January 20, 1969 – November 13, 2022
Joye Michelle Braun, 53, of Eagle Butte entered the Spirit World on Sunday, November 13, 2022 at her home in Eagle Butte.
Funeral services were held Saturday, November 19, 2022 at the CRST Bingo Hall. Burial was at the UCC Cemetery at LaPlant.
Joye Michelle was born in Winnebago, NE on January 20, 1969 to Sandra Frazier and Ellsworth LeBeau. Joye grew up in university communities, mainly in Vermillion and Missoula, MT, as her parents pursued their higher education goals. Her father earned his doctor’s degree in education and her mother earned her MA and Ed.S in counseling. The Lakota name given to her is “Wanbli Wiya Ka’Win - Eagle Feather Woman.”
The family had friends from diverse backgrounds, and Joye and her siblings got to experience people from many different cultures and enjoyed many activities.
Joye met and married Durin Mundahl’s father while in college at Morris University. She moved home when he was a baby, and later had a beautiful daughter named Morgan Brings-Plenty. Her niece Jasmine C. LeBeau joined the family from time to time during her stay on the reservation and Joye always raised her and took care of her like her own daughter.
Joye was a journalist for the Eagle Butte News and was the first native to be featured as a photojournalist in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Joye remarried and lived several years in Washington State with her children. When Joye moved home from Washington state she learned of the fight against KXL which was threatening her homelands. Joye fought against the Dakota Access Pipeline. She became the first camper to set her tipi at the Sacred Stone Camp on the Standing Rock Reservations. She was the last to leave the Ocetii Sakowin Camp when it was closed. She then joined the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) with her daughter and niece by her side. Joye became the National Pipeline campaigner for IEN mentoring the youth to use their voices to stand up against environment and other threats in their home territories.
Joye is survived by her children: Durin Mundahl and Morgan Brings-Plenty; her parents, Sandra Frazier and Ellsworth LeBeau; siblings Albert LeBeau III and Denise M. LeBeau; nephew Emmanuel Schryvers; niece Jasmine C. LeBeau; grandchildren Mya LeBeau, Quinton LeBeau, Junior LeBeau, and Donovan Guerrero-LeBeau Jr.
She was preceded in death by her dog Jack-Jack, her grandmother Ione Lee Walters and her granddaughter Mia Elizabeth LeBeau.
Rooks Funeral Home of Eagle Butte was in charge of arrangements.