Harley Dean Zephier, Sr. (Circle Owl/Hinhan Omimeya, Saved By Bear/Mato Niyanpi)

Harley Dean Zephier, Sr., a good human being, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, uncle and brother, passed into the Spirit world on Saturday, February 10, 2024 at his home in Aberdeen, S.D., with his family at his side. This was one day after what would have been his 68th wedding anniversary to his loving wife Alverda Bagola Zephier, who passed away in November 2021. Harley missed her every minute of every day while they were apart. Their Spirits are now reunited once more, forever.

Harley was born in Pine Ridge, S.D. on July 1, 1935, as the fourth of nine children of his parents, Antoine Zephier and Victoria (Aungie) Zephier. His siblings were Andy, Darlene, Nelson, Charleen, Richard, Robert, Evon, Billy, and Jewell. A proud indigenous Dakota man, Harley was a member of the Ihanktowan (Yankton) Tribe, and is a descendant of notable relatives such as Augustin Aungie, Robert Dickson, Joseph Renville, Henry Aungie, Scott Campbell Sr. and Jr., Harriet Aungie, Cecelia Campbell Stay, Madelline Renville, Zephyr Rencountre, David Zephier, Wallace Zephier, and many others. He was indigenous Dakota but also had some Scottish and French ancestry.

The Zephier family moved around frequently over the years, but mostly within South Dakota, but Harley was a resourceful, independent and curious child who worked at many jobs collecting bottles, sorting bowling pins, sweeping floors and stocking shelves. He attended schools in Pine Ridge, Seattle WA, Flandreau, Bishop Hare School in Mission, Todd County School, and Dupree. Harley was a very good student and embraced education as a critical path to follow to pursue hopes, dreams and success, which he would always lovingly emphasize with his children and others throughout life. Harley was a tremendous athlete at all ages and competed eagerly in basketball, football, track, baseball, softball, and others in grade school, high school, college and in independent and amateur competition. Basketball, however, was his favorite sport, and the one in which he excelled the most.

Harley was a varsity basketball starter at Todd County High School as an eighth, ninth and tenth grader, and led the Falcons to the State Class B Basketball tourney in 1953, where he scored the most points in the tournament. His family moved to Dupree in 1954 and Harley attended school at Dupree HS where he participated in all sports, but starred in basketball, football and track. His younger brother Richard was his teammate with the Dupree Tigers, who had tremendous teams in basketball and football those years. In 1954, Harley’s senior year at Dupree, the football team was undefeated in 6 man play. Harley gained Class B High School Basketball First Team All State in 1954 and 1955. The Dupree Tigers BB team in 1955 went 26-1 until they lost in district tourney play and finished 27-2. Harley still holds the Dupree HS track record for the long jump from 1955.

Harley was recruited by many colleges and chose to attend USD in Vermillion briefly, but moved back to Dupree to work, then decided to take his young family with him to Yankton College where Harley played college basketball for the Yankton College Greyhounds, and became an all conference and Little All American, and a four year starter for the Greyhounds. Harley continued to play basketball and baseball and softball well into his 50s, and participated in many games and tournaments over the decades with family and friends as teammates.

His venture into teaching and coaching athletics at Columbia (SD) High School from 1962-64, and at Lyons (SD) High School in 1964-66, raised the level of commitment, drive, excellence and love for the game, throughout and with his students and athletes. Harley coached the Columbia Comets to their first ever Class B State Basketball Tournament in Sioux Falls in 1963. Harley, Sr. was given the great honor of being selected to the 2017 Class of the South Dakota High School Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2022, his son Harley, Jr. was selected to the SDHSBBHOF, making them unique as a father and son HOF family.

Coming from a large family himself, Harley was always appreciative and honored to support, care for and nuture, Family. He started his own family when he met and fell in a lifelong love with his wife Alverda Bagola in Dupree in 1955. Alverda had 2 young children (Linda 1949 and Loren 1951) from a previous marriage, and Harley treated them as his own. Harley and Alverda were married by a justice of the peace in Pierre, SD on February 9, 1956. Alverda and Harley then started their own family of children ultimately including son Harley, Jr., daughter Whitley, son Robin, son Darin, and daughter Lanni.

Harley started his work career working on road construction and other labor, until he obtained his teaching degree and got his first teaching and coaching job at Columbia High School from 1962-64, then at Lyons High School from 1964-66, then Harley obtained a position with the Indian Health Service at the Hospital in Winnebago, NE and moved the family to South Sioux City, NE where they lived from 1966-1969. Harley did serve as a deacon with the Episcopal church in Pine Ridge and in South Sioux City while there. Then in 1969, Harley got a job as the Service Unit Director of the IHS Hospital in Pine Ridge, SD, where the family lived until moving to northeast SD to Mellette in the summer of 1973, after the AIM occupation of Wounded Knee. Harley served as a trusted diplomat and negotiator between the AIM and tribal leaders and the federal government in early 1973, even keeping concerned allies such as Marlon Brando, advised on the circumstances. The move to Mellette was made because of Harley’s selection to become the new Area Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Aberdeen, SD. The Zephiers only lived in Mellette about one year, then moved to Aberdeen in the fall of 1974. Harley worked as the BIA Area Director until the summer of 1979, then moved the remaining family to Winnebago, NE in summer of 1979 where he worked coaching basketball at the school until he decided to go back to college to pursue his masters degree in education at the Univ. of SD and moved the family to Vermillion, SD where they stayed until Harley got his Masters and moved back to Aberdeen in 1981 when Harley got a job as an education specialist with the BIA Education Department. Harley fought and won litigation against the federal government in 1981 over his wrongful removal as the BIA Area Director in 1979, which Harley felt vindicated him in many respects against factions who had fought against Harley’s honorable goals to try to stop corruption and economic waste of federal and tribal resources by the forces that were keeping those funds/ efforts from going to the people, and the people’s needs, where said funds and efforts were intended to go. Harley worked in the Education Department until 1992 when he formally retired from the federal government. In 199495, Harley came out of retirement when he took the job as the General Manager of the Ft. Randall Casino briefly, with his own tribe, the Yankton Sioux Tribe, until he left that position to go back to complete retirement and staying in Aberdeen. Harley and Alverda continued to live in Aberdeen for the rest of their days. Alverda passed away on November 2, 2021. Since the time of her death, Harley has missed her every hour of every day, up to the time when Harley himself moved through to the Spiritual world to join Alverda, on February 10, 2024, the day after their 68th anniversary.

