This year the Chief Plenty Coup State Park Day of Honor in Pryor, Montana will look slightly different due to COVID. Organizers say the weekend will include food and events to celebrate Chief Plenty Coups and his eventful life.
When the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was first dedicated in 1921, Chief Plenty Coup was the only Indigenous person invited. In a few months, the Crow veterans honor guard will attend the 100th anniversary of that event. This weekend that same guard will celebrate Chief Plenty Coup on the Crow reservation during the twenty-sixth Chief Plenty Coup State Park Day of Honor. It would have been the 27th, but the COVID-19 pandemic canceled last year's Day of Honor.
Aaron Kind, manager at Chief Plenty Coup State Park, says the gathering is usually a chance for people to get to know each other and eat food but this year social distancing is the name of the game.
“Usually everyone just sits together and gets to know each other, which I think the chief wanted. Here with this park. A park where people can come and learn from each other,” Kind says. “This year we’ve actually spread our picnic tables out. One of the reasons we are doing a drive-through line is so people can stay in their cars.”
Kind also says the Indian Health Service is providing live music at the park, and expects to serve six hundred plates of food.
Chief Plenty Coup was the last tribal chief of the Crow tribe and his name means many achievements. The house where he lived is part of the park, and land culturally significant to the Apsáalooke people.
