Up until late last year, Ella Coleman, a diminutive, soft-spoken Oglala Sioux grandmother who lives in one of the hundreds of mobile homes on the semi-arid plains of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, lacked running water.

Sometimes, she received water deliveries by truck. Other times, she drove to a community spigot, where she filled buckets and hauled them in her minivan. At home, she ladled water from the buckets for cooking and bathing.

Finally, last fall, a not-for-profit, Running Strong

Every year, 105 lawmakers and hundreds of lobbyists make the trek to South Dakota’s lonely capital city of 14,000 residents. Situated 34 miles from the nearest interstate highway, Pierre feels tiny and isolated, even by the standards of this remote plains state.

It’s in this cloistered environment that legislators and lobbyists commingle