'Hoe down' highlights hemp's versatile uses

By Journal Staff | Sunday, April 30, 2006

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

PIEDMONT -- It's time for the annual Black Hills Hemp Hoe Down, a musical and educational event where everything including the tickets and the food is made from hemp.

The sixth annual Hemp Hoe Down, at the Elk View Campground near Piedmont, starts at 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 12, and continues through 2 a.m. Saturday night. People of all ages are invited to enjoy indoor/outdoor live music, workshops, hemp food and beer, speeches and more.

Event organizers tout the benefits of hemp, a relative of the marijuana plant that is not smoked but can be used to make items including lotions, paper, clothing and burritos. "Hemp seed and oil is the only food source that contains all nine essential amino acids and all four essential fatty acids, making it an almost complete food source," according to a news release.

Cost is $10 per day at the gate, which includes camping, or $18 for both days. Proceeds from this year's Hemp Hoe Down will go to benefit the 2006 South Dakota medical cannabis initiative, which is being circulated for inclusion on the November ballot. People will be able to register to vote at the Hemp Hoe Down.

Friday's entertainment will feature music from Governor's Suite, a Sioux Falls jam band, at 4:30 p.m., followed by Tim (Greenhouse) saxophone jams at 5:30 p.m. and Lunar Funk Theory, a Sioux Falls funk rock band, at 7 p.m. Sweatband, a Spearfish reggae funk group, will play at 9 p.m. Spearfish rock band the Mat Hats will play at midnight.

Weather permitting, electronic DJ's, including the DJ4Norml Project, will start spinning records at 2 a.m.

Saturday will kick off at 11 a.m. with music from Don't Cross Liam, a Rapid City classic rock and blues band. John Craige, a folk artist from Santa Cruz, Calif., will perform at 5 p.m. Rapid City rock band Tone Grown will take the stage at 7 p.m., followed by Solution (billed as a "Sioux Falls jam jazz funk spectacular) at 9 p.m. Dog War, a Rapid City original reggae/folk group, will finish out the evening.

Saturday's schedule features Alex White Plume, vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who will speak at about 6:30 p.m. He will discuss his experiences as the only farmer to cultivate and sell a hemp crop in the United States since the 1960s. White Plume is currently appealing a federal injunction ordering him and his family to stop growing hemp on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

This year's Hemp Hoe Down will also include eight half-hour workshops from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. At 1 p.m. Gwen Cauldwell will discuss building your own home using adobe, and participants will build a bench for Elk View Campground. At 1:30 p.m. the Rapid City School of Free Thought will offer a women's issues workshop, discussing everything from body image to natural healing to "ridiculous hygiene myths."

The Sierra Club will present a workshop on environmental activism at 2 p.m., followed by a 2:30 p.m. presentation on organic food by the Breadroot Coop and Organnabis Kitchen. A recycling seminar is set for 3 p.m. At 3:30 p.m. the Bike Coop will teach participants how to salvage and maintain a bicycle.

A High Plains Wind Energy demonstration on wind and solar panels is planned for 4 p.m., and at 4:30 p.m. participants will learn to make homemade paper from hemp and straw scraps.

A Frisbee golf tournament is planned from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Participants should bring their own discs. The winner will receive a hemp Frisbee golf bag and a free meal from Organnabis Kitchen.

Speaking of food, event concessions also feature hemp products. Hemp beer will be available. The Organnabis Kitchen will provide organic hemp-based meals, including Thai food, soups and bison burgers. Saturday morning breakfast, featuring hemp seed coffee and hemp granola, will be served at 10 a.m.

Elk View Campground is located off Interstate 90 at Exit 37. Hemp Hoe Down tickets are available at Ernie November's, The Goods and Global Market in Rapid City, at Global Market and the B & B Bar in Spearfish, and at Back to Nature in Sturgis.

Organizers remind participants that illegal drugs are not allowed at the Hemp Hoe Down, and all outside alcohol must be kept away from the main building. No glass containers are allowed. Dogs must be leashed. For more information go to www.hemphoedown.com