Our Towns 2022

OUR TOWNS BLACK HILLS PIONEER

SECTION 1 OF 4

2022 EDITION

The businesses, organizations and people making a positive difference in the Northern Hills.

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LENDING A HELPING HAND

CELEBRATING MILESTONES

BUSINESS BOOMING

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Page 2, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Variety of factors fueling hot housing market Inflation, gas prices may lead to cooling

By Deb Holland Black Hills Pioneer

NORTHERN HILLS — On a Thursday afternoon earlier this month, there were eight active homes listed for sale in the Northern Black Hills ranging in price from $200,000 to $350,000. All eight were either under contract or had an offer on them.

“At any given time in that price range, we would normally have had an average of 25 choices,” said Bob Bertolotto of Bertolotto Real Estate & Auction Inc. of Sturgis.

Land and housing are hot commodities in the Black Hills right now with new residents moving to the area. But it’s proved to be a double-edged sword for real estate agents who find themselves with little or no inventory available to offer clients.

Some attribute the boom to Gov. Kristi Noem who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, encouraged people to come to South Dakota, saying the state was open for business.

It worked.

Bertolotto said he’s seen a huge amount of out-of-state buyers and also folks who are looking to move up into a bigger, more expensive home.

“People are coming here from both coasts and about anywhere else in the country.

They think our real estate is a steal,” Bertolotto said.

And for those willing to dip their toe

“

People are coming here from both coasts and about anywhere else in the country.

They think our real estate is a steal. And for those willing to dip their toe in the water, it’s definitely a seller’s market.

Bob Bertolotto,

Bertolotto Real Estate Auction Inc.

”

in the water, it’s definitely a seller’s market.

“If it’s priced accordingly, you will get an offer within five days, some in five hours,” Bertolotto said.

There are other contributing factors also including the arrival of the B-21 Raider bomber at Ellsworth Air Force Base in the not-so-distant future and the expected increase in staff to support them.

Jason Tysdal, owner/broker at Century 21 Spearfish Realty, Inc. and MLS chairman of the Mount Rushmore Area Association of Realtors, said supply chain issues, shortage of materials that lead to the high cost of materials, and other states shutting down pushing people to open states such as South Dakota are all contributing to the

extremely tight market.

“It’s been affecting the entire Black Hills and even areas out on the Plains that our board serves for the last year or so,” Tysdal said.

“2021 was a fast and furious year the real estate market in the Black Hills.”

Tysdal said factors affecting the market are rooted in the COVID-19 pandemic and the politics that followed.

“Most people that contact us about moving here make reference to our governor and letting the people of South Dakota make their own decisions,” he said.

Like most of the country, the Northern Black Hills is seeing a lack of inventory of new and pre-existing homes, Tysdal said.

“Some of the prices we are seeing people willing to pay are the highest they’ve ever been.”

The market may slow as inflation and gas prices rise, he said.

“Plus now, we’re seeing mortgage interest rates rising which may cool down some of the buyers, leading to stabilizing home prices within the next few months.”

New subdivisions in the Northern Black Hills will help with affordability and availability in the housing market, but depending on national circumstances, may not completely solve the issues, Tysdal said.

“New homes may be bought up by new people moving into the area quickly, but that also opens up opportunities for current residents ready to move up to a

newer and maybe larger home, thus opening up inventory in the existing home market,” he said.

Tysdal said buyers need to be qualified and ready to pull the trigger on making an offer.

Supply chain issues, shortage of materials that lead to the high cost of materials, and other states shutting down pushing people to South Dakota have led to a hot housing market. Pioneer photos by Mark Watson

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 3

New Northern Hills subdivisions hope to ease housing crunch

Above, Pleasant Valley Estates, the newest development outside of Sturgis, is located on Pleasant Valley Road just over a mile east of Interstate 90. Pioneer photo by Deb Holland

By Deb Holland Black Hills Pioneer

NORTHERN HILLS — Thousands of housing lots could come available at subdivisions scattered throughout the Northern Black Hills in the next couple years.

From Sky Ridge in Spearfish to Norman Ranch in the Black Hawk area, the subdivisions are hoped to meet the needs of a housing crunch seen throughout the Black Hills.

Representatives from the city of Spearfish, Dream Design International Inc., Zandstra Construction and HDR Engineering Company broke ground in December 2021 on the first homes to be constructed at Sky Ridge.

The event marked the beginning of construction of the first three homes at Sky Ridge, with an additional 27 homes expected to begin construction this year. Over the next five years, the development could produce 150 homes ranging in price from $100,000 to the South Dakota Housing Development Authority’s first-time homebuyers price limit, which is currently set at $300,000.

The project will also include recreational areas within the housing development as well as a 40-acre sports complex.

The city of Spearfish and Lawrence County have worked together to provide for orderly development of the East Colorado Boulevard area where Sky Ridge is lo-

cated.

According to the East Colorado Boulevard Area Study, adopted at the beginning of March this year, an estimated 300 homes could be built in the area by 2030.

The following are the 10year growth assumptions for the study area, using a straight-line projection based on 2020 Census data*: Spearfish growth rate = 16% (from 2010 to 2020)* Current Spearfish population = 12,193* New projected residents 2020-2030 = 1,950 People per household = 2.12* New homes 2020-2030 = 300 (assumes 1/3 of all new homes built in the next 10 years will be in the study area) New non-residential land use estimate: 72,000 square feet - retail, food service, light industrial Meade County Director of Equalization Rhea Crane said there are many subdivisions springing up in the southern area of Meade County, but recent growth has also come from Pleasant Valley north to Sturgis.

Pleasant Valley Estates, the newest development outside of Sturgis, is located on Pleasant Valley Road just over a mile east of Interstate 90.

Developers say it offers great views of the Black Hills and of Bear Butte. The subdivision will be built out in three phases with a total

Picutred is an aerial view of the Pleasant Valley Estates, the newest development outside of Sturgis, is located on Pleasant Valley Road just over a mile east of Interstate 90. Courtesy photo of 62 home lots.

One of the new subdivisions in Sturgis is being developed by the PIVOT Development Group.

Bill Phillips, one of the partners in PIVOT Development Group LLC told the Sturgis City Council recently that he and his fellow developers don’t have a full finished master plan for the development yet.

“My guess between the two sides, we’re probably looking at 350 to 450 (homes) and then some multi-family there,” he said.

Developers of more than a dozen large subdivisions have received plats in Meade County in the past year. The subdivision and number of lots include:

Bridle Ridge Block 3, Box Elder, 10 AR Ranch Estates, Elk Creek Road, 34 Freedom Park, Box Elder, 28 Shadowland, Piedmont, 9 Range at Bear Butte, Alkali Road, 6 Garden Grove, Sturgis, off Pine View Drive near Flex Fitness, 57 Hidden Valley, Sturgis, west of Sturgis off Avalanche Road, 40 Trailhead, Sturgis, off Pine View Drive, 23 Pleasant Valley Phases 1-3, near Fort Meade Way off Exit 37, 62 Prairie Haven Phase 3, Elk Creek Road, 18 Bridle Ridge Block 4, Box Elder, 19

Creek Meadows Estates, Elk Creek area, 250 Norman Ranch, Black Hawk area, 400 In 2019, Meade County issued 248 building permits.

In 2020, the county issued 353 building permits. And in 2021, the county issued 324 permits.

In Butte County, the expansion of the Hat Ranch subdivision is ongoing as well as at Willow Creek, Prairie Hills Ranchettes, Prairie Pines Estates, Willow Creek and Nickle.

Hollie Stalder, Belle Fourche Development Corporation’s (BFDC) executive director, said the potential to offer more housing opportunities to the Belle SUBDIVISIONS Pg 14

Page 4, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Featuring

DesJarlais Farm & Winery A family owned business that is located in Sturgis, where they make both Northern variety grape wines as well as country wines from the best fruits they can grow and buy from South Dakota producers.

Stop in and get a bottle today!

1075 LAZELLE STREET, STURGIS • 605.347.5983 • Mon.-Sat. 8am-9pm • Sun. 10am-6pm

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 5

Visitors welcome!

Another big year for tourism in the Black Hills

By Alex Portal Black Hills Pioneer

NORTHERN HILLS — Even before the Custer expedition in 1874, people have been visiting the Black Hills to bare witness to some of the most picturesque scenery and outdoor recreation in the country. The demographics may have changed since that time, but the Black Hills still brings’em in by the wagonload.

Here’s a look at how some the hottest spots faired in 2021.

Spearfish

“I loved Spearfish as a kid – way different town – love it now,” said Mistie Caldwell, executive director for Visit Spearfish.

Caldwell said that in 2021, Visit Spearfish saw nearly 4,000 people walk through their door looking for advice on where and what to see in the Black Hills.

“It can be one of two things, it’s a visitor, or it’s someone preparing to do business (such as sports tournaments and events),” she said.

With the pandemic, although travel never fully stopped through the

Black Hills, Caldwell said basing the numbers between 2020 and 2021 paints a bit of a skewed picture of just how well the tourism industry did last year. To get a better sense, she pointed to 2019’s record-breaking hospitality tax number as a jumping off point.

“2019 was the first time we broke $700,000 in hospitality tax for the year,” she said. “(In 2021) we broke $800,000 by November.”

Caldwell said that depending on the time of the year, most visitors either know what they’re coming to Spearfish to do, or are just passing through on their way to some other Black Hills destination and are looking to enjoy some time in the Queen City.

“Once September hits … the couples with no children, honeymooners, who we efficiently call the ‘leaf-peepers,’ they come in, and we may only have 50 people here in a week, but they’re here for 20-30 minutes, ‘We just pulled into town, what’s there to do. We’ve got all day, we don’t even know how long we’re stayin’,’” she said.

Caldwell also said that Visit

Pioneer file photo Spearfish partners with all the other visitor information groups in the area to build a network of stopping points throughout the Black Hills in order to maximize visitor exposure.

“The Black Hills area is a small area, and so we help each other out to keep people in the area, and there are things here that we can offer that

the Southern and Central Hills and Rapid City can’t offer and vice versa,” she explained. “South Dakota, nation-wide is admired because we want to help each other out. That doesn’t happen in other states.”

With bombastic tourism numbers, but a stagnant workforce, many arTOURISM Pg 8

Page 6, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

‘It’s definitely an employee’s market’ Jennipher Creed started Creed Bookkeeping Services in Spearfish in January 2017, three months after moving from San Diego, CA. Then on Aug. 1, 2018, she opened an office at 125 E. Colorado Blvd.

Ste 2E. in Spearfish.

As the owner of Creed Bookkeeping her background comes from San Diego where she had several clients in different industries including, but not limited to construction, fitness, aircraft landing gear manufacturer, and mortgage. She also worked in the accounting department of one of the local fire departments until making the move to Spearfish.

She and her staff offer all bookkeeping services including, but not limited to A/R, A/P, account reconciliations, payroll and filings, sales/excise tax filings, new account set up.

We now offer our satelite office at 201 W. Main, Suite 104 in Lead. Please call ahead for appointments. 605-717-5849

AMERICINN

While life seems to be moving at a faster pace, the staff at the AmericInn welcomes you to relax and recharge on a Serta Perfect Sleep bed in our refreshed rooms, stay connected with complimentary WiFi, and in room coffee. Bring your swimsuit to enjoy their heated indoor pool and hot tub! Wake up to enjoy the complimentary hot, homestyle breakfast including waffles, omelets, gluten free items, fresh fruit and much more.

AmericInn is a member of Wyndham Rewards, the world's most generous hotel loyalty program. This "Voice of Customer Excellence" award winning AmericInn is a completely pet free and smoke free property with reasonable rates. Come for special occasions or just to give yourself a relaxing break!

JUST FOR LOOKS

Just For Looks is a women’s clothing and gift boutique specializing in missy clothing sizes Small thru 3X. The owners Tina Hopson and Kami Grubl have been involved in the Sturgis Community for most of their lives. And for 9 years have enjoyed offering a wide variety of products to the Sturgis community.

They take great pride in offering quality clothing for all women.

The friendly relaxing environment makes it a great place to shop where you come in as a customer and leave as a friend.

Located at 1006 Main Street, Sturgis.

The Spearfish Sasquatch are part of the summer collegiate wood bat baseball Independence League. Based in Spearfish, SD, we aim to provide fans with affordable, family friendly entertainment in addition to the highest quality baseball in the entire region.

Comprised of college baseball players from throughout the entire country, the Sasquatch play 64 games from late May to early August.

The Independence League is home to 10 teams spanning across Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, & North Dakota! For more information visit www.spearfishsasquatch.com or email spearfishsasquatch@gmail.com.

Local businesses employ creative thinking to mitigate worker shortage

By Jaci Conrad Pearson Black Hills Pioneer

NORTHERN HILLS — With workers in several job segments in short supply, local businesses have had to put on their thinking caps and come up with creative ways to keep things chugging around their establishments.

“Some of the things we’ve been hearing and kind of passing along to employers that do come to us is trying to be flexible with scheduling,” said Jonathan Englund, manager of the Department of Labor and Regulation in Spearfish. “Especially with those youth. Trying to get more of them engaged in the workforce.

Employers might have to hire two or three individuals to fill one position, if they’re willing to be flexible.

Offering any bonuses for retention.

If someone stays for six months, they get ‘X’ amount of dollars. If they refer a friend, they get this much money. If that friend stays for six months, they might get a bonus, too.”

Englund said that during this time of year it is common to hear from employers that they’re struggling to find workers for the summer.

“We work with justice-involved individuals that maybe somebody might be kind of hesitant to hire on, but we’ve got programs and financial assistance to encourage businesses to train those individuals,” Englund said. “Same with youth, we’re doing outreach to the schools … what better time to figure out what you want to do for a career than when you’re in high school? We can also set up job shadows.”

Celebrity Hotel and Casino Owner Ken Gienger said housekeepers, front desk, and slot techs are the hard-to-fill positions at his property, with the optimum number of staff required to operate efficiently during visitor season eight housekeepers and 10 gaming personnel. During off season, those numbers drop to four housekeepers and eight gaming personnel.

