Students from the Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation have won this year’s Language Bowl, part of the Lakota Nation Invitational.

The Red Cloud students beat out the other teams to win the bowl, which focuses on the use of the Lakota language.  Topics covered during the bowl included the environment, ceremonial terms, biology and sentence structures.

Team member Savannah Jensen says all the students are interested in the Lakota culture and the language. She says her teacher encourages the students to use the language outside of the classroom.

The Lakota Nation Invitational is in its 36th year in Rapid City. The event brings together students from predominantly Native American schools to compete in basketball, wrestling, language and knowledge competitions.