Ruth Carolyn Ziolkowski was an American executive and CEO of the Crazy Horse Memorial, a South Dakota monument dedicated to Crazy Horse which was designed by her late husband, Korczak Ziolkowski. Ruth Ziolkowski took over the responsibility for the construction of the monument following the death of her husband in 1982. Korczak Ziolkowski had been focusing on the completion of Crazy Horse's horse at the time of his death. Ruth Ziolkowski changed course, ordering that Crazy Horse's face be completed instead. She hoped that the monument would become a tourist magnet once his 87.5-foot face was finished, providing needed funding for the project. Her prediction proved correct upon the face's completion in 1998 and the statue quickly became one of South Dakota's top tourist attractions. Ziolkowski oversaw the growth, expansion and progress at the Crazy Horse Memorial from the 1980s to the 2010s. The Crazy Horse Memorial, as designed by Korczak Ziolkowski, will stand 563 feet high when completed, nearly twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. The statue, located in the Black Hills, will depict Crazy Horse riding a horse toward the east. [More at Wikipedia]

June 26th, 1926 in   /  Died:   May 21st, 2014