“Last summer we had four housekeepers and seven gaming employees,” Gienger said. “We had to block hotel rooms from being sold to make

Pioneer photo by Jaci Conrad Pearson sure the weekends were rented and that the weekday rooms were properly cleaned. Many times, Lynell and I would help clean rooms, and while we were doing that, the front desk would cover some duties on the gaming floor. Also, I would not run the gaming floor 24 hours a day.”

Gienger said with more hotels in town, competition is fierce for housekeepers.

“We did not get our four J1 workers last year,” Gienger said of the popular program that draws foreign workers. “Finding young people who wanted to do housekeeping is difficult, even though we offer a great hourly rate plus a room bonus structure. With the gaming floor, we need to have housing for them so they don’t have to drive a long distance.

Some workers just decided not to come back to work after the mayor lifted the COVID closure, some of our older workers were retirees and they just decided to remain retired.

Some people were concerned about contacting COVID, some just needed a different job, some were enjoying the COVID benefits that the government was giving them.”

Englund said there are 101 employers and 443 job openings in his office’s coverage area that have listings posted on www.sdjobs.org.

“Our service area goes from Lead to the North Dakota border and Sturgis to the Wyoming border,” Englund said. “Lawrence, Butte, part

OUR TOWNS Special Edition

is produced by the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper 315 Seaton Circle, Spearfish, SD 57783 (605) 642-2761 • (800) 676-2761 • www.bhpioneer.com Letitia Lister, publisher | Mark Watson, managing editor Sona O’Connell, advertising manager | Paul Baker, layout

of Meade, basically over to Sturgis, then Harding and Perkins counties.”

Englund said unemployment rates as of March 31 are as follows: Lawrence 2.2%; Butte, 2.5%; Meade, 2.6%; Harding, 2.1%; Perkins, 2.6%.

“The definition of the unemployment rate is the percentage of the labor force that does not have jobs but are actively seeking jobs,” Englund said. “A more technical definition is the number of unemployed divided by the total number of people in the resident labor force.”

Unemployment rate data is developed by the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Englund said the service industry is one sector currently experiencing huge deficits.

“And what we’ve been hearing is especially the food establishments,” Englund said. “Going into this time of year, we’re probably going to hear more construction company, more that seasonal, hotels, that type of thing. I will tell you there isn’t any industry I’ve heard from that said, ‘Yeah. We’re good. We don’t need anybody.’”

Englund attributed the worker shortage to a few different phenomena.

“One of the reasons is, during the pandemic people kind of figured out that they could get by on one WORKER SHORTAGE Pg 22

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all rights reserved.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 7

SD building industry workforce aging, not seeing young recruits

By Tom Lawrence Black Hills Pioneer

NORTHERN HILLS — Ralph Siemonsma, the owner and president of Siemonsma Construction in Spearfish, has been in the building industry for nearly half a century.

But he’s worried about its future.

Where are the workers to pound nails and do the jobs necessary to build homes and do other projects?

Siemonsma, started out doing grunt work and Ralph still wields a hamSiemonsma mer, pounds nails Siemonsma Construction and does remodeling work. He started doing so in 1973 and has no plans to stop soon.

Siemonsma, who lives in Spearfish, works with his son and subcontractors. He said hiring workers has been a challenge for some time. Pay isn’t an issue — he starts out people at $15 even if they have no experience.

“And you still can’t get people to show up for work,” he said.

The problem goes back well before the COVID-19 pandemic caused so much economic upheaval, he said.

“I’m a member of the National Association of Home Builders. It’s been a problem for years. We’ve been saying it for years,” Siemonsma said.

“We don’t have enough people going into the trades. It’s a gray-haired career for people right now, because you don’t have young people going into it. It’s not going to change anytime soon in my opinion.”

Tony Jockheck, executive vice president of the South Dakota Home Builders Association, said a worker shortage has definitely been a problem for builders.

It remains one of the most significant challenges our builders face,” Jockheck said. “Despite competitive pay, the home building industry continues to experience labor shortages.”

It’s been an ongoing issue for several years, he said. It’s especially a concern with the reduced number of people in the skilled trades.

“Plumbers and electricians play a very important role in building a quality home and we do need more electricians and plumbers to get into the field,” Jockheck said. “It’s a very rewarding field of work that pays well. On average in South Dakota, a plumber and electrician can make over $46,000 a year, with that number much higher for those in the field over 10 years. Quite often, these careers come without a lot of student loan debt, if any at all. We have several members who are willing to train the right person.”

There also are efforts to educate

Belle Fourche Country Club is a 9 hole facility that is open to the public. Only 20 minutes from Deadwood on the edge of the Northern Hills, BFCC prides itself on quality turf conditions and quality customer service.

Forget something? The golf shop is fully stocked with the best brands in the game such as Titleist, Taylormade and Srixon.

Come out to Belle Fourche Country Club for an enjoyable round of golf. To make a tee time visit BelleFourcheCountryClub.com or call directly at 605-892-3472.

LOVE THAT SHOPPE

Love That Shoppe Antiques owner Betty wolf says she loves the people and the treasures – and she has lots of experience with both while being in charge of Belle Fourche's longeststanding antique store.

Wolf began her business in Dickinson, North Dakota, before bringing it to Belle Fourche in 1992. It started at State St. before expanding to State St. in 1994.

Over the years, the store has collected thousands of rare items, running the gamut from crystal animals to comics. Thank you to everyone who voted for us as one of the best antique stores in the Black Hills! Thank you Betty Wolf!

Pioneer photo by Mark Watson young people of the career opportunities, he said. The Home Builders Association is “working hard to get in front of middle and high school students,” according to Jockheck.

“We have recently seen CTE programs started in Harrisburg and O’Gorman in Sioux Falls, as well as an excellent program at Belle Fourche High School,” he said.

“Programs like these are important in allowing children the opportunity to experience the industry and give them the chance to see if it is something they’re interested in making a career.”

Is the public aware of these worker shortages?

“Yes and no. I think if you or a loved one is in the field, or if you’re looking to build or remodel, then you know of the issues this industry is facing,” Jockheck said. “More exposure to the issues will only help.

There are many great and rewarding careers available in this industry, with plenty of opportunity to grow and be successful.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 739,200 jobs for electricians in the U.S. based on 2019 projected data, with an 8% change in job outlook, a much faster turnover than the 4% average growth rate for all occupations.

Every year, around 82,200 job openings are projected for electricians,

which may result in more than 800,000 open jobs by 2029. In May 2019, the median annual wage for electricians was $27.01 per hour or $56,180 per year.

There were 490,200 plumbers in the U.S. in 2019 with a turnover of 4%.

By 2029, there is estimated to be a demand for more than 500,000 plumbers.

The average median pay for plumbers is $26.52 per hour or $55,160 annually.

The increase in potential salaries for both careers is climbing due to the labor shortage. According to the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), 7,000 electricians start each year — but 10,000 retire.

Another factor was that thousands of contractors were forced to close their business after the 2007-2009 recession and have not reopened during the pandemic.

But, experts say, the biggest factor hindering the growth for both careers is a cultural problem. Young people today are expected to go to college and are showing disrespect for blue-collar industries and believe that plumbing and other trades are a fallback career.

There are still a number of young people entering the trades as the deWORKFORCE Pg 8

Rustic Nook Bakery specializes in all sorts of baked goods including, but not limited to; cheesecakes, pastries, breads, cookies, cakes, and custom cakes. Located in Lead, just 5 miles from Deadwood, and up the street from the Homestake Gold Mine. We offer cakes for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and any other special event. Delivery options available with a small fee upon availability. We have also started small scale catering for local events and gatherings. We can bake wedding cakes up to 14 inches in diameter and 3 tiers. We can create any flavor upon request including fruits and fruit fillings.

We are women owned and operated and take pride in the artistic work we do with all our baked goods. All of our products are made with real ingredients. Homemade, delicious, with a friendly atmosphere. We offer places to sit and meet with friends, family, or business while enjoying a treat and drinking a cup of coffee.

ZEEB'S GREENHOUSE

Zeeb’s Greenhouse has been in business for over 10 years and is the perfect place to find all your planting needs. They carry a large selection of SD grown annuals, perennials and bedding plants to spruce up your landscape; vegetables and herbs for your garden and a variety of hanging baskets and planters. Zeeb’s is open seasonly 7 days a week 9 a.m.- 6 p.m.

In 2021, they opened a new larger permanent location at 3157 Venture Court in Spearfish.

Page 8, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 5

TOURISM

Werlinger Auto Body Repair is a full-service auto body and collision repair shop. We are family owned and operated and have served the Northern Black Hills area for 37 years. Whether you have been in an accident or are looking to repair hail damage, we are here for you.

Call today and see why Werlinger Auto Body Repair of Sturgis is a different type of collision auto repair shop — where our MISSION is 100% customer satisfaction.

Stop by and visit us at 3441 Whitewood Road, Sturgis, or call 605-347-5550 and we'll make sure to get you and your vehicle back on the road!

Lynn's Dakotamart is dedicated to being the "better choice" grocery store. They pride themselves on great customer service, providing groceries at a value, operating clean stores and having employees that care.

Today, Don, and Jim Feist, the second generation of the Lynn Feist family, operate ten full-time grocery stores in South Dakota with locations in Sturgis, Lead, Belle Fourche, Faith, Custer, Hot Springs, Martin, Pierre, Fort Thompson, and Fort Pierre; and six convenience stores located in Lead, Hot Springs, Custer, Pierre, Martin, and Fort Thompson.

Lynn's Dakotamart has been in business for more than 54 years. The corporate office is located in Rapid City.

Black Hills Energy is a natural gas and electric utility serving 1.28 million customers in eight states: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Black Hills Energy of South Dakota is the electric service provider for about 70,000 customers in 32 communities within the Black Hills region of western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming. Black Hills Energy is part of Black Hills Crop. (NYSE: BKH), a growth-oriented, vertically integrated energy company based in Rapid City, South Dakota, with a tradition of improving life with energy and a vision to be the energy partner of choice. Black Hills Corp. also generates wholesale electricity and produces natural gas, oil, and coal. More information is available at www.blackhillsenergy.com.

eas in the Black Hills were not able to prepare for the brobdingnagian influx of visitors. Spearfish wasn’t without its share of growing pains, but Caldwell said, faired much better than some.

“Reptile Gardens has literally said out load, ‘I don’t know that we can take one more person,’ in July,” she said. “You only have a finite amount of space. I think why Spearfish has such a great opportunity is wide open spaces is (our main attraction).”

Although outdoor recreation has always been the big selling point for Spearfish, Caldwell said it has become a beer, food, and coffee culture epicenter for the Black Hills, which has strained many service jobs in the area.

“We saw, in the thick of things, restaurants either being closed Mondays or Tuesdays,” she said.

“I would think it’s not from lack of business, it’s the inability to keep a healthy staff.”

Caldwell applauded the business owners and restaurateurs who cared enough about keeping their staff physically and mentally healthy by knowing when they needed a break, rather than capitalizing on the constant flow on consumers last year.

“I respect that as a community, I think we’re good at that,” she said.

“But that doesn’t make it easier.

Statewide, Caldwell said she’s working with service industry leadership to identify and address the underlying causes for the workforce shortages and make progress in attracting more young people into the field.

“Tourism is a lot of things, from serving food, to destination marketing, to hoteliers, to banquet staff, and I think our thoughts of introducing them at the college level is a little bit late,” she explained.

Deadwood

“We’ve been in the business of entertaining guests since 1876, and we aren’t in the business of slowing down,” said Lee Harstad, executive

Pioneer file photo director at the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce.

Although Deadwood is a small town in the Black Hills, it packs a wallop during tourist season.

Harstad said that Deadwood’s visitation ranges from 2.5 million to 3 million every year.

“Deadwood remains very high on the travel plans for those in our target markets and we’ll see many repeat visitors along with new ones,” he said.

Harstad said Deadwood attracts a wide range of age groups and demographics to the Black Hills with its late night dinning and dancing scene, to the 24-hour casinos, to the

unique outdoor entertainment attractions.

“There’s so much to see and do in Deadwood, and something for every taste, so it’s hard to say what the main visitor attraction is,” he said. “Every nook and cranny in Deadwood provides something for someone.”

The diversity of things to do in is always growing and changing, but Harstad said it’s the towns Wild West history that anchors all that Deadwood has to offer.

“Over the past couple years, we have partnered with entities TOURISM Pg 9

LITTLE CAESARS PIZZA At Little Caesars Pizza in Spearfish we pride ourselves in the fact that we make our pizza dough from scratch every morning. The variety of crusts to choose from is endless including Stuffed Crust, Detroit Style Deep Dish, and Thin Crust. Customers love our Crazy Bread and Italian Cheese Bread made daily from that fresh dough as well. If you’re looking for an appetizer give our Caesar Wings a try. You’ll love them! To bring it all together for the evening buy a tray of our M&M Cookie Dough or Twix Cookie Dough brownies and a Pepsi Product.

Place your order online and pick up at our convenient drive thru window or use our “Pizza Portal” in our lobby. Otherwise give us a call today at (605) 642-3355. We look forward to serving you!

from Pg 7

WORKFORCE mand for skilled workers continues to grow. A fourto five-year apprenticeship may be required for both trades but technical schools can also provide that. Some scholarships are available.

Siemonsma said it’s a cultural issue, in his view.

“Young people ain’t going into the trades,” he said. “A lot of that can be attributed to the school

systems. It’s created a shortage of workers and it’s going to take a while to get over it.

“It’s a great career — but you got to work. It’s not playing computer games and stuff, although some of it now is so computerized now, it is,” Siemonsma said. “But you’ve got to have people get their hands dirty.”

He doesn’t meet many young people who want to work in construction or in skilled trades.

“Not really,” Siemonsma

said. “Very few.”

He said there are some programs to train workers, such as Western Dakota Technical Institute in Rapid City. Belle Fourche High School offers some training in carpentry.

But Siemonsma said school officials don’t seem to care about the shortage of workers.

“They hear it. I don’t know if they understand it or agree with it,” he said.

“Because when you talk with them, everyone is supposed to go to college

and get a four-year degree.

To do what? I know a lot of people who have a lot of degrees who ain’t working.

