Windy Boy said the lease agreement between Triangle and the tribe will provide financial benefit for years to come.

She came on the scene when the effort had almost fallen apart. The first choice of location for the tower was a non-starter because it was on sacred land. The second place fell through. When drilling core samples at the third spot, crews almost came too close to an unmarked grave.

A flat parcel on St. Pierre Ridge was finally approved, then the permitting process started in earnest. The FCC usually permits cell towers, in this case it needed to ceed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs because the project is on tribal lands.

In the middle of all of it, Windy Boy had a run-in with a cow on her family's ranch and broke her ankle. Shortly after, there was a dispute over right-of-way access and the cemetery that sits below the tower in what's called Old Agency, where the tribe's original settlement is.

"I told my husband 'Load me up so we can go see what's going on,'" she said. "We solved it."

The lease agreement should be finalized soon, and Triangle is working with the tribe to put up a kiosk somewhere on the reservation, perhaps at Stone Child College.