Billy Mills portrait donated to South Dakota State Historical Society

PIERRE, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – A North Dakota photographer presented the South Dakota State Historical Society with an image of Oglala Lakota Olympian Billy Mills at the society’s most recent conference.

Shane Balkowitsch of Bismarck presented the historical society with a wet plate collodion image he had created of Mills.

Mills won a gold medal in the 10,000-meter run at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. According to the society, Balkowitsch recently had Mills in his Bismarck studio to make several of the images.

“Billy Mills is a national hero for his effort at the Tokyo Games in 1964.  He remains an inspiration to many young athletes around the world as they chase their dreams.  It was important for me to immortalize this man in the historic wet plate process and equally as important to find a formal archive to have the history preserved,” said Balkowitsch.

Balkowitsch performed a demonstration of the wet plate process at the history conference.

“Mr. Mills came from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and his performance changed the world.  It was a given that one of the original plates would be entrusted to the South Dakota State Historical Society.  In their careful and skilled hands, this plate will be preserved, and his legacy remembered for generations to come,” said Balkowitsch.

Balkowitsch has donated over 30 plates to the South Dakota State Historical Society. Most of the images are of Native Americans from South Dakota as part of his photographic project, “Northern Plains Native Americans: A Modern Wet Plate Perspective.”

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