A lifetime of sunrise services: the rise of audio and attendance

By: 
Leslie Silverman
This is part five of a seven-part series exploring the rich history of the Easter sunrise service at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, as the tradition will celebrate its 75th year on April 9.
 
Music became instrumental to the Easter Sunrise Service at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial service in the 1980s. Local talents from groups such as the Circle B Cowboys, the Keystone Youth Choir, the combined choir and countless other musicians and vocalists became synonymous with the service. By the end of the decade men’s quartets and trios were also providing music for the service. The decade also meant the return of the Little White Church to the tradition.
The Members of the Circle B Cowboys were not consistent each year. Jim Lovell appears to be the only consistent member, although members were not named in bulletins until 1987. Kenny Hamm, Buddy Meredith, Walter Copeland, John Raderschadt and  Ken Wilcox were all listed as Cowboys members at some point in the decade. Tamara Reub often signed for the service.
Margie Robbins of Hill City and Leonard Willett would often conduct the Combined Choir of the Hills Parish.
1984 saw the Ellsworth Choir participate. The list of local talent grew each year throughout the decade, a testimony of the richness and outreach the tradition was continuing to gain once again. This rich musical tradition continued to involve Keystone’s Lois Halley who was often listed with Carol Gulbransen as giving the service’s prelude.
The decade was not without tragedy. In 1985 the sunrise service breakfast was held at the Masonic Lodge in Keystone because of an arson fire in the Keystone Church.
The service continued to attract people, as evidenced by 1986 figures which show 3,000 people attended.
April 19, 1987, marked the 40th annual Easter service at the memorial and those who came to pray were treated to both The Keystone Children’s Choir and the Circle B Cowboys. The Little White Church participated in this service and was credited in the Rapid City Journal as the church that began the tradition; whether or not it was Hill City or Keystone which began the tradition in the 1980s both towns were participating.  Also in 1987 two Rapid City Central High School students played trumpets at the service.
Local celebrities also began lending their voice to the service. Radio personality Verne Sheppard, who many may know from KOTA or KTOQ, was listed in the sunrise bulletin. In later years he would lead the Call to Worship, an honor that ended in 2008.
Four-time Rapid City Mayor Jim Shaw, who had also worked for KOTA at one point, read from Luke 24:1-12 in 1992, and would welcome worshippers to the service for the 50th anniversary celebration as well. His involvement with the service was not consistent but still well documented. That involvement also ended in 2008.
Rep. Jim Lintz read from John 20: 1-18 to celebrate the 50th Easter sunrise service. Author Jack van der Geest was also on hand for the 50th celebration.
The Easter Sunrise Service began to get much needed continuity in the 1990s due to the addition of two valuable people.
On April 3,1994, Rev. Barbara Gammeter led her first sunrise service. She would continue to be a part of the tradition for the next eight years. 
At the end of the decade Loren Lintz, a nephew of Lois Halley, became the service’s sound engineer in 1999, although he had been involved in the service since the 1970s.
Lintz attended his first Easter sunrise service at the Memorial when he was 7 or 8 years old. 
“I couldn’t hear the preacher at all,” he remembers. The service was in a long and narrow wood building that was near the present dayvisitor center. 
“The minister was at one end. I was at the other. That was my inspiration to elevate the sound there,” Lintz said.
Lintz learned from mentors Peewee Dennis, Stringbean Swenson and Verne Sheppard. He recalls that at that 1999 service everything was analog. At the time the NPS let him use their 24-channel board and tie into their speakers.
Join us next week as we take a look at the modern Easter Sunrise Service at Mount Rushmore National Memorial. A special thanks to Historian Eileen Roggenthen from the  First Congregational Church of Keystone for the historical preservation and collection of documents, pictures, and stories.

User login