But to come out here and pound nails is beneath them.”

He said new arrivals in the country are willing to take manual labor jobs.

Thanks to them, construction work does continue.

But he said there will be a growing need for workers and filling it won’t be easy or fast.

“There’s no silver bullet here,” Siemonsma said.

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 8

TOURISM throughout town to provide a series of experiential tours, giving visitors a behind-the-scenes/VIP look at all things Deadwood, including our world-class museums,” he said. “We are the Wild West history everyone likes to remember, and gets to see while in town.”

Lead

One of the more eccentric towns to visit in the Black Hills, Lead has undergone several identity changes over the past 146 years. From it’s earliest days as a bustling mining town, to it’s new life as a mecca for scientific innovation, Lead may not be at the top of every travelers bucket list, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t sights to be seen and things to be done.

“2021 picked up again. It was a really good year comparable to 2020 (when) Lead had a record breaking year with their sales tax revenue, we hit over the million dollar mark, which was awesome for our small little town. We hit that again in 2021 and 2022 is looking to be just as good, or even better,” said Leigha Patterson, executive director of the Lead Area Chamber of Commerce.

Every town in the Black Hills can boast its outdoor recreation and unique local attractions, and Lead is no exception. Patterson pointed out the Gold Camp Jubilee, one of the largest fireworks displays in the Black Hills and the Black Hills Renaissance Faire, which debuted in 2021 and will be coming back even bigger in 2022.

“We have a lot of snowmobiling and ATV trails around in this area with the Mickelson Trailheads close by,” she said. “And then Terry Peak is just down the road as well.”

Patterson said attractions like the Mining Museum and Homestake Opera House help to set Lead apart as a family friendly destination in the Black Hills. As well as it’s thriving retail, restaurants, and breweries that are staying strong on Main Street.

“So Lead’s happenin’,” she said.

Sturgis

Sturgis is practically the holy land for bikers. 2021 marked the 81st Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which brought near-record numbers to the Black Hills.

“The estimated attendance for the 10-days of the Rally was 555,000, up 24.7% over 2020,” said Sturgis City Manager Daniel Ainslie. “It was the second largest Rally in the past 10 years, only the 75th was larger.”

Ainslie said that South Dakota’s non-restrictive approach to the pandemic drove many people to discover Sturgis for the first time.

“Time and again we heard from people that 2021 was the first year

Our Towns 2022, Page 9 that they came to Sturgis and loved the freedom that Sturgis and South Dakota embodied,” he said. “If people were returning it was often returning from their first visit in 2020 when we were one of the few ‘free’ states.”

Hospitality tax collected in Sturgis for 2021 was $435,961.64, but even to a town as well suited for an annual influx of visitors, Ainslie said Sturgis also suffered from some shortages.

“Yes, due to staffing shortages several businesses had to reduce their hours of operations and/or their services provided. This was especially true in our community’s restaurants,” he said. “Thankfully this problem has partially subsided and most of our business establishments have been able to increase their workforce.”

As summer approaches and more COVID-19 restrictions are lifted around the country, Ainslie said 2022 is looking to be another big year for Sturgis.

“The initial metrics are showing the likelihood for another tremendous tourist season,” he said. “The ability of international tourists to once again visit Sturgis will likely add to the continued growth in domestic tourism from our greater recognition throughout America.”

Belle Fourche

As the geographic center of the nation, Belle Fourche is one of the most unique places to visit in the country.

“We’re at a crossroads between the Middle West, Minneapolis, and people on their way to Yellowstone or on their way to Mount Rushmore and so they pass through here,” said Kristi Thielen, director of the TriState Museum and Visitor Center.

Thielen said that bus tours and international travel play a major role in visitation to Belle Fourche.

“In any given month we’ll have 30 or 40 people who come through the complex here who are from foreign countries, and there just was next to nothing in 2020,” she said. “This last month we finally got a visitor from Australian. We and not had an Australian since January of 2020.

And I figured when the Australians are back travelling, that’s a sign of normal coming back.”

Like many parts of the Black Hills, Thielen said that the wide-open spaces of Belle Fourche attracted many visitors during the pandemic.

“Total visitation for 2021 was 29,385, that’s 10,000 higher than the highest figure we had before the pandemic,” she said. “We’re part of a wider circle and we bring in a lot of people from Montana, Wyoming, the central Black hills, the southern Black Hills, we’re getting more and more of those people here all the time for different events and programs and festivals.”

Thielen pointed out the kite festival and duck races in May; the Sweet Corn Festival in August; Pumpkin

Fest in October; River fest in June, the Black Hills Round up Fourth of July weekend and Light Up The Night in November as examples of the year-round events that draw people to Belle Fourche.

As the main attraction in town, Thielen said the Tri-State Museum continues to bring in visitors, in large part, due to its rotation of exhibits and activities.

“There are a lot of people who live in communities where museums are pretty stayed, not much changes,” she said. “Things change here all the time, there’s always something new to see and do.”

Statewide

With national attention being paid to the wide-open spaces that the state has to offer, people from all over the country flocked to South Dakota throughout the pandemic as a haven for safe travel. But Wanda Goodman, deputy secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tourism said it’s important to remember that South Dakota isn’t just a place where people visit; it’s a place where people live.

“Yes, visitors are obviously part of tourism,

but residents are as well and we need to make sure that we are including those residence voices when we’re working on our marketing and all of the things that we do in the Department of Tourism,” she said.

“Let’s make sure that we are not destroying our beautiful outdoors as we are marketing and promoting folks to come and enjoy them.”

In 2021, the state saw 13.5 million travelers, including residents.

Travel in South Dakota generated $4.4 billion in visitor spending and $345 million in tax revenue throughout the state. Encouraging people to travel within their home state and explore new to them places not only promotes local economies, but it also fosters a deeper appreciation in the hearts and minds of residents.

“There are study after study that shows that travel has so much to do with our mood and our relationships,” she said.

Pioneer file photo

Page 10, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Record-breaking year on the books for Deadwood gaming, as industry boasts $1.5B handle in 2021

By Jaci Conrad Pearson Black Hills Pioneer

DEADWOOD — Deadwood was definitely a destination in 2021. With a record-breaking year on the books, as patrons to Deadwood’s 25 casinos pushed operators past the $1.5 billion threshold for Deadwood gaming’s biggest year ever, a successful sports betting bid last fall, coupled with the tenacity of the town’s casino, hotel, restaurant, and retail industries, translated into a great-looking year in the Gulch.

Gamers visiting Deadwood in 2021 dropped $1,514,988,064 in machines and on tables, with year-end revenues up 35% compared to 2020 and up 32% compared to 2019, the last full year of gaming revenues.

“What an incredible year for Deadwood gaming,” said Mike Rodman, executive director of the Deadwood Gaming Association. “It has been an unbelievable rebound from the pandemic impacts. Deadwood has blossomed on the national stage as an integrated gaming destination.”

Rounding out the year in the handle comparison category, table games had a cumulative handle of $91.142,099, a 45% increase compared to 2020 levels and slot machines had a cumulative handle of $1,421,194,487, a 34% increase compared to 2020 levels.

At year’s end, there were 90 tables and 2,636 slot machines reporting revenue in Deadwood.

Table game units break down as follows: blackjack, 40; house banked poker, 26; player banked poker, 13; craps, 3; roulette, 8.

Slot machine units break down as follows: 2,085 penny machines; 260 $1 machines; 131 25-cent machines; 61 $5 machines; 52 city slot machines; 33 five-cent machines; seven $25 machines; five 50-cent machines; and two 10-cent machines.

With five casinos reporting revenue, sports wagering had a collective handle of $2,651,477 for 2021, after kicking off Sept. 9, 2021.

Currently bettors are allowed to wager on the following catalogue offerings: Major League, NCAA baseball; NBA, WNBA, NCAA men’s and women’s basketball; International Boxing Federation, World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association, World Boxing Organization, Mixed Martial Arts, Ultimate Fighting Championship; NFL, CFL, and NCAA football; PGA and LPGA golf, NHL and NCAA hockey, International Olympic Committee team and individual events; NASCAR, PBR and PRCA National Finals Rodeo; USA Rugby; International Federation of Association Football; Major League and NCAA Soccer; International Tennis Federation, United States Tennis Association, Association of Tennis Professionals, Women’s Tennis Association, NCAA Tennis.

“Growth will continue, as

Pioneer file photos we bring on more sports wagering properties,” Rodman said. “With the expansion of our sports wagering catalog at the first of the year, we are now able to meet many of the requests of our customers, such as futures bets, team and player prop bets, additional parlays, ingame and in-play bets, plus international tennis and formula one racing. We will also start exploring with the South Dakota Commission on Gaming at their March meeting the start of mobile sports wagering. This will still need to take place in a gaming property, but can be placed on a patron’s phone or tablet. This is a very popular way to place sports wagers across the country.”

All in all, Rodman attributes the significant gaming increases experienced in 2021 to a variety of factors.

“Record South Dakota tourism numbers through Governor (Kristi) Noem’s increase in tourism marketing, the first full year (nonCOVID shutdown) of the Outlaw Square operation, and Deadwood being discovered as a destination during the COVID lockdowns in other parts of the country,” Rodman said. “The impact of sports wagering, first the

increased attention as we went through the legislative and rule-making process and then in September and after when we were able to take sports wagers, the addition of hotel rooms to Deadwood, as well as the return of rooms, for example, Deadwood Gulch and the new Four Points.”

In the midst of this incredible gaming increase, industry operators have faced significant staffing shortages, but still managed to rise to the occasion.

“This continues to be an issue for all Black Hills businesses, but a variety of ideas have been implemented from recruitment outside of the current labor pool, for example, bringing retirees back into the workforce, scaled back operating units and hours and in some instances even operating days, increased wage scales and more overtime pay, and use of J1s and H2Bs (foreign workers), when possible,” Rodman said. “For this summer, Deadwood is teaming up with Crazy Horse and Black Hills State University to hire a group of their summer interns that will be staying at the Black Hills campus and learning job skills this sum-

mer in various Deadwood properties.”

Overall, Rodman said the renaissance Deadwood gaming experienced is a confirmation of what locals have long said about Deadwood being a wonderful integrated gaming destination that the rest of the country has finally discovered.

“Our unique combination of recreation, history, concerts and events, dining and entertainment, and great gaming options make us a sought-after destination,” Rodman said. “While we are sometimes criticized for it, we are fiercely competitive with other gaming destinations and strive to have the same offerings they provide their guests. Sometimes, this means we have to go to the people of South Dakota and ask that they let us provide these services.

So what’s next for Deadwood gaming?

“I don’t know what it might be, but I know that Deadwood will always need to adapt to changing technology and consumer preferences, whether that be in mobile gaming, cashless gaming or other technologies being developed for the gaming industry,” Rodman said.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 11

Page 12, Our Towns 2022

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The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 13

Despite thousands of mining claims, officials report slow activity in Northern Hills

By Wendy Pitlick Black Hills Pioneer

NORTHERN HILLS — As mining claims skyrocket across the Northern Hills region, the actual amount of exploration activity pales in comparison, according to state and federal officials.

Al Nash, spokesman with the Bureau of Land Management said over the last few years there have been thousands of mining claims filed in Lawrence, Butte and Meade counties.

Specifically there are 5,058 active claims, and another 1,197 that were recently filed but haven’t been reviewed yet. Most of these claims are for gold and silver extraction. And many of those claims are for small-scale exploration.

Throughout the entire Black Hills, there are about 148,000 acres of active or filed mining claims that cover about 230 square Managers and crews from Dakota Territory Resources inspect core samples from a drilling operation that started last month in the Maitland miles. area. The company renovated the former Homestake Electrical Substation to use the building to catalog and inspect the core samples before MINING Pg 21 sending them off to be assayed. Pioneer photo by Wendy Pitlick

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Page 14, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

from Pg 3

SUBDIVISIONS Fourche region is ongoing.

The proposition involving the county-owned properties off Mill Street among other available options have been the subjects of consideration and discussed during meetings of the Belle Fourche housing committee since July. The committee is a subcommittee within the development corporation.

In July 2021, Stalder said that BFDC and the housing committee presented the results of an updated housing study for the city of Belle Fourche. In addition to city and county officials and members of the public, Stalder said that there were a handful of property developers who attended the study’s presentation.

“We have really good development going on in Belle Fourche with single-family (housing), through contractors that are working with a homeowner, and building a home; so that segment of the market is taken care of,” she said, adding that the committee is focusing its sights on larger-scale development to include multi-family

Picutred is an aerial view of Sky Ridge in Spearfish. Courtesy photo housing opportunities.

The newest housing study, released in early 2021, showed that Belle Fourche has seen a significant amount of new housing construction activity in recent years, with 146 building per-

mits issued since 2010. In the last decade, the report asserts that building permits have been issued for 115 single family detached homes, and 31 multifamily houses.

Within the city, 2013 saw the largest number of single

family detached permits, with 17. Then, in 2015, 11 multifamily unit building permits were issued. Since 2013, when the preceding housing study was released, the city has permitted 89 total units, representing an

average of 12-13 units each year. Additionally, according to city staff, the report states that within eight newer subdivisions in Belle Fourche, there are about 111 vacant lots available for future home construction.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Sky Ridge takes major steps forward in 2021

Our Towns 2022, Page 15

MADAME PEACOCKS/ WEST RIVER WHISKEY

Two great family-owned businesses, one common goal: to make your Deadwood Main Street shopping experience a unique and satisfying one. In December 0f 2021, West River Whiskey Co., located at 644 Main St. and operated

by Joel and Alex Ellis, became the sole retailer for Deadwood’s official whiskey and also features whiskey-related clothing and gifts, barrels, tops, and tastings. Madame Peacock’s features unique, trendy clothing and jewelry, as well as boots, shoes and the largest selection of Charlie 1 Horse hats in the area. Over the last year, Madame Peacock’s, located at 638 Main Street and owned

by Tom and Julie Koth, has expanded its selection, adding over 40 new brands, while the bar, which offers guys a soft place to land and enjoy an icy cold beer while ladies shop, sold more Schlitz beer than anyone west of the Mississippi. Check them out at www.madamepeacocks.com and www.westriverwhiskeyco.com

STURGIS AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Representatives from the city of Spearfish, Dream Design International Inc., Zandstra Construction and HDR Engineering Company broke ground in December 2021 on the first homes to be constructed at Sky Ridge. Pioneer photos by Alex Portal

By Alex Portal Black Hills Pioneer

SPEARFISH — The joint effort between the city official and private industry to bring more affordable housing to Spearfish, took its most visible steps forward in 2021, as ground was broken on the first homes to be built.

