Background
Darrell Kipp was born in Browning, Montana, and graduated from Browning High School in 1962.
Darrell Kipp was born in Browning, Montana, and graduated from Browning High School in 1962.
He attended Eastern Montana College, and held two master"s degrees, an Editor.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1975 and a Master of Fine Arts from Vermont College.
He served as a Sergeant in B Company, 51st Signal Battalion United States Army in of Korea, along the Korean DMZ during the Vietnam. Darrell Kipp developed two immersion schools on the Blackfeet reservation teaching the Blackfoot language, Moccasin Flat School and Cuts Wood School. He served on the Board of the Endangered Language Fund, and "inspired and encouraged many tribal communities to follow his lead to begin their own language immersion schools."
In 2004 he joined composer Robert Kapilow to create a large-scale choral and orchestra work for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial.
The work, entitled Summer Sun, Winter Moon, was commissioned by the Kansas City Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony and the Louisiana Symphony, and was based on Kipp"s libretto.
lieutenant premiered in September 2004. A documentary of the event, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, was made and aired on public television
Kipp wrote the introduction to the second edition of book Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians (compiled and translated by Clark Wissler and Doctorate C Duvall), published by Bison Books in 2008. "What are you waiting for? Don’t ask permission to save your language.
Just do lieutenant".
A member of the Blackfoot tribe, he was instrumental in teaching and preserving the Blackfoot language as the Director of the Piegan Institute. He served as a board member of Siyeh Development, the economic development organization of the Blackfoot tribe, and spent seventeen years as appellate judge on the tribal court.