By Bernie Hunhoff
Seldom does the tenor of the South Dakota state legislature rise to the level of outrage. Lawmakers here can argue life and death issues without waking the lobbyists in the back row.
But on Friday some wronged auto dealers came to the House State Affairs Committee to lament their treatment by auto makers Chrysler [...]
By John Andrews
I don’t remember how old I was when I made my television debut as a member of Captain 11’s crew. I do know it was my birthday, so my family drove from Lake Norden to Sioux Falls for the show. I also remember we had this new-fangled contraption called a VCR on which [...]
By Bernie Hunhoff
There’s a hand-written sign at the Pit Stop convenience store in Wessington Springs that reads “39 Days Since Our Last Break-in.”
I stopped there for gas earlier this week and thought it was a joke, but proprietor Kelly Gran wasn’t laughing. And she says rural crime seems to be on the rise, even in [...]
By John Andrews
Big things have happened to Kevin Locke since we wrote about him and his newest CD in our November/December issue, not that we really had anything to do with it.
Locke’s album Earth Gift won a NAMMY (Native American Music Award) in the Record of the Year category. He was also nominated for Artist [...]
By John Andrews
In 1996 we reported that a book of drawings by Black Hawk, a Lakota medicine man who lived on the Cheyenne River reservation during the late 19th century, sold at auction for $387,000, the second-highest price ever paid for an American Indian artifact. Since our short article appeared, Black Hawk’s drawings have been [...]
By John Andrews
Chances are you’ve seen John Behring’s work. You just don’t realize it. The Canton native has directed and produced many of the network television dramas you watch today or have seen in the last decade.
The latest issue of The South Dakotan, the University of South Dakota’s alumni magazine, has an article on Behring. [...]
The Rapid City Journal has a good editorial today advocating a facelift of Mount Rushmore Road, the city’s main thoroughfare and a common path for visitors who leave I-90 in search of the mountain b the same name.
City officials have apparently been considering such a move. It does seem long overdue. Mount Rushmore Road [...]
Hundreds of South Dakota’s most avid tourism advocates are in Pierre this week for their annual conference. Last night, they gathered for a gala with lawmakers and other state officials.
Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard opened the event with the comment that he has been especially impressed with the enthusiasm and generosity of the Sturgis tourism crowd, [...]
By John Andrews
We don’t have any eyewitness accounts of the battle between legendary trader Hugh Glass and the grizzly bear that nearly killed him near the fork of the Grand River in 1823. Margie La Due describes how she thinks it happened in her new book Crawl Into the Night, a fictionalized story written for [...]
Today in the mail we received a cute little book with 66 tables that compare the 50 states in everything from foreclosures to police spending and tax rates.
Here are some interesting tidbits. Whether they mean much we’ll leave to your speculation, because we discovered long ago that comparing states is like comparing the proverbial apples [...]
By John Andrews
Summer is the busy season at Lake Poinsett, featured in our May/June 2009 issue. The lake is a popular summer recreation spot, especially among big city families who have cabins along the beach. Many are gone for the winter, but locals don’t let snow and cold keep them from having fun.
This weekend the [...]
By John Andrews
Our current issue features a special anniversary story about colorful characters we’ve met in our first 25 years of publishing. We managed to include quite a few, but the editing process was particularly difficult, and some very interesting people were left out. One name that surfaced very early in our planning for the [...]
2010 marks the 100th birthday of the splendid state capitol in Pierre. In his final state of the state address, Gov. Mike Rounds spoke of what an inspiration it has been for him to report to work in such a building. He also noted that there will be two observances of the centennial. The first [...]
By John Andrews
We’ve said it before, but we think our readers are among the friendliest in the world. When subscriptions come due, readers sometimes jot a few nice words on the bills they send to us. There’s always a stack of them on our conference table for staffers to peruse. We appreciate that because we [...]
By John Andrews
Want to own a piece of history in Rapid City? $122,800 will buy the historic home of Valentine McGillycuddy at the corner of South Street and Mount Rushmore Road.
McGillycuddy’s story doesn’t have the same glitz as other figures in state history, but he’s an important figure. He first entered the Black Hills with [...]