“This is just a drop in the bucket, but we hope that it makes a big splash and gets the ball rolling,” Spearfish Mayor Dana Boke said during a blistery groundbreaking ceremony in December, 2021.

Infrastructure and utility construction is still underway for much of the residential area of the development by

Zandstra Construction, out of Rapid City. As those areas are completed, the city will sell the individual lots to Dream Design International, Inc. (DDI) who works directly with homebuyers to construct houses designed to be economic and affordable.

The public response to the project has been so responsive that the city added an additional 14 homes to the initial first phase of the project. The additional homes also added $173,527.86 to the budget for phase 1, but the mild weather seen throughout the Hills this winter proved favor-

able for construction.

“Money spent now will be money saved later in Phase 2,” said Brandy Kean, then Spearfish Public Works director when the overages were approved last April.

Although the warmer-than-average winter allowed construction to continue throughout the season, supply chain issues and rising costs of materials and real estate caused an increase to the pricing of the homes at Sky Ridge. The original agreement stated that homes in the development would be sold in

three tier categories, with category one homes making up at least 40% of the development, and priced between $100,000 and $175,000. Category two homes must make up at least another 40% of the development, and be priced between $175,000 and $225,000. Category three homes would make up the rest of the development, and be priced between $225,000 and $275,000.

The new pricing will raise the maximum SKY RIDGE Pg 17

The Sturgis Chamber actively supports business, agriculture, and tourism in the Sturgis area. Contact our office at (605) 347-2556 or visit 2040 Junction Avenue to learn about becoming a member and how we can help your business succeed.

We also offer funding, involvement, and educational opportunities! Visit our website at SturgisAreaChamber.com to learn why Sturgis is one of the best communities in the Black Hills.

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Integrity Meats is a custom meat processing plant. They carry South Dakota made cheese, Hutterite chickens, fresh and frozen cuts of meat, beef and pork, and a variety of readyto-eat products including summer sausage, German sausage, jerky, beef sticks, keilbasa, pickled jalapeno Polish, and pickled eggs.

They also offer wild game processing in the fall. Their excellent customer service allows them to put quality and honesty at the top of the list.

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BELLE PACKAGE LIQUOR

Construction is well underway for the first four homes to be built at the Sky Ridge housing development in Spearfish.

City owned Belle Package Liquor boasts the largest beer cave in Belle Fourche, a vast selection of wine, and a great collection of craft beers — buy a single bottle, or create your own craft beer sampler!

Stop in and shop and enjoy our everyday low prices, volume discounts and great in-store specials. If we do not have your favorite wine, beer or spirit in stock, let us know and we will be happy to place a special order.

Page 16, Our Towns 2022

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The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 15

SKY RIDGE original selling cost of category one and two homes by $22,000 bringing those prices to between $100,000 and $197,000 for category one; and between $197,000 and $247,000 for category two homes. The rest of the homes will be sold for between $247,000 and $275,000.

Homes in all three categories are still priced below the South Dakota Housing Development Authority’s first time homebuyer’s loan price cap of $300,000.

On the sports complex end of the development, preliminary designs have been approved by the city, and in 2021, and additional $8 million bond was approved to supplement it funding.

“So to be able to fund the future improvements that we have out there, (in 2022 and 2023) … we need to either transfer from another fund from the city or issue a bond,” Spearfish Finance Officer Michelle De Neui told the council in November.

Construction designs were approved and a

Our Towns 2022, Page 17 bid was awarded to MidAmerica Golf & Landscape for $9,795,909.78 last May. Grading and layout of the sports complex has already been completed, while officials with the Spearfish Parks and Rec, and Public Works Departments work together to finalize design specifications and construction of the facilities.

The 40-acre attraction complex will feature four tournament-ready softball fields and six soccer fields.

“This complex is going to be unique in the fact that it’s not just going to be 40 acres of flat ground,” said Spearfish Parks and Rec Director Tyler Ehnes. “We had to work with the terrain and because of that, all the soccer fields will be terraced.”

The softball fields will be built to adult regulation size, but scalable to accommodate youth participation. Five of the soccer fields will be built to tournament regulations, but one will be expanded to “championship size” for extra seating, lights and scoreboard.

A large concession/restroom building is planned to be located in the center

of the softball fields that will also house a climate controlled coach/umpire room. A smaller concession stand will also be built near the soccer fields and east parking lot.

There was a feature play area, bathroom, and community shelter planned near the west parking area and soccer fields, but those were removed to meet budget restraints. Discussions with the council, however, did not rule out adding those elements to the complex at a later date. The complex will feature an entrance from Colorado Boulevard, which will lead to the east side parking lot, as well as an entrance from the housing development that will lead into the west end parking lot.

The city has been working with the South Dakota Department of transportation to conduct several traffic studies along the Colorado boulevard corridor in anticipation for the increased traffic caused, not only by the Sky Ridge Development, but all future development in the area. In May, a preliminary study was presented to the Spearfish City Council,

which identified where in the area SDDOT was planning to expand, and what areas would need to be looked at by the city.

Stacia Slowey, traffic engineer with HDR identified two of the intersections in the area would be operating at a service level of ‘F’ by 2022 if no improvements were made.

One of those intersections is the westbound ramp terminal at Exit 17; however, that deterioration won’t be caused by the development, so those improvements will be monitored and made by DOT. The other issue was identified at the intersection at Colorado Boulevard and Highway 85, which the study shows, will be impacted by the development.

“The DOT is actually planning intersection improvements at this intersection, but it’s unfortunately not going to happen until after this development gets built,” she explained.

Those improvements are planned to take place in 2023. Mike Harmon, then city administrator, recommended that the city move forward to coincide the improvements need-

ed at Colorado, which is the city’s responsibility, with the DOT’s project on Highway 85.

“I think what we need to do is work into our budget for 2022, the design contract for those improvements on Colorado with construction to tie in to 2023 with the DOT projects so we have one project out there,” he said.

In the meantime, as homes continue to be built and moved into, the study recommended temporary improvements to the traffic flow at the intersection by adding a right turn lane.

Slowey outlined what the city would need to add to the Sky Ridge development in order to mitigate traffic flow disruption.

“Basically by year 2022, we need a westbound left turn lane at each of the three proposed access points and then at the middle one, which is Sky Ridge (road), we would need an eastbound right turn lane.”

She said.

The city is currently discussing those temporary lane improvements, as development of the area continues.

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Page 18, Our Towns 2022

RE/MAX IN THE HILLS

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The Black Hills Pioneer

Wharf celebrates positive year in 2021, looks for expansion in 2022

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STURGIS PHOTO & GIFTS

“The Most Unique Gift Store in the Black Hills” is located in downtown Sturgis. Sturgis Photo & Gifts specializes in custom framing and features the largest framing operation in western South Dakota. Their framing is displayed in offices, businesses and homes all over the five state region.

But framing is only one part of this unique operation. They also specialize in laser engraving and UV printing. This gives them the ability to decorate coffee mugs, insulated beverage containers, magnets, caps and almost anything else you can think of. They even print braille signs for businesses in the area.

Professional landscape photography of western South Dakota and the Black Hills by Bob Davis are on display, along with other notable Black Hills photographers.

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By Wendy Pitlick Black Hills Pioneer

LEAD — With more than 90,000 ounces of gold produced, an expansion plan in progress, and more than $300,000 put back into the community with donations, scholarships and grants, CoeurWharf Mining reports 2021 as a very positive year for the company.

Matt Zietlow, environmental manager at Coeur-Wharf Mine said with no major weather events and a relatively dry year, operations at the mine proceeded as expected and with no reportable safety incidents. In 2021 the mine produced 91,136 ounces of gold and 89,506 ounces of silver. At an average price of $1,795 an ounce, that resulted in approximately $50 million in cash for the company.

Wharf did all of that, while only disturbing a little more than eight new acres.

“The reason that number was small is because a lot of the area that we’re mining in was previously disturbed, and we’re just continuing to go deeper in some of those areas,” he said.

Recently, the Lawrence County Commission authorized a conditional use permit for an expansion plan that includes about 48 acres of Wharf-owned A survey crew analyzes the land at the Wharf Mine. Coeur-Wharf Resources in contiguous land. The expansion exploration area does not have groundwater Lead employs about 250 people from the Northern Black Hills area, and maintains a payroll of $24.3 million a year with benefits, and $17.1 million a year without benefits. Pioneer photo by Wendy Pitlick WHARF Pg 20

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 19

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Lorrie Redfield,

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605-559-2265

Page 20, Our Towns 2022 from Pg 18

WHARF or surface water present, but nonetheless will be added to an extensive monitoring program that includes more than 30 years of environmental monitoring history at Wharf. State permitting through the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources is currently in progress.

“The expansion area that we’re talking about is physically connected to the area that we are currently mining,” Zietlow said. “It’s not a new pit. It’s actually just a layback of existing pit operations within the same rock types. It is literally just a simple extension of two areas of the existing pit. If you flew over it a couple of years from now, it wouldn’t look much different to you than current operations.”

But that small extension, Zietlow said, will add between one and three years of life to the Wharf Mine, with production operations then expected to last at least eight more years.

“It’s not a huge expansion, but it is significant, espe-

The Black Hills Pioneer cially when you look at the positive local benefits,” he said.

With a payroll of more than $24.3 million a year with benefits, and about $17.1 million without benefits, Coeur-Wharf Mine averages about 250 full time employees. Of those, at least 60 percent of them are from Lawrence County and at least 95 percent of them are from the Northern Hills area. Many of those employees, Zietlow said, are active in the LeadDeadwood Community, and the company as a whole gives hundreds of volunteer hours and thousands of dollars back.

“This is something we’re really proud of and it’s on a lot of different fronts,” Zietlow said. “There are quite a few of us, myself included, who serve on several different boards in the area. That’s something that we are very supportive on for our employees. We really don’t have to encourage it that much, because we’ve got a lot of natural interest with our employees, whether it is serving on boards or coaching sports, or just volunteering their time. Wharf is proud that our people are

engaged. They love living here and they love being plugged in.”

On an average, Zietlow said the company gives about $170,000 a year in donations to community organizations in the Northern Black Hills. Some of the organizations that benefitted from Wharf funds in 2021 included the skatepark project, the Boys and Girls Club of Lead-Deadwood, Monument Health COVID relief, First Step Childcare Center, and many more.

“A lot of times we like to focus on youth specific programs,” he said.

“Sometimes it’s simple donations. Sometimes we are purchasing actual equipment and things like that.

At the hospital we also provided a lot of donations for COVID activities.”

Additionally, Zietlow said the Wharf Sustainable Prosperity Fund that was formed in 2012 to ensure that the mine leaves a lasting legacy of community prosperity, recently surpassed $500,000 in grant funding that it has provided for charitable causes in Lead and Deadwood. In 2021, the fund provided $10,000 to the Boys and Girls Club

of the Black Hills, $2,486 to Black Hills Special Services Cooperative, $4,454 to LeadDeadwood School District, $2,500 to Northern Hills Family Recreation, $50,000 to the city of Lead for the new skatepark project, $10,000 to the Northern Hills Alliance for Children, $5,000 for Junior Achievement of South Dakota, and $2,500 to the Northern Hills Family Recreation Center.

“The whole goal of that fund is to encourage growth and sustainable operations that will be here long after Wharf is gone,” he said.

Volunteer hours are important at the company as well, said Human Resources Manager Kim Huber. Every year she said Coeur-Wharf employees look forward to volunteering for the United Way Month of Caring, and this year they helped fix up houses for several elderly residents in Lead.

“We take advantage of that month to help out wherever the need is,” she said.

“I think it’s a really neat opportunity for us to help the people who need it.”

Scholarships in the local area, including for students at Lead-Deadwood High School, Huber said, are an-

other way the mine helps youth in the community, with between $70,000 to $75,000 given annually to graduating seniors.

“And that’s on top of the annual donations,” she said.

“The company is very supportive of community engagement by its employees at all levels,” Zietlow said. “We all live here and we see our neighbors and friends at the grocery store.

A lot of us have kids who are in school now or were recently in school, and we want to be engaged in those sorts of things. The fact that we have a significant local employer is nice, and it’s an employer that wants to be plugged in as well. It’s just a great marriage. CoeurWharf views all of its employees as ambassadors for the company.”

In addition to charitable contributions, a recent socioeconomic study shows that Coeur-Wharf contributes about $600,000 per year in sales and property taxes in Lawrence County, and about $5 to $8 million a year in state severance taxes. Goods and services purchased in South Dakota have amounted to more than $20 million a year.

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Hills Grocery Store Locations…

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Custer, SD

800 Mt. Rushmore Road

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Lead, SD

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Hot Springs, SD

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The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 21

from Pg 13

MINING “I’m told that there has been an extraordinary amount of interest in the past two years,” Nash said.

“Mining claims are exploding. Our staff believes that certainly could be fueled by the recent increase in gold prices.”

According to the Bureau of Land Management, a mining claim is a parcel of land for which the claimant has asserted a right to develop and extract a discovered valuable mineral deposit. Acquiring a mining claim does not always mean the land will be mined, Nash said.

Nash clarified that even though mining claims are on the rise, that doesn’t mean mining activity has increased. In fact, he said most of the people who file the mining claims are not taking the extra step to file a mining plan with the U.S. Forest Service, an Exploratory Notice of Intent or a mining permit from the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“The information we have says that there are a lot of mining claims, but they are not taking that extra step toward mining,” Nash said. “Most of the surface of the federal minerals is under the control of the Forest Service. So, the next step for somebody who has filed a claim would be to file a mining plan and get it approved from the Forest Service. To the best of our knowledge, none of these new claimants have done that.”

