VERMILLION, S.D. (AP) — A former South Dakota football player and his family have given Coyotes Athletics the largest private donation in program history, athletic director Jon Schemmel announced Wednesday (July 24, 2024).

Scott Jones and his wife, Lisa, donated approximately $5 million, Schemmel told The Associated Press through a spokesman.

The football program is the primary beneficiary. The gift will endow the offensive coordinator position and increase the team’s overall budget. The Coyotes enter 2024 off their best season in the Football Championship Subdivision, going 10-3 and reaching the quarterfinals of the playoffs.

Scott Jones played quarterback for the then-Division II Coyotes from 1983-87 and led the team to a 21-6 record as the starter his last two seasons. Jones was inducted into the USD Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005.

“Lisa, our four children, and I are so excited for this gift to USD and the Coyote football program! The enthusiasm and love we have for our Coyote brothers, sisters, staff, faculty, and leadership is beyond measure,” Jones said. “We look forward to continuing the commitment to excellence that the university and football program have ingrained in us.”

Portions of the donation will be directed to the next phase of DakotaDome renovations, general athletic scholarships and other support for the athletic department. The school is in its second decade competing in Division I.

Scott Jones graduated with a chemistry degree in 1988 and is president of Maguire Iron in Sioux Falls. His wife, Lisa, earned her degree in Arts & Sciences in 1995.

The medals awarded to soldiers who participated in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre will be subjected to a review, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Wednesday.

The department said the review’s purpose is “to ensure no awardees were recognized for conduct inconsistent with the nation’s highest military honor.”

The move comes after years of activism by Lakota people — including descendants of massacre survivors — who want the medals rescinded. 

Oliver “OJ” Semans, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has been active in the effort with his wife, Barb, and their Four Directions nonprofit. He said it’s gratifying to see some momentum after a long struggle, including failed attempts to rescind the medals through congressional legislation.

“This issue is moving right now, and there are a lot of people involved in it,” Semans said. “We’re all trying to get to the same conclusion, and that’s justice for the descendants.”

The memorandum ordering the review is from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. He directed his undersecretary of defense and personnel readiness to convene a panel of five experts, including two from the Department of the Interior. The panel must send a written report to Austin no later than Oct. 15 with recommendations and rationale to retain or rescind each of the medals. Austin will then provide his recommendations to the president.

The department said “approximately 20” soldiers received a Medal of Honor for participating in the massacre. Historians have noted that the records associated with some of the medals are incomplete or unclear.

In a news release, the Defense Department attributed comments to “a senior defense official” who said “it’s never too late to do what’s right.”

“And that’s what is intended by the review that the secretary directed,” the official said, “which is to ensure that we go back and review each of these medals in a rigorous and individualized manner to understand the actions of the individual in the context of the overall engagement.”

The massacre occurred on Dec. 29, 1890. Lakota people were camped near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, where they were surrounded by hundreds of Army soldiers. A shot rang out while the soldiers tried to disarm the camp, and chaotic shooting ensued.

Fewer than 40 soldiers were killed (some by friendly fire, according to historians), while estimates of Lakota deaths ran from 200 to 300 or more, depending on the source. After some of the bodies froze on the ground for several days, a military-led burial party dumped them into a mass grave.

The politics and racism of the day influenced the Army’s decision to support medals for some of the soldiers, even though Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles condemned the massacre. He led the Division of the Missouri, which included the soldiers who were responsible for the incident.

“I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than at Wounded Knee,” Miles wrote in an 1891 letter that’s now held in an archive at Yale.

Gov. Kristi Noem is joining other state governors urging Congress to pass the Strengthening State and Tribal Support Act.

Supporters of the bill say it would provide tribes with direct access to tax refund offsets to utilize in child and family support. It also gives broader contract access to federal tax information.

Currently, direct access to federal tax information by tribal support programs is prohibited.

Noem signed the letter asking for the change along with a bipartisan group of 20 other state governors.