folded. The Rapid City Thrillers semi-professional basketball team also formerly played games at
16-809: A sports venue in South Dakota is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lakota Nation Invitational The Lakota Nation Invitational is an annual multi-sport event tournament held each winter that began in 1976. The event takes place in the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City and hosts around 40 different schools from Indian Reservations in South Dakota , North Dakota , Nebraska and Wyoming . The event has categories including basketball, traditional Lakota hand games, knowledge and language bowls,
24-552: A student art show, a business plan competition, wrestling, volleyball, cross country, archery, golf and a chess tournament. In 1976, the inaugural Lakota Nation Invitational (LNI) was held at Pine Ridge High School. The basketball tournament developed out of tensions resulting from the American Indian Movement ’s occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. In 1973, Itancan Bryan Brewer was a basketball coach at Pine Ridge School. The American Indian Movement. wanted
32-635: Is home to the Rapid City Marshals. The venue also contains a fieldhouse, a fine arts theatre, two large convention/exhibit halls, and numerous other meeting rooms. After the venue was remodeled in 2021, the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center was renamed The Monument after a naming rights agreement with Monument Health Rapid City Hospital. 44°05′19″N 103°13′33″W / 44.08854°N 103.225816°W / 44.08854; -103.225816 This article about
40-422: The U.S. government to honor the treaties, which, they believed, had been broken. The occupation, which included the site of the 1890 massacre, set off an intense dispute between A.I.M. supporters and a private paramilitary group funded by the existing tribal leadership, whom the A.I.M. had accused of corruption. In the three years following the seventy-one-day occupation, stabbings, shootings, and beatings related to
48-603: The complex. The grand opening event was a concert by Elvis Presley on June 21, 1977, which was filmed for a CBS television special Elvis in Concert that aired in October. The concert was during the singer's final tour before his death on August 16, 1977. The center contains two multi-purpose arenas: an ice arena, home to the Rapid City Rush hockey team, and the 10,000-seat Summit Arena completed in October 2021 that
56-514: The conflict became common, and by 1975, the impoverished Pine Ridge Indian Reservation had the highest murder rate in the United States. Following American Indian Movement’s occupation, Athletic directors from school districts across South Dakota refused to let their athletes play basketball with students from Pine Ridge. Itancan Bryan Brewer decided to start a tournament of his own. Brewer contacted schools in other states to play in
64-463: The tournament. Seven schools agreed to compete in the 1976 tournament, which packed the Pine Ridge gymnasium. Three years later, the tournament relocated to the recently constructed Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Arena in order to better accommodate large crowds of spectators. The tournament has seen significant growth and changes since its inception. Originally a gathering just for basketball games,
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