While inquiries to the U.S. Forest Service about the number of new mining plans were unanswered, officials with the DANR said they have not seen a substantial increase in mining exploration or activity.

In fact, there have not been any new mining permits issued in the last five years, and there are only two major companies that have filed Exploratory Notices of Intent for mining in Butte, Lawrence or Meade counties — Wharf Resources and Dakota Territory Resources.

“Exploration activity means they don’t know if there is a mineable resource, so they have to find it,” said

Jim and Kelli Ryan purchased K&K Kustoms in May of 2019, rebranding the business to emphasize RV repair in addition to the horse and utility trailer repair services already offered. Progress RV offers a wide range of RV products and services, with a friendly atmosphere and caring employees welcoming all jobs, large or small.

As camping and rodeo seasons gear up, now is the perfect time to make those repair lists and schedule appointments to fix all the little things you noticed during the winter.

For more information, visit ProgressRV.com, call 723-1132, or stop by their location at 18731 US Hwy 85 in Belle Fourche.

MACK'S AUTO BODY, LLC

For over 29 years, Mack's Auto Body has been offering the following "in-house" services: frame, body & spray facility; and plastic media stripping. Owner Eugene Mack takes pride in all his work and is a "handson" boss involved in every aspect of the job.

Mack's Auto Body backs their work with a 100% warranty.

BLACK HILLS DINER The former Homestake Electrical Substation on Washington Street in Lead has been renovated to be used for cataloguing and inspecting core samples.

Pioneer photos by Wendy Pitlick Roberta Hudson, team leader for the DANR mine permitting team. She added that a company that plans to do substantial digging or drilling to find gold must file an exploration notice of intent (EXNI). Before the DANR issues an EXNI, the company has to post a bond of up to $20,000 to cover any land disturbance costs that exploration might entail.

Wharf Resources, which is the only active large-scale gold mining operation in the Northern Hills, has both large-scale mining permits and an EXNI in progress. The EXNI is related to the company’s application to expand by 48 acres of Wharf-

owned land that adjoins the current mining operation.

Dakota Territory Resources, which is exploring for gold in areas where Homestake considered expanding before shutting down, owns 42,000 acres of surface and mineral rights in the Northern Black Hills area. Last February the company started an exploratory drilling operation in the Maitland area, covering a footprint of about a quarter acre.

This summer, Dakota Territory Resources also plans to do exploratory drilling in two locations of the Richmond Hill area.

Solitario Zinc Corp., another company that is conducting gold exploration in the Northern Hills and that has a reported 21,340 acres of mineral rights here, with offices in Spearfish. However, the company does not have an EXNI with the DANR. Hudson said that’s because the company is not significantly disturbing the land with digging or drilling operations.

“What they’re doing is actually currently exempted from any type of reporting requirement to the state because they’re hand sampling,” Hudson said. “They’re going out with a rock pick and breaking a chunk of rock off of a cliff face.

They’re not digging trenches and they’re not digging holes. So they are not currently on that list.”

Owners, Adam & Krisi Lee, at Black Hills Diner located at 1405 5th Avenue in Belle Fourche, are proud to boast “If we can make it in house, we do!” From 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. Tuesday thru Saturday you will enjoy sitting in their bright front porch like atmosphere and enjoying their homemade specials. Topping the list of delicious breakfast entrees is their Daily French Toast Special with homemade buttermilk syrup. Eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast burritos, breakfast pizza and yummy cinnamon/caramel rolls are not left behind. Lunch is special as well with offerings of Patty Melt, quesadillas, burgers, soups, salads, and sandwiches. If your taste is gluten free, they are willing to please with their focus on homemade healthy foods. They make most of their specialty dishes in house and are praised for the homemade salsa and sausage gravy from scratch. Visit blackhillsdiner.com to see these delicious choices and be sure to stop in and say “hi” and have yourself a chocolate milkshake as a treat.

Founded in 1983, MetroPlains Management, LLC has grown to become the upper midwest’s leading provider in the affordable housing industry. We currently manage over 6,100 housing units and approx. 435,000 sq. ft. of commercial space throughout South Dakota, Minnesota, North Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Our specialty services include property management, commercial property management, market analysis, accounting, asset management, compliance consulting, and physical asset managing.

With over 38 years of experience, our dedication and quality service allows us to strive professionally through managing commercial, retail or residential properties.

For more information, call 605-347-3077.

Page 22, Our Towns 2022 from Pg 6

WORKER SHORTAGE job and they didn’t need to work multiple jobs,” he said.

“Especially if that second job didn’t pay well. They kind of figured out, ‘Hey, I don’t have to work evenings and be away from my family.

Studies are showing that the youth labor force participation is down across the state. Some are rethinking their former jobs, just want a different career change. And there has been increased retirement.”

There were 29,900 job openings listed on southdakotaworks.org as of April 1.

Deadwood Mountain Grand (DMG) Human Resources Director Jennifer Hall said ideally, including full-time and part-time staff, DMG would have 190 employees in the off-season and 250 in peak season.

“Currently, we have 160 off-season and had about 220 last summer. We have been short 30-40 employees each season and we are still experiencing a shortage in all jobs,” Hall said. “We have been very fortunate to continue to operate our

The Black Hills Pioneer business 100% and haven’t experienced any closures or adjustments in hours. We try to be very efficient with scheduling and cross-train employees, so they are capable of working in various departments throughout the resort.”

Hall went on to say that, for the most part, DMG has experienced most of its shortages in its food and beverage department and cleaning staff.

“However, we have had difficulties hiring in all departments,” she said.

“We are experiencing record-breaking visitor numbers in the Black Hills. With that comes the demand for additional staff. There are so many jobs available and not enough bodies to fill them.

Business that are hiring are becoming very aggressive with their wage and benefit programs, so candidates can be selective when applying for jobs. It really is a great time for individuals to be looking for work. We are offering incentive programs, excellent benefits and competitive wages to try and retain the staff that we have and attract new staff.”

Along with record-breaking visitor numbers, there

is record-breaking construction occurring in the Northern Hills, which continues to put companies like Ainsworth-Benning in quite a quandary.

Human Resources Director Amber Johnson said Ainsworth-Benning “100%” continues to struggle with hiring woes, as potential employees may commit, but that necessarily mean they’ll show up for their first day of work, especially if they discover a better paying option.

“Right now, we are at 45 employees. Based upon the work, that number varies for us,” Johnson said. “What we’re seeing is that when we bid a project, we may be able to get subcontractors to do portions of the job. They’re experiencing shortages, which means for us, as the general contractor, we need to figure out how to get that stuff done, now. So we’re seeing where we have to do a lot more self-perform work because the subcontractors aren’t able to bid like they normally would.”

Johnson said based on the company’s current workload, they should be at 65 employees and projects not completed during COVID are now building out, with am-

Locally owned & operated specialty coffee shop offering gourmet coffee, blended drinks & teas and an extensive menu of breakfast, lunch and scratch-made dessert items.

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ple building going on right now.

“So we’re probably short again 20 people,” she said.

“Now it’s just like everything’s ramping up and going crazy, especially with the way the housing market is right now. So there’s a lot of competition we have on the residential side for workers.”

While this year is no different as far as the worker shortage, there is one more complicating factor being added to the plate.

“Now what I’m seeing is employees are shopping for a wage,” Johnson said.

“They’ll, you know, ‘Hey, I can go down here and make two bucks more an hour.’

And sometimes they will call and tell us that. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes they just don’t show up.”

Getting creative with scheduling, holding an internal referral competition with current employees, even offering a $1,000 sign-on bonus are ways AinsworthBenning is trying to entice workers their way.

“Amazingly, that has made very little difference,” Johnson said of the sign-on bonus. “It’s really hard right now. It’s definitely an em-

ployee’s market.”

Because last year’s dilemma was likely driven by unemployment benefits, Johnson is at a complete loss in trying to determine this year’s shortage.

“I don’t know if they found more things they can do from home, or if it’s the type of work, that they just don’t want to do hard labor kind of jobs,” Johnson said. “I have no idea. I’d love to figure it out, so I could try and work against it.”

At the end of the day, Johnson said what she would emphasize about securing employment at Ainsworth-Benning is that they are open to training employees with little to no experience.

“As long as they show up for work and they want to learn,” Johnson said. “It’s pretty broad criteria. If they want to learn, we have excellent superintendents that have been around for a long time that worked their way up through the ranks, as well, so they know what it’s like to be the one out here … that’s probably the biggest message I want to get out to people. Come and give us a shot. We’re willing to train you.”

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 23

Page 24, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

1145 N. Main St., Spearfish, SD 605-642-2500 • remax@rushmore.com

Serving the Northern Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming!

SPECIALIZING IN

Residential • Commercial • Land Multi-Family Properties

Visit our website to preview listings or meet our agents

www.HomesInTheBlackHills.com Marysia McDowall • John Keene • Bud Hannah Penny Doering • Liz Clement • Lori McNeese • Ashley Goodrich Debra Stewart • Heidi Lewis • Sandy Donahue Ginger Johnston • Dan Gilger • Britney Routh Tashi Braun • Stephen Muller • Terssa Markworth • Tedd Thompson Carmen Thompson • Cassandra Brown Tylissa Geffre • Rhonda Klinger

OUR TOWNS

Section

2

Pioneer photo by Lacey Peterson

Chutes for Charity offers a helpful hand for individuals and families in need

$350,000 donated to 275+ people in need since 2009

SECTION 2

OF

4

By Lacey Peterson Black Hills Pioneer

2022 • BLACK HILLS PIONEER

BELLE FOURCHE –– Chutes for Charity, a charitable subsidiary of the Black Hills Roundup, has raised and gifted a helpful hand for those in need around the Northern Black Hills since 2009.

“We’re a bunch of giving hearts giving to other people that have a short-term emergency situation,” said Denise Adams, one of the group’s volunteers. “We’ve been blessed. We’re able to do it because we have the blessings at this point.”

Adams has volunteered with the group for about six years. The group boasts 17 active volunteer members and a number of helpful volunteers who periodically help the group’s efforts.

The Chutes for Charity goal is to offer help and hope for our neighbors of the Northern Black Hills area.

Since the organization’s 2009 inception, the group has gifted approximately $350,000 to more than 275 neighbors in need.

The nonprofit extension of the Black Hills Roundup assists local families facing unexpected emergencies. One hundred percent of the funds raised goes directly to the cho-

sen recipients.

The donations go to pay for an array of expenses ranging from travel-related expenditures due to seeking medical treatment for an unexpected medical circumstance to a family being displaced after they lost their possessions due to a housefire.

The charity organization offers helping hands to those in the greater community of the Northern Hills.

“We’re regional,” Adams said.

“We’re not just Belle Fourche. We’ve (donated to people who live in) Spearfish, Hulett, Sturgis, Harding County, Faith, this regional area.”

And although the group falls within the Black Hills Roundup umbrella, the group doesn’t just assist people who are affiliated with rodeo.

“People for a long time had the misconception that we were just for a ‘rodeo emergency,’” Adams said. “A bunch of good people caring about a bunch of good people is what (the group is about).”

Funds are raised through benefit auctions and dinners, golf tournaments, tours of homes during the Christmas season, and more.

The group has held an annual golf tournament over the Fourth of July holiday at the Belle Fourche

Country Club. This year’s event, slated for June 25, will be the 13th annual Invitational Charity Golf Tournament, put on by Chutes for Charity.

In 2019, the group held their first wine tasting fundraiser at the Holiday Inn in Spearfish. Adams said that the event was quite large compared to the events they’d typically held, and the Chutes volunteers were grateful to have the help of another local group, the Wine Ladies, who helped by showing them the wine tasting ropes.

“They (the Wine Ladies) wanted to help with our charity event,” Adams said. “And they knew who we were and the liked our approach to the way things are done.”

After years of holding wine tasting events in Spearfish, Adams said the Wine Ladies were just the crew to help the Roundup volunteers arrange and host a large fundraising event.

“Basically, they told us about their event and helped us organize everything,” she said. “And it was a huge event.”

And as the group’s first large fundraising event, Adams said even with CHUTES FOR CHARITY Pg 13

Page 2, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Deadwood Chamber of Commerce Recognized as one of the most Progressive Tourism Organizations in South Dakota

NEW DEADWOOD CHAMBER MEMBERS A&B Pizza @ The Oyster Bay BetKota @ The Midnight Star BetLodge @ The Lodge of Deadwood BetLodge Sportsbook BetMGM @ Cadillac Jack's Black Hills Tech Bobbi Jo Kuhl - StardustFest Boot Hill LLC Dale's Sportsbook and Lounge @ DMG

Deadwood Open Tours Deadwood Outdoor Rentals High Mountain Outfitters Mr. Wu's Muley Hill Lodge Outlaw Homestead Silverado Sportsbook Terry Valley Landowners Association The Hotel Alex Johnson

BE A PART OF ONE OF THE MOST PROGRESSIVE CHAMBERS IN SOUTH DAKOTA • Internet Directory Listings & Links - Award-winning website with over 1 million unique visitors per year.

• Membership Official Guide Listing - 100,000 printed annually. Large distribution across a four-state region in 550+ locations. Also distributed to meeting planners, travel shows, mailed to individual inquiries, included in relocation packets and downloaded thousands of times on Deadwood.com annually.

• Membership Electronically - Chamber membership list.

• Relocation Inserts - Provide us with your information and we will mail it out with our initial replies.

• Convention Welcome Packets -We will include your information in thousands of attractive welcome packets to conventions and meetings held in the city and surrounding communities.

• Monthly Mixers - A personal invite to all monthly mixers with an opportunity to share your business information and talents with our members in a relaxed atmosphere.

• Visit & Ribbon Cutting - Put your business in the news with a visit from the Deadwood Chamber Staff.

• FAM’s - Familiarization Tour host. Deadwood is asked to host many tour group leaders, travel agents and travel writers to familiarize them with our area. Only members are included.

• Economic Information - Community profile, demographic information, general business statistics and business development assistance.

• Annual Events - The biggest and best events in the region bring tens of thousands of people to the area.

• Welcome Center Board Room - Free use of the board room for business meetings.

