Gary Gurwell was the chief inmate in charge when the chapel was remodeled at the prison in 2000-2001. He did all the stain glass windows and a lot of carpentry work for window frames, etc. See Argus Leader Newspaper feature article, S.D. penitentiary is reborn, December 2001.
I paid for the Native American window in the chapel. Oyate Wanji means One People. There was a good amount of controversy on what the window should display. It couldn’t show anything any of the gangs used for a logo. The picture was designed by an artistic Native inmate, Walt Weddell, from the Yankton tribe. He is now out of prison too.
As an accountant, I don’t feel like I made a lasting change in anyone’s life. I was very involved in the chapel remodeling, however, so I do think I’ve left something of permanence behind me. The Lutheran chaplain, the Cultural Activity Coordinator, and I were the remodeling and fundraising committee.
Gary Gurwell came up with the plans on the seat configuration for remodeling the chapel. Because he was an inmate, his ideas went nowhere. I had a good friend who was an architect. He came in, talked to Gary, put the plans on architectural drawing paper, and signed them. The plans were then submitted to the DOC administration in Pierre who required an architect’s signature for any construction or remodeling to be done.
Everyone raved about how nice the new layout was and the administration in Pierre approved the plan. The chapel used to be divided into 3 parts with two aisles from the back to the front and two side aisles. Now it has one center aisle and two side aisles. It seats 200.
It used to have old theater seats in it and I mean really, really old. It was originally used as a movie theater for the inmates, but after TV came out, the movies were discontinued. Too much groping took place in the dark, I heard. Now it is used as a chapel shared by all the denominations and for staff and other meetings.
The carpeting in the 2000’s was straight from the 1950’s with an orange, rust, brown pattern. In 2001 we had new carpeting installed in shades of deep purple, tan and violet. We had to raise money for all this remodeling. Now the carpeting is going to be replaced again. This time the State is paying.
Some of the original seats were from a movie theatre downtown. They were covered with faded red velvet and stuffed with horse hair and others were covered in yellow, orange,
and turquoise blue vinyl. When the remodeling was being planned, I brought a chapel chair from my parish which had recently been remodeled. The warden and senior staff members first accused me of stealing it (I borrowed it) but then thought it would work great in the chapel. It was used as a pattern for inmates to make the seats in the carpentry shop. One big difference was the chairs were bolted to the floor in the prison chapel and were moveable in my parish church.
Visit the chapel by virtual tour as posted on the South Dakota State Prison website.