Harley’s survivors include a stepdaughter Linda Montana, son Loren W. Zephier of Eagle Butte, son Harley L. Zephier of Thunder Butte, daughter Whitley Zephier, son Robin L. Zephier (Patti) of Rapid City, SD, son Darin T. Zephier (Buddie), TX, a daughter Lanni Zephier Smith (Lance) of Aberdeen, SD, a sister Evon Zephier of Minnesota, David Zephier, brother-in-law Donald Wince of Rapid City, sister-in-law Mary Lou Zephier, numerous grandchildren including Mercury Zephier Smith, Jared Zephier, Derek Zephier, Charlie Bercier, Dannielle Zephier, Molly and Ian Montana, and many great-grandchildren including Sage Rae Zephier, Madison Ahrendt, Mia McGrane, Reese Zephier, Taya Zephier, Chance Zephier, Brynn Zephier, Dawson Zephier, Myles Zephier, great-greatgrandchildren Bentley Zephier and Sophie Zephier, nephews and nieces, friends and colleagues, former players and students.

Harley was a genuinely good man and human being, and was loved and respected by all that met and knew him. A kind and gentle Spirit always, Harley practiced the life and the way of the true human being, and thoroughly embraced his spiritual connection to the Lakota Dakota way of prayer, tradition and co-existence within the Sacred Hoop, the Circle of Life within and beyond Grandmother Earth and all of the children of Unci Maka. Harley was gifted a genuine sacred gift of an eagle feathered headdress in Pine Ridge in 1973 by Medicine Man Frank Fools Crow, who gave him the indigenous name of “Circle Owl” (Hinhan Omimeya), because he is wise and honorable and has done good for the people, and having been born in Pine Ridge on the reservation, would return one day to help the people when they needed it most. In 2010, with family by his side at Last Stand Hill at the Greasy Grass battlefield at the Little Bighorn in Montana, Harley, Sr. participated in a very sacred ceremony with his wife Alverda and his children, to pray for peace, unity, tolerance and love, and for the sacred permission to tell the true yet untold, story of the life of Mato Niyanpi/Saved By Bear, Alverda’s maternal grandfather, who was the proud Lakota warrior who took Custer’s life on that Hill in 1876 to try to save the people from genocide, and Unci Maka from ruin and destruction, and for the release of the Spirits there and to heal the Sacred Hoop/Circle of Life. It is said that his wife’s family gave him the name after Alverda’s grandfather, Mato Niyanpi, Saved By Bear after he married Alverda. They embraced the spirit of the Wanbli (eagle) and the Mato (bear).

Harley loved all sports, but especially basketball, and watched the sporting events on TV (NBA, NCAA, NFL, etc.) when he could. He was a good guitar player and a wonderful singer. He loved nature and spending time being in the outdoors, and driving his little KIA to and from the Wylie Park Zoo, with its small herds of buffalo (tatanka), elk (hehaka) and the deer. He especially enjoyed watching the tatanka, and the birthing of their new generations every year and watching them grow, He prayed with them everyday while in their presence. He even got to pet and feed a very young buffalo calf this past summer thanks to kind hearted efforts from Darin and his friends.

To a strong willed, genuinely honorable, kind, humane, empathetic, peaceful, intelligent, and gracious common man, we say that those that loved you and knew you, will forever be reminded of the human and spiritual imprint that you have made upon our lives, our minds, our dreams, our hearts and our Spirits. Pilamayelo, thank you. We are proud to have been your bloodline, your children and grandchildren, your focus, and the object of your love and protection, and the proud and admirable example that you have shown us all, when we walk the walk in your sacred footprints. Fly and be free in Spirit now, as you journey along that sacred Trail of Spirits along the Milky Way, where you will be welcomed Home by Alverda and all of our ancestors and relatives throughout all of the times of Unci Maka. Bless you, Dad. Toksa Ake, until we see each other once more. Remember. And it all will be true.

It is possible that there may be a memorial and celebration of life (by invitation) for both Harley and Alverda, sponsored by Harley’s children, family and friends in the future. Plans are not finalized at this point. In memory of Harley and to support his Spirit, we ask that you be kind to others, and walk in a way where those that choose to follow you, will see your footprints in the path, deep and shining brightly with hope, empathy, humanity and love. 'Keep the Fire Burning'