• Wild Bill Coupon Booklet - Thousands of coupon books are printed and distributed to Deadwood visitors each year. It is a one-time only coupon and entitles discounts or special promotions from participating Chamber member buinesses.

• Free Publications - Each year the Deadwood Chamber prints, distributes and mails multiple promotional pieces featuring Deadwood Chamber businesses including: Visitor Guide, Deadwood Map, and more, only available to members.

• Deadwood Gold Bucks - Chamber member gift certificate redemption program.

• Training Program - Free training programs are available to Chamber members, their managers and employees. Available programs include: hospitality training for frontline employees, hospitality training for owners and managers, and FAM tours for frontline employees.

• Information Centers - The Deadwood Chamber manages the information centers in Deadwood and only our members are featured. Nearly 200,000 people visit the Deadwood Visitor Centers annually.

The NooGenesis Foundation TL Sportbook @ Tin Lizzie Trailside Rentals Vendor Market Watiki West River Whiskey Co. Whiskey Barrel Ranch

DEADWOOD CHAMBER BOARD OF DIRECTORS Louie LaLonde – President • Michelle Fischer – Vice President Tom Koth – Secretary • Susan Kightlinger – Treasurer Tom Rensch Kip Mau Lonnie Strong Steve Schaeffer David Schneiter

Carolyn Weber David Ruth Jr. Dale Berg Leo Diede Erik Person

Kevin Kuchenbecker Jeanna Dewey Mike Rodman David Knight Jim Burgess

DEADWOOD CHAMBER STAFF

Lee Harstad, Executive Director Dawn Burns, Sales Director Robin Carmody, Information Specialist Dory Hanson, Controller Ingrid Hayward, Membership Director Amanda Kille, Marketing & Sponsorship Director Sarah Kryger, Event Coordinator Brittany Schoenfelder, Marketing & Events Specialist

OUTLAW SQUARE STAFF

Bobby Rock, Outlaw Square Director Doug Purcell, Outlaw Square Operations Manager Staff: Kemper Whiton, Collin Hockenberry & Raven Van Tassel

BROKEN BOOT GOLD MINE Kerry Ruth - General Manager

INFORMATION CENTER STAFF Guy Gregory, Information Center Manager Tessa Allen, Ally Scheurenbrand, French Bryan, Jean Mackley

For more information on Membership with the Deadwood Chamber, call 605-578-1876.

501 Historic Main St. Deadwood, SD

605-578-1876 www.deadwood.com

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 3

Ron Materi Road Trip Foundation makes travel for medical appointments a little easier

By Mark W atson Black Hills Pioneer

SPEARFISH — Medical appointments to treat a serious illness or disease can be disruptive to say the least. But those out of the area, or for people in rural parts of the state, the travel required to attend the treatment, may be initially overlooked, but just as disruptive.

Not only do the appointments themselves take time and scheduling, but the lodging, meals, and fuel, and other expenses can easily turn a family’s budget on end.

Fortunately there are organizations to help with this burden.

The Ron Materi Road Trip Foundation is one such organization.

In 2011, Ron Materi passed away from a courageous battle against lung cancer.

Pictured are the grandchildren of Ron Materi at Spearfish Canyon Golf Course when the Ron The following year, in Materi Road Trip Foundation presented a $2,000 check to Prairie Hills Transit. The foundation provides travel assistance to those in need for medical appointments. Courtesy photo MATERI Pg 13

Creekside students donation to Road Trip Foundation

Fourth graders from Carlene Burke’s Creekside Elementary School class, recently donated $1,015 to the Ron Materi Road Trip Foundation.

The funds were raised from T-shirt sales as part of the annual community fundraiser Burke conducts with her students.

Pictured here, the students present the funds to Kori Meredith, back right.

Courtesy photo

What started as a love for baking and creating custom cakes for close family members has grown into a full-time business venture for Sheila Erhart, owner and head baker of SME's Treats in Belle Fourche.

From wedding cakes to breads and one-of-akind-dessert creations, the motto here is: "You dream it, we make it!" The team at SME's Treats prepares each confection custom and fresh-toorder, and Sheila prides herself on exceeding the expectations of her customers. She was honored to be voted Best Bakery of the Northern Black Hills for 2020 and 2021 in The Rapid City Journal's Best of the Black Hills contest. Also, in 2021 she was voted for best desserts in the Northern Hills. What an honor!

SME's Treats has also partnered with Blue Spruce Coffee Huts, Fancy Coffee, Pony Expresso and REV It UP Expresso who carry a variety of single-serve baked goods. For information on custom orders, visit smestreats.com or call 605-569-6257. SME's Treats can also be found on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (@smetreats), or at 1302 4th Ave. in Belle Fourche by appointment.

Headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day.

The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 5,000 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

LYNN JACKSON ATTORNEYS

Lynn Jackson’s attorneys provide the highest quality legal representation to clients throughout the state and region. Our litigators have years of experience representing clients in state and federal trial and appellate courts, as well as before administrative bodies. Lynn Jackson’s team of business and transactional lawyers assist clients with all their banking, corporate, and business needs, and our estate planning and trust attorneys are considered some of the most trusted and experienced attorneys in the field.

STURGIS LIQUOR

Sturgis Liquor has been serving the community for over 80 years. This full service, off sale liquor store has the largest selection of beer, wine, and spirits in the region, and carries many popular seltzers.

They are also the exclusive outlet for Officially Licensed Sturgis® Motorcycle Rally Jack Daniels Single Barrel Decanters, and engraved gifts.

Sturgis Liquor is open 7 days a week, so stop in at 1075 Lazelle St. in Sturgis and check out the everyday low prices and monthly specials.

They can also be reached at 605-347-5953.

Page 4, Our Towns 2022

DAKOTA LUMBER

The Black Hills Pioneer

Hobo’s Healing Heart provides financial assistance to pet owners

By Kimberly Talcott Black Hills Pioneer

Dakota Lumber, located north of Belle Fourche, is a second and third generation lumberyard that has been locally owned and operated by the Bowman Family, who are proud to have served Belle Fourche and the surrounding communities since 1979.

Stop by 18751 US-85 in Belle Fourche for all your home project needs or call 892-4041.

AMY CARLSON Amy Carlson is glad to be back in Spearfish! She attended BHSU from 88-91, where she fell in love with the city. She graduated with an elementary teaching degree and taught for 20 years in the Hoven/Faulkton areas. Amy then switched it up and worked at a small Faulkton restaurant, DOT T’s.

Now, she's happy to be back in Spearfish and joining the realty team of CENTURY 21 Spearfish Realty Inc. She loves the Black Hills area and all the outdoor activities available.

Amy looks forward to helping you find that special place you’ll call home. She can be reached at 380-8058 (cell), 642-4607 (office), or amycarlson@spearfishrealty.com.

Newell Hardware & Supply

Newell Hardware & Supply has been owned and operated by Troy and Julie VanDerBoom since April 2017. The store employs five people plus enlists the help of the kids when available.

Since 2017, there have been several updates to the building including a new front facade and roof, updated lighting, drop ceiling and updated heat and A/C. The store offers a good selection of seasonal products including lawn care items. Due to COVID-19, they increased their variety of inventory to promote shopping local.

Troy and Julie truly believe in hometown service and they have made themselves available for their customers after hours for emergency supplies.

Newell Hardware & Supply is very happy to be open and grateful to the community for their support and patronage. It’s been a great 4 years and they hope to provide service for 20+ more.

Stop by Newell Hardware & Supply at 320 Girard in Newell. Where you’re more than a customer, you’re a neighbor.

Black Hills Federal Credit Union is memberowned and not-for-profit. With 15 locations across South Dakota, we are passionate about serving our members and improving lives in our communities. Since 1941, we have helped members buy vehicles, purchase homes, insure assets, start businesses, and much more. Members can access their finances from anywhere with our top-rated Mobile App, Online Banking, Interactive Teller Machines (ITMs), and other convenient services.

Stop in and talk with one of our friendly, knowledgeable staff at 835 Main Street in Spearfish. Find us online at bhfcu.com or text or call 605-718-1818.

SPEARFISH — When Kaitlin Palmer’s cat, Beans (pictured below), showed up on her doorstep in October 2021 with a dislocated leg, her veterinarian gave Palmer three options: surgery, amputation, or euthanasia. With the financial help of Hobo’s Healing Heart, a non-profit, Beans overcame his emergency amputation and thrives as a rambunctious cat.

Founded in 2014, Hobo’s Healing Heart aids pet owners with unexpected emergency vet care in Butte, Custer, Lawrence, Meade, and Pennington counties in South Dakota, and Crook County in Wyoming. Harnett founded Hobo’s to carry on the legacy of her dog, Hobo, who “helped other pets.”

When Harnett met Hobo, the Australian shepard had been severely neglected and abused. Harnett was working in Ohio at the Athens County Humane Society at the time.

“It took me four years rehabilitate Hobo to where he was not afraid of people. By then, I loved him,” said Harnett. “I kept Hobo and he helped prepare 150 dogs for placement in their forever homes. He taught them how to be dogs.”

When Hobo passed away in 2012, Harnett adopted Stuart, an elkhound/cattle dog mix.

“Stewart needed a $1,200 surgery, and I could not afford it. I tried contacting a national nonprofit to assist with the veterinary care, but they did not assist with emergencies,”

Kelly Harnett, left, founded Hobo’s Healing Heart in 2014 to assist local pet owners with unexpected veterinary bills. Pictured with Mela Cosme, a board member for Hobo’s, and Cosme’s dogs, Loki and Anyanka. Photos courtesy of Kaitlin Palmer said Harnett. “I created Hobo’s Healing Heart to help dogs and cat owners with unexpected veterinary services, diagnostic testing and cremation services for their animal companions and work animals.”

After working as a veterinary technician, wildlife biologist, and training dogs and being around horses throughout her life, Harnett took a banking job in Montana. She now works as assistant vice president mortgage originator at BankWest in Spearfish.

In the seven years since she founded Hobo’s, Harnett said the organization has paid out $23,000 and helped 90 families, including Palmer’s cat, Beans.

“Beans was a happy, outdoor cat I adopted from the Northern Hills Humane Society. But that morning when he came back home with his leg dangling, the vet through maybe he jumped from something high or got caught in a branch,” said Palmer.

The vet took x-rays and said surgery would be several thousand dollars. Euthanasia was not an option Palmer entertained for long.

“He is a fun cat that brings me a lot of job. I was not ready to say goodbye,” said Palmer.

Before Beans’ accident, Palmer had attended fundraising events for Hobo’s, which she enjoyed because they were community-oriented and family-friendly.

“Initially, I thought, I am a responsible pet owner. I budget for my pet’s needs. I should not be taking these funds. But this is exactly what Hobo’s Healing Heart funds are for unexpected veterinarian bills,” said Palmer.

Beans’ amputation surgery was suc-

cessful. He continues to enjoy perching on Palmer’s deck, stairs and roof to this day.

Harnett said Hobo’s has provided assistance to animals affected by car accidents, those who eat things they should not such as hair ties that get bound up in their intestines, and animals suffering from colitis. Because of financial constraints, the organization does not help with cancer treatment or chronic care.

Eligibility requirements for financial assistance include submitting an online application for financial help within 14 days of illness or injury onset. Full eligibility requirements can be found at www.HobosHealingHeart. org “Most of our decisions are made by how much funding we have available.

We always try to give something if your pet qualifies,” says Harnett, noting that money for assistance is given directly to veterinarians for their service, not the pet owners themselves.

Hobo’s is 100% supported by donations. The organization organizes fundraising events. Local families also hold fundraisers for Hobo’s and Harnett said the local business community shows up with great support for Hobo’s.

In addition to monetary donations, Hobo’s needs volunteers to assist with fundraisers and to serve on the board of directors.

“We are a small but mighty team.

We need more feet on the ground,” said Harnett.

Hobo’s is a community resource, said Palmer.

“Give when you can. Take when you should. It is the cycle that keeps communities like Spearfish going, making it a safe and friendly place to live.”

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 5

Center of the Nation Wool expansion to bolster storage, create more usable space

BLACK HILLS STATE UNIVERSITY

Black Hills State University, nestled in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, offers 125 programs of study. Our quality programs and passionate faculty put students on the path to the career of their dreams. The BHSU experience goes beyond the classroom, as students build connections both on campus and off for their college careers and beyond.

FRONTIER GLASS OF BELLE FOURCHE

By Lacey Peterson Black Hills Pioneer

BELLE FOURCHE –– The Center of the Nation Wool is undergoing an expansion project directly adjacent to its current location with an additional 10,500 square feet slated to store approximately 1.5 million pounds of wool.

Larry Prager, chief executive officer since 1993, oversees a staff of five at the warehouse on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Railroad Street.

Producers in the region begin shearing sheep at the beginning of the year and continue through May or June. The wool is then taken to the warehouse where it is evaluated for color, style, quality, length, uniformity, contamination, genetics, and growing environment. Based on how the wool scores, it is then sold to wool processors, who look for specific wool characteristics, depending on their market products.

The U.S. wool industry produces approximately 25 million pounds of wool each year, he said. And each year the wool warehouse in Belle Fourche markets between 4.5-5 million pounds, meaning that approximately 20% of the nationwide wool is local to the geographical center of

the nation.

The wool is sheared at the roughly 1,700 wool producing ranches from several surrounding states and shipped to the warehouse. There it is stored in stacks of white nylon wrapped bales, each weighing 400500 pounds filled with the wool of 40-50 animals.

Unlike some other industries, the wool industry has yet to recover from the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, Prager said.

“When COVID was on, dealers shut down for a period of time,” he said. “Retail shopping was not available.”

As a result, Prager said that the processing industries across many manufacturing trades experienced disruptions. Labor force and supply chain issues were among the chief negative impacts of those disruptions, he said.

One particularly troublesome aspect of the disruptions is related to product shipment.

“In just the last month, we’ve got a new round of fuel surcharges in trucking and (ocean) freight (costs),” Prager said, adding that it is very difficult to estimate costs related to freight expenses.

“The ocean freight business, trying to get through a port on the west coast of the United States is still … it’s in worse shape today than it’s ever been.”

