Darrell Kipp

Darrell Robes Kipp (23 October 1944 - 21 November 2013) was a Native American educator, documentary filmmaker and historian. A member of the Blackfoot tribe, he was instrumental in teaching and preserving the Blackfoot language as the Director of the Piegan Institute.

Darrell Kipp was born in Browning, Montana, and graduated from Browning High School in 1962. He served as a Sergeant in B Company, 51st Signal Battalion US Army in Korea, along the Korean DMZ during the Vietnam War era. He attended Eastern Montana College, and held two master's degrees, an Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1975 and a MFA from Vermont College.

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."

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.

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. It 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 D. C. Duvall), published by Bison Books in 2008.

He received the Montana Governor's Humanities Award in 2005. He received the Trustee Award for Contributions to Montana History from the Montana Historical Society in 2006.

"What are you waiting for? Don’t ask permission to save your language. Just do it."