Scouting Report | South Dakota star actor, Salem's Truman scholar, perils of punitive planning

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South Dakota actor Mo Brings Plenty has won fame as an actor portraying a top lieutenant of an Indian tribal chairman in the hit series “Yellowstone,” which generally takes place with our neighbors in the west – Montana and Wyoming. To those familiar with the series, the characters who visit Wyoming tend to become permanent residents. His character is quiet but perceptive, tough and wise. He’s not somebody you’d want to mess with.

Brings Plenty, 54, is a native of the Pine Ridge Reservation. He is winning growing acclaim. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum awarded Brings Plenty with its New Horizon award during its celebration in April.

Besides acting, Brings Plenty ranches and doubles as a horse stunt rider.

“But above all,” reads the citation honoring him, “he is a man who wholeheartedly believes in human kindness, and he trusts the good in humanity still exists and feels it just needs to be dusted off a bit. Out of respect and honor for those who have come before us, Mo knows we have a profound obligation to leave a livable planet for those who will follow after we are gone, and he starts and ends every day with thoughts of how he and we can make the world a better place while we are here.”

In addition to “Yellowstone,” Brings Plenty has credits in the recently released “Jurassic World Dominion” and in Showtime’s series “The Good Lord Bird.”