With increased expense and delays related to international export, the pandemic circumstances exponentially increase the market’s volatility, he said.

“That’s the big reason here the storage is a requirement, not an option,” Prager said. “That’s a root cause of where we’re at today.”

Prager thought the textile industry, particularly wool, would get back on course in 2021.

Wool prices, he said, have remained “only steady.”

“No disasters but no rallies for over a year now,” Prager said. “That in itself is, I suppose, a good thing.”

“Being stable in a rather poor market, (with) historically low prices is not where the industry needs to be,” he said. “And that’s what we’re facing as we start sheering in 2022.”

Low market prices aside, Prager said that the company has long needed more storage space for the product it houses locally. After a deWOOL Pg 17

Center of the Nation Wool will soon have 10,500 more square feet to store its wool with the construction of a new storage facility on Railroad Street, directly across the street from its current location. Pioneer photos by Lacey Peterson

Roger & Diane McNary relocated to a new location South of Belle Fourche in August 2015.

This has given them more room for service work in their new state of the art facility. Roger has been doing glasswork since 1984 and in 2008 the couple purchased Frontier Glass of Belle Fourche.

Servicing customers all over the Northern Hills from Rapid City to Buffalo, SD the small team provides friendly quality service to their loyal customers. While auto glass repair is their main focus, they are also able to provide home glass needs, including custom glass table tops, fireplace glass, screens, glass shelving and more.

Frontier Glass is insurance approved and they welcome you to stop by and see them.

Bunney's is your one-stop auto body and collision repair shop. With 130 years of combined experience, these collision repair specialists can handle damage resulting from accidents, hail storms, and run-ins with deer, including glass replacement and repair.

Bunney's works with all insurance companies, so save yourself time and stress by letting their experts get your vehicle back on the road — and in the meantime, loaner cars are available.

Visit bunneysbodyandcollision.com, stop by 118 5th Ave. in Belle Fourche, or call 892-2802.

Potential clients should choose Dakota Home and Ranch Real Estate, LLC if they are seeking a professional experience with integrity and care for the client. Our goal is to assist all of our clients no matter the property type, in their journey to purchase or sell their home, ranch, or business. It is of utmost importance to us that we help our clients discover the best property to meet their needs and circumstances and to educate both sellers and buyers about the entire process of listing and selling.

We are privileged to work with buyers and sellers in Wyoming and South Dakota with residential, ranch/farm land, as well as commercial property. With the 40+ years of combined real estate experience we are able to draw on that experience to best suit the correct broker with the client's needs.

We can be found at 1411 5th Ave. Ste. B, Belle Fourche or dakotahomeandranch.com. We can also be reached by phone at 605-645-8938 (Gloriann Ruby); 605-645-1314 (Fred Wilson); or 605-347-1167 (Artie Gifford).

Page 6, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Community Partners Free Family Attraction Vote “Best Pla d ce Family D for a a 605 Ma y”by g People’s azine, Choice, 2021

VISIT THE

D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery & Archives D.C. Booth is America’s gathering place for all things fisheries – preserving our fisheries history to inspire present & future conservationists.

www.dcboothfishhatchery.org

Visit. Learn. Inspire.

TOUR THE HISTORIC VENUES SHOP IN THE POND SHOP EXPLORE THE TRAILS FEED THE FISH ENJOY YOUR PUBLIC LANDS

the poND GiFt shop • Black Hills Map Gift Items • Spearfish T-Shirts, Hats & Stickers • Home Decor

Special 125th commemorative souvenirs and unique gifts available.

• Educational Toys, Games & Puzzles • Regional & Historic Books • Nature Jewelry

• Fish Food: Small & Large Bags • And Much More!

The Pond Shop, Booth House, Von Bayer Museum, and Fish Rail Car are open mid-May thru mid-September

D.C. Booth historiC NatioNal Fish hatChery & arChives Next to spearFish City park, south oN CaNyoN street, spearFish, sD

CELEBRATING 20+ YEARS OF SUPPORTING SPEARFISH SCHOOLS

The Spearfish Foundation for Public Education, a nonprofit, 501c3 volunteer organization, is celebrating 20+ years of providing grants to K-12 teachers to support enrichment learning, innovation in the classroom, and specific needs of students in Spearfish public schools. Each semester, teachers may apply for grants, and since its start, the SFPE has granted approximately $850,000 to teachers as part of its mission to sustain great schools!

THANK YOU to Spearfish School District (teachers, administrators, and staff) for your dedication and hard work in helping every student every day!

THANK YOU to the network of community supporters (families, businesses, and community members) who make investments of time, money, and energy to strengthen our schools, students, and future!

For more information go to: www.spearfishschools.org

WHO BENEFITS FROM We are one of the largest employers in

Northern Hills Training Center?

Spearfish with175+ devoted employees working together to provide a support system for 130 + individuals with Intellectual & Developmental disabilities. Starting in 1976 a group of Spearfish parents initiated the process to provide assistance in the residential, vocational, and medical aspects of life aiding in reaching the goal of independent living.

THE MISSION to enhance lives & achieve dreams became WHAT DO a reality. We support each person on their pursuit of being integrated in this beautiful community and beyond. We strive to provide quality care, resources to develop a person-centered life filled with purpose, and to encourage each person to achieve their personal goals.

OUR VALUES reflect that we are constantly trying to make a positive difference in the quality of each life we support.

WHERE ARE WE We are so happy to say we have multiple locations! The main office is located at 625 Harvard Street but we offer a variety of choices for people to obtain their best life. We have an array of supports in each area, with 12+ residential options, 5+ vocational/day programs, a large medical department, not to mention the endless opportunities in the community. When you see us out and about in the community, watch our feed on facebook, or talk to anyone associate with NHTC it will be quite evident that we have a love for the people AND MOST IMPORTANTLY we serve daily to reach our common goal of being…

WE DO?

LOCATED?

OUR WHY

PEOPLE WITH PURPOSE.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 7

Community Partners 825 Heritage Dr. • Spearfish, South Dakota

642-WEST (9378) | www.westernheritagecenter.com info@westernheritagecenter.com High Plains Western Heritage Center contains a five-state regional museum founded to honor the old west pioneers and the Native Americans of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska.

The museum features a wide range of western artifacts including displays honoring the cattle and sheep industry, the Native American, blacksmithing, saddle making, natural history, mining, forestry, and, of course, the cowboy and rodeo.

Great Events All Summer Long!

Watch our website for details!

Contributions in recent years have allowed for a spacious theatre complete with sound system, a Transportation Room that includes a stagecoach, chuck wagon, a “Tally-Ho” wagon, buggies and sleighs. Outside displays include a oneroom schoolhouse, log homestead cabin and antique farm equipment.

The Heritage Center thrives due to the many individuals and businesses from the area that contribute time, labor, materials and finances. Grain and hay are donated to feed live longhorn steers, which are displayed in the front pasture from May through October.

The Heritage Center, as an important regional community center, is available for rent to individuals, groups and organizations looking for a beautiful and unique venue for their event.

Young Life began with a few simple ideas about sharing the truth of God’s love with adolescents. Those simple ideas have become time-tested methods for reaching out to middle school, high school and college students in friendship and hope.

Our mission is to introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ and help them grow their faith.

We accomplish our mission to high students by ...

• Praying for young people.

• Going where kids are and building personal relationships with them.

• Earning the right to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.

• Providing fun, adventurous, life-changing and skill-building experiences.

• Inviting kids to personally respond to the Good News and walking in friendship with them regardless of their response.

• Preparing kids for a life-long relationship with Christ and a love for His word, His mission and the local church.

• Working in community alongside like-minded adults (volunteer leaders, committee members, donors and staff).

We believe that life is found in Jesus and that every student deserves to know what life can hold for them.

From club and camp to Campaigners and other activities, teenagers will have a blast laughing, trying new things and being with their friends.

605-645-9589

INTRODUCING

for Middle School Students Join us Saturday, June 25th at the Spearfish Trap Club to learn more!

www.spearfish.younglife.org

If you wish to financially supporty YoungLife a check can be mailed to: YoungLife P.O. Box 1136, Spearfish, SD 57783 or gifts can be made online.

Page 8, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Community Partners Sturgis City Auditorium on Main Street History: Lost & Found Friday, June 17, 2022 Reception from 4pm to 7pm Booths displaying local efforts to preserve history Appetizers | Cash Bar

Old FORT MEADE MUSEUM

Bldg 55, Sheridan St., Fort Meade, SD Open: Monday - Saturday | 10 AM - 5PM May 16 - September 30 605-347-9822 | fortmeademuseum.org

Arts, Culture & Live Entertainment Year Round – In a Historic Setting Arts Education • Comedy-Drama Musical Theatre • Events • Concerts Homestakeoperahouse.org • 605.584.2067 313 W. Main St., Lead, SD 57754

Saturday, June 18, 2022 Booths displaying local efforts to preserve history Programs throughout the day Speakers throughout the day

We will be focusing on the efforts of various people and organizations who have, are, or will be preserving history. These efforts range from individuals researching local family or other history, to organizations and communities who have researched and preserved history. We will also feature speakers and programming related to best practices in preserving history, such as photo scanning, family history, and preserving historic items.

Our goal is to preserve and protect the history of Sturgis and Meade County. We cannot do this alone... this is done through memberships, sponsorships and donations. The Sturgis & Meade Country Historical Society is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, therefore sponsorships and donations are tax deductible.

Sturgis & Meade County Historical Society P. O. Box 221, Sturgis, SD 57785

HISTORIC BUILDING TOURS

(30-45 minute tour) Monday-Friday, 11am, 1pm, 2pm & 3pm on the Hour $10/Person Saturdays, by Special Appointment $15/Person Come to Office Entrance at 308 W. Julius St., Lead, SD Book online.

The mission of Teen Court is “To provide youth the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions through cooperation with their peers and their community.” lawrencecountyteencourt.com Lawrence County Teen Court is a 501(c)3 non-profit. This program exists solely on community support, grants, fund-raising and donations. We would appreciate your consideration.

Donations can be made via mail, paypal, or venmo.

Mail: PO Box 227, Deadwood, SD 57732 Paypal: @LawCoTeenCourt Venmo: @LawrenceCountyTeenCourt

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 9

Community Partners A local service club dedicated to providing assistance to our local youth and community.

Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.

Lead Deadwood Area Lions Club honors the Lions motto of

WE SERVE

Help us help others, by becoming a member of the Golden K Kiwanis Club.

To learn more send an email to debbiekiwanis@gmail.com

Provide Vision Assistance and Eyeglass Collection Work to Fight Hunger and Diabetes Support Youth and Environment Meets 3rd Tuesday of Each Month New Members Encouraged and Visitors Welcome For More Information Email ramnorahs@yahoo.com

If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please reach out to Crisis Intervention Shelter Service.

WE ARE

HERE TO

HELP. P.O. BOX 842, STURGIS, SD 605-347-0050 | 1-800-755-8423

CISS@RUSHMORE.COM | STURGISCISS.ORG Crisis Intervention Shelter Services is a non-profit domestic violence organization in Sturgis, SD

History at High Noon

Play Productio ns Book Clubs

Art is the HeArt of Our Community Established in 1979, the Sturgis Area Arts Council’s mission is “to initiate, sponsor, and conduct public programs to further the development and awareness of and interest in the arts.” To achieve this goal, we work closely with all facets of our community. We rely greatly upon donations and sponsorships from local individuals and businesses.

We encourage local participation by presenting programs using local artists.

Support the Arts Council by becoming a member.

Visit the website for more details. sturgisareaartscouncil.org saacpublicity@hotmail.com Artist of the Month

www.facebook.com/SturgisAreaArtsCouncil

Concerts

Page 10, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Community Partners

Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States Black Hills Post #5969 Some of the many projects we support are: 3 Boys & Girls Club of Lead-Deadwood

3 Clothe-A-Kid 3 Community

Deadwood

rvice A local se ed to at club dedic sistance s a providing youth and l a c lo r to ou y. communit

Birthday Calendar

3 Community Christmas Dinner

3 Cornerstone Rescue 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Mission Delta Dental Bus Handley Center Pre-School Highway Cleaning Lead-Deadwood Elementary Dictionary Project & Triathlon Lead-Deadwood High School Key Club & Academic Awards Lead-Deadwood Middle School Builders Club Meals on Wheels Mile High Basketball Tournament Prospector Bowl Football Games Teen Court

Chartered in 1925, the Lead-Deadwood Kiwanis Club has been actively supporting the Lead and Deadwood communities for over 97 years. We have four groups in the area: Main Club, Noon Club, Lead-Deadwood High School Key Club and Lead-Deadwood Middle School Builders Club.

lub Main C gs Meetin

Club Noon gs Meetin

Monday Nights 5:30 p.m.

Christian Ministry Center, Lead

Third Wednesday of the month - Noon Sled Haus, Lead

The public is welcome.

3 Interested in learning more, please contact a Kiwanian or call 605-920-8635.

Post 5969 became reality in February 1946, when Jim Shea and Toby Dahl acquired a charter from the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States of America (referred to as the VFW). Toby Dahl was the first Commander in the old City Building. When it burned down, the club was moved to Main Street.

The current location on Pine Street was moved into in 1964. Remodeling was done, to a building that had been a car dealership and home to several grocery stores, to accommodate Post functions. In 1994 the facade was restored to original appearance with assistance from post members and Deadwood Historical Preservation.

One of the earliest community services provided by the VFW was serving as Honor Guard for fallen comrades. Many may recall the Lighting of Bikes for area children. As a nonprofit organization we are continually enlarging our outreach in service to the community supporting youth programs and providing assistance to our Veterans.

The present Post Commander is John Datka. Veterans who have fought on foreign soil are encouraged to apply for membership. Any surviving wife, husband, son, mother, grandmother, daughter or sister is eligible to apply for the Auxiliary. More information is available by calling our Post at 722-9914.

Any time you see an American flag being marched up Main Street or hear the Star Spangled Banner being played please place that right hand over your heart in remembrance of those who fought to preserve our way of life. It is a matter of respect. They deserve no less.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 11

Community Partners At our center, we have:

SPEARFISH SENIOR CENTER 1306 N. 10th St. Spearfish, SD 57783 605-642-2827 Hours: Monday-Friday 8:30 am - 4:00 pm

Keeps seniors thriving!

Our Senior Center is a non-profit and appreciates your tax-deductible donation.

Social Events Birthday Celebrations Exercise Card Playing Line Dancing Crafts & Quilting Dominoes Writers Group Medical Equipment Snooker/Pool Mahjong Handicap Access Community Gatherings Book & DVD Library Education Seminars Fundraisers Rummage Sales

Page 12, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 1

CHUTES FOR CHARITY a couple dozen volunteers between the two groups, it didn’t come without its share of challenges.

“We learned a lot,” she said. “Because we didn’t limit tickets (to the event).

And they had contacts that we didn’t have, and we had contacts that they didn’t have.”

And so, between the two groups, volunteers orga-

Our Towns 2022, Page 13 nized live and silent auctions, sponsors, food, venue, and more.

After a two-year break due to the pandemic, the group hosted its first large fundraising event this February.

At the Feb. 5 Wine, Bourbon & Whiskey Extravaganza, the group sold out its 300 tickets and attendees were offered a selection of 16 wines, eight bourbons, and eight whiskeys. In addition to the alcoholic drinks, which were donated for the event from the distributors, the event

from Pg 3

MATERI memory of Ron, his wife Carla Materi, and her three children, Kirby Eisenhauer, Kori, Meredith, and Kati Virchow, formed the foundation.

“The foundation is named after him because he was an amazing person, and we wanted to honor him by helping others in his memory, said Carla. “He was a wonderful giving man.”

The family learned first hand on how expensive travel for medical appointments were as the Upton,

also hosted live and silent auctions, music, and more.

The auction items were donated for the event. Among the unique items auctioned was a stationary exercise bike that powers a margarita blender.

The event’s food, primarily heavy hors d’oeuvre, were also donated to the charity organization.

“We couldn’t do it without the support of all the people and the businesses that we have around us,” Adams said.

The February event raised more than $68,000.

Wyo., couple traveled to Ron’s appointments in Rapid City, Gillette, Wyo., Casper, Wyo., and even Denver, Colo.

They family wanted that burden to be eased for other families going through the same troubles.

“The mission of the foundation is to help individuals traveling to receive medical treatment and to know that they are not alone,” Carla said.

Families seeking assistance are presented $100 gas cards, and in 2021, 170 families were assisted.

“We live in a rural area and traveling to appointments can be costly, especially now with rising

The Chutes for Charity group also hold a monthly progressive bingo event at the Branding Iron Steak House & Social Club to raise funds for their mission. A progressive jackpot bingo game is one in which a prize amount is carried over to a subsequent game if no bingo is achieved within a specified number of balls drawn and called.

Chutes for Charity is able to gift funds to neighbors in need thanks, in a large part, to the Belle Fourche and surrounding communities, Adams said.

gas prices,” she said. “Not only do we issue gas cards, but we have also funded transportation needs for medical reasons for local organizations including Realtor’s for Kids and Prairie Hills Transit.”

Families, she said, are grateful for the support.

The non-profit organization’s bylaws dictate that the funds must be used for travel for medical expenses.

Generally, a friend of the family in need, or a family member contacts the foundation to get the ball rolling. A board member will then issue the gas card.

So how do people contact the

“Our community and the people around us are our best asset,” she said.

“People are just generous knowing that we’re giving for the right reason.”

And sometimes, the generosity comes full circle.

“A lot of people who have been benefactors of ours get in a better position,” Adams said. “And all of a sudden, they send us a check saying, ‘You were there when we needed it.

We’re now able to give back.’ We have one gentleman who sends us a check every single Christmas.”

foundation?

“We can be contacted on our Facebook Page or by email at ronmateriroadtripfund@yahoo.com,” she said.

One of the fundraisers the foundation uses to gather revenue is a golf tournament.

This year, the Ron Materi 18hole Golf Scramble will be held June 18 at the Spearfish Canyon Golf Club.

The registration deadline is June. 16.

To register, call (605) 717-4653.

The cost is $125 and includes green feels, range balls, cart, lunch and more.

Page 14, Our Towns 2022

SURF’n science

The Black Hills Pioneer

How SURF is riding a wave of discovery

By Alex Portal Black Hills Pioneer

LEAD — The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) has put the old mining town of Lead back on the map as a worldclass leader in discovery and innovation.

Since Ray Davis first staked his scientific claim on the 4,850-foot level of what would become the Sanford Lab in 1965, Lead has played host to groundbreaking underground experiments centered around exploring some of the most elusive questions faced by mankind. Ever growing and expanding, SURF continues to update and upgrade its experiments to push the limits of scientific inquiry. In this article, the Pioneer will take a closer look at some of the major experiments currently taking place nearly a mile below the surface of the Black Hills town.

Why underground?

The Earth is constantly being bombarded with cosmic rays comprised of quantum

particles. The majority of these rays are harmless for the most part, some cause moderate inconveniences, such as sunburn from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. But when you’re trying to work only with a very specific type of particle, these rays pose a real problem.

A “quiet” environment is a key factor when studying certain types of particles.

However, in the particle physics community, “quiet” doesn’t mean a lack of noise, it refers to limiting the amount of unwanted particles that could get in the way of the particles you’re looking for. One of the main reasons SURF is located nearly a mile below the surface of Lead is because the rock that makes up that mile does a pretty good job of “quieting” a lot of those unwanted particles.

But itty-bitty bits of unwanted stuff go flying off into the air all the time. As the atoms that make up everything collide into each other, they break apart into smaller particles. Those particles, in turn, bump into one another causing even more bits to go flying off and so on and so

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment will generate the world’s most intense beam of highenergy accelerator neutrinos at Fermilab in Illinois and send them 800 miles (1,300 km) straight through the earth to mile-deep detectors at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. Neutrinos, which rarely interact with anything, can pass through the earth with no tunnel required. Graphic courtesy of Fermilab forth. That process is called “radioactive decay.” The smaller the particle get, the less likely they are to collide with any other, scientists call these smallest bits, “weakly interacting massive particle” or WIMPs. SURF is in the business of WIMPs, many of the major experiments taking place there deal with filtering out all the other particles they don’t care much about in order to observe the ones they do.

Majorana Demonstrator

Enter the Majorana Demonstrator, which tested the limits of how “quiet” an experiment can be at SURF. So not looking for a specific WIMP, but perfecting the way SURF scientists look for them. The researchers even perfected a proprietary method to grow their own copper in underground vats, to be used in the experiment, mak-

Workers make progress on the enormous ProtoDUNE detector at CERN, one of two huge testbeds for the Fermilab-hosted Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. A red steel structure supports the internal cryostat, which holds the liquid argon and detector instruments. Photo courtesy of Jim Shultz, Fermilab

ing it the purest, and therefore quietest, copper on the planet. The fewer impurities a material has, the slower it is to experience radioactive decay and the fewer unwanted particles get dispersed.

“There was a whole R&D project on the side just to measure how pure it is,” Jaret Heise, science liaison director for SURF said.

In order to see just how sensitive Majorana could be, researchers set their sites on an extremely rare form of radioactive decay called neutrinoless double-beta decay. So far, the Demonstrator hasn’t found that reaction; however, it has yielded impressive results regarding the purity of the experiment.

“Their main goals were technical,” Heise explained of the scientists running the experiment. “They wanted to show that the techniques that they had developed were sufficient to inspire the federal funding agencies to invest in a ton-scale version of this experiment.”

Now, the Majorana team is taking the next step by joining forces with another neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment.

“They’ll be testing some new hardware, some new cables and connectors that will help improve their results potentially for this experiment but more importantly, they will be used in the next generation; a detector called LEGEND-200.”

Heise explained that LEGEND-200 would bring toSCIENCE Pg 15

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 14

SCIENCE gether expertise and techniques from the Majorana Demonstrator as well as its European counterpart GERDA, housed in Italy.

“They both used germanium to look for neutrinoless double-beta decay,” he said. “(Scientists will) coalesce these competing technologies, take the best of each and build up a combined detector with those two collaborations converging.”

LUX-ZEPLIN

One of the greatest mysteries of science today is the existence of dark matter.

“Our universe is made of matter with very small amounts of antimatter produced every once in a while in stars and reactions and accelerators,” Heise said. “When you look out into the universe and look at the mass and the energy, we see missing mass. Matter, in the universe, is matter that gives off light, interacts gravitationally in that we can see it.

Dark matter solves the problem of gravitational effects on stuff we can’t see.”

We don’t yet know what dark matter is, but we can see what dark matter does. One way of understanding what dark matter does is observing the rotation speeds of galaxies.

“They’re spinning way too fast, they should be flinging themselves apart,” Heise explained.

Scientists have already concluded that the universe is expanding, dark matter is one possible explanation for the mystery of what holds those spinning galaxies, including our own, together.

Heise also described gravitational lensing, which is the observation of light bending around an object that we can’t see. It’s sort of like looking at a ball with a light shining behind it; in this case we can’t see the ball, but we can deduce that it must be there. Heise explained that scientists still don’t know if dark matter is made up of light particles or heavy particles, just that it is subject to the effects of gravity.

Piggy-backing off the success of the Large Underground Xenon experiment (LUX), completed in 2016, LUXZEPPLIN (LZ) is a 100-times more sensitive experiment, the largest of it’s kind in the world, which, seeks to determine just what dark matter is.

“So you’ve got water, liquid scintillator for an outer detector, you’ve got 10 tons of xenon, you’ve got a lot of electronics, you’ve got a lot of readout electronics, a data acquisition system, nitrogen gas to keep radon out, and a collaboration of 250 people who are anxiously turning wrenches to discover dark matter,” Heise said.

“The theory suggests that there’s a weakly interactive massive particle (WIMP) that, if it interacts gravitationally and interacts weakly, (meaning very few of them actually come into contact with another particle) it

Our Towns 2022, Page 15 will give a certain signal when it hits a xenon atom. So these dark matter experiments are tuned to look for these basic interactions with weakly interactive particles.”

When neutrinos were first discovered in the 1950s, (more about these little buggers later), they were a strong candidate for dark matter because of how weakly they interact as they travel throughout the universe, but they were knocked out of the running as studies determined that their mass didn’t meet the requirement to be considered a WIMP. So scientists know what dark matter isn’t made of, the trick is to find something new.

“So you’re looking at a particle, hopefully a WIMP, coming in depositing energy, that gives off light and then there’s a secondary burst of light when the electrons make it to the other portion of the LZ detector.

And it’s the relative strengths of those two light signals that gives you some particle identification,” Heise said. “So you can understand what your detector (data) looks like with, known types of particles, and then look for something that is not that.”

Work on LZ began in 2017; the detector was constructed in a clean lab on the surface and lowered down to the 4,580-foot level of the lab in 2019.

After a period of commissioning, the detectors started taking data. Heise said he expects a first round of results sometime this year.

LBNF/DUNE

Neutrinos are one of the most basic and abundant quantum particles in the universe. Created as other particle collide and decay, (think those little fly-away sparks of red-hot ash that shoot out from a crackling fire), billions upon billions of neutrinos pass through the earth, and our bodies every second. They’re just so infinitesimally small that they literally move in the spaces between atoms.

But because they’re so abundant, scientists theorize that they can be used to study the fundamental properties of matter and antimatter in the universe.

Hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) located outside of Batavia Ill., the LongBaseline Neutrino Facility/Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (LBNF/DUNE) will seek to gain an understanding of why our universe is made of matter, rather than antimatter.

At the moment of the Big Bang, an equal amount of matter and antimatter was released out into the universe. This should have meant that the two particles cancelled each other out.

“If you remember your ‘Star Trek’ physics,” Heise said. “Matter and antimatter, when they collide, will annihilate into energy.”

Had the amount of matter and antimatter remained equal throughout the universe, it would have resulted

in a universe comprised entirely of energy, or light. Since that is not the case and we can observe matter, scientists have concluded that at some point after the Big Bang, matter gained a foothold over antimatter as the most abundant form of stuff in the universe.

“In the beginning of the universe, things went one way and it made an imbalance such that we have a matter world, not an antimatter world,” explained Regina Rameika, a senior scientist at Fermilab, and co-spokesperson for LBNF/DUNE. When completed, scientists at Fermilab will shoot a concentrated beam of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos from its accelerator complex in Illinois, over 800 miles through the Earth toward SURF, which will eventually house four 63 feet wide, 60 feet tall, and over 200 feet long cryostats filled with a total of 70,000 tons of super-cooled liquid argon and an array of detection wires at the 4,850-foot level of the facility. Argon is very dense in its liquid form. The idea is to fill the cryostats with enough dense material, that at least some of the neutrinos will collide, or interact with the nucleus of the Argon atoms, and release energy.

“That’s the goal, to measure fundamental parameters that come out of these interactions,” Rameika said.

Neutrinos come in three types, or “flavors,” muon, electron, and tau.

As they travel through the universe, their masses fluctuate, that fluctuation corresponds to the flavor of the neutrino. Once the neutrino interacts with the nucleus of an Argon atom, different flavors will deposit different energy levels. Since all of the neutrinos will be muon flavored as they leave the accelerator complex at Fermilab, researchers should be able to measure the different energy signals collected by the detectors to track how much the composition of the beam was changed as it travels through the Earth, or it’s oscillation.

Then, when the beam is switched to antineutrinos, scientists can measure those same numbers and the difference between the two beams should give some clue as to why matter proves out over antimatter in the universe.

“And then theorists will run with it and make up a model of the universe for us and tell us why we’re all here,” Rameika said with a laugh.

Excavation of the massive caverns that will house the detectors for LBNF/DUNE has begun with an original completion date in the mid-2020s. However, as reported by Science Magazine in a March article titled, “Trying to stay ahead of competition, U.S. pares down troubled $3 billion neutrino experiment,” rising costs and delays have caused the team at Fermilab and its international collaborators to rethink its initial timeline. Fermilab is still committed to delivering the full-scale LBNF/ DUNE project, but the rising cost will require it to be done in phases.

SCIENCE Pg 16

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Page 16, Our Towns 2022 from Pg 15

SCIENCE “