Eltina Three Stars Leads with Compassion and Compromise

STORY BY MICHELLE PAWELSKI PHOTOS BY SHILOH FRANCIS

Eltina Three Stars has never been one to hide her struggles – not her pregnancy at 17, not her difficulty in finding work because of her last name, not her thoughts of suicide during the pandemic, not her decision to come out as bisexual.

Instead, she opens her heart and shares her story in hopes of bridging gaps, reducing barriers, and creating avenues for resources.

“I want to raise my children in a childhood they don’t have to heal from, but should they have to, I also want them to have access to those resources. The Creator has put me on the path of some struggles to help me see what it is like so I can better help people.”

Eltina’s flair for leadership started on the elementary school playground. When her classmates wanted to her pick sides, she instead looked for common ground.

Born in Bennett County, Eltina lived her first eight years in Sioux Falls. “All my friends were different races when I lived in Sioux Falls. I didn’t notice color or anything.”

That changed when her family moved back to Martin. “I didn’t have the identity of being Native American as a little girl. Nobody made it an obvious thing. Then we moved back to my hometown which is half Native American and half non-native and it was a night and day difference.”

That division opened her eyes and allowed Eltina to use her innate ability to bring people together.

“I was a good mediator,” she said. “I was always able to see things from other people’s perspectives. I could relate and bridge the gap between people. That is one of my biggest gifts, still to this day. I can sit in a room and hear from everybody’s perspective and be able to communicate in a way that by the end of that meeting we are able to come to an agreement.”

Growing up, Eltina was involved in every extracurricular activity available – sports, drama, music. “I didn’t fit into one certain clique. I did everything.”

Her pregnancy at 17 didn’t stop her involvement in her school community. “I refused to be one of the high school dropouts or to hide my pregnancy. I didn’t allow people to shame me. I played sports as long as I could and went to every possible event. I made sure I graduated. I knew there was a stigma with teen pregnancy, but I also wanted to make sure my daughter was brought into the world with love and acceptance.”

Along with being a teen mom, working and going to school, Eltina made community engagement a top priority.

“My biggest thing was creating a better community to raise my children in.” She was involved in several leadership movements including a grant program aimed at improving impoverished areas. Martin was chosen to participate with the only requirement to train 25 adults in the curriculum. Eltina chose to lead the youth area with a goal of creating a safe place and activities to reduce gang involvement. However, with only two adults stepping up, the program disbanded.

“It was really disheartening. That lack of community involvement solidified my decision to relocate. Rapid City had always been a hub for us. It always felt like home.”

Eltina moved her family and her desire to make a difference to Rapid City in 2010. “That is when I started laying down roots to make Rapid City a better place to live not only for me but for my kiddos and their kids if they choose to have any.”

The young mother opened her home for conversations on race relations with community leaders including the police department. “I was doing race relations from my home early on. We only met a few times, but those meetings got heated and I found myself in a mediator position again. I could understand both sides.”

In her years living in Rapid City, Eltina used her professional roles to work toward change. As a recruiter for Adecco Staffing, she helped with workforce development, providing professional coaching, resume writing and cultural training for recruiting. “It was an opportunity to educate our hiring managers on the differences in growing up in the Lakota Native American way versus Western.”

In 2019, she joined the Great Plains Tribal Leader’s Health Board as the community engagement coordinator just as it was taking over management of Indian Health Services. Eltina found a community divided and again jumped in as mediator. Not long after joining the health board, Eltina, along with the rest of the world, was plunged into the historic COVID-19 pandemic. She struggled to navigate her personal and professional life along with isolation.

“I was feeling society’s anxiety along with being isolated with five kids in school and trying to work from home. All the calls to the Oyate Health Center for covid screenings were sent to my personal phone. I was taking calls from people who were scared.”

Eltina herself was scared and doubting her purpose. Her kids and a phone call from work asking her to work the covid isolation unit brought her back. “That is when I realized the importance of behavioral health. I made the vow to be a light in someone else’s darkness.”

She became a behavioral case manager and is currently the program manager for the Circles of Care program where she engages with community members to identify gaps and biases for those accessing behavioral health and treatment services.

Since joining the health board, Eltina has been propelled into a variety of leadership positions.

She has been called a “changemaker.” It is a title she honors and continually works to fulfill.

Eltina is a 2023 graduate of the Elevate Leadership Institute. “Anything involving leadership I am super interested. For me it is innate. It is always there.”

The ELI program helped her to sharpen her leadership skills and develop better self-awareness. “One thing I have difficulty with is that constructive criticism. It was good for me to put myself out there and see how I can improve.” She also discovered a fascination for community infrastructure –something that will aid in her eventual run for city council.

Eltina plans to run for the Ward 4 seat –a goal she set during last year’s Day of Excellence. But first, she is on the road to achieve her other goal set that day –become a surrogate mother.

“I had the privilege of having five kids, and I feel like it is a gift everyone should experience. And I always wanted to do something completely selfless and give back something that no one could repay.”

Eltina has been matched with a couple in California and hopes to have the embryo implanted in the next few months.

While she has many goals, they all revolve around making the world better for those in her community.

Eltina believes people need to bridge the gap between their own expectations and where other people are coming from. “We need to meet people where they are. I think we forget to do that as adults. We just assume everybody has their stuff together. That nobody has a bad day. We forget that we are human beings.”

People need to actively listen to each other to understand values, needs, desires, and struggles. Eltina says to heal the community, compassion needs to be added back and leaders need to be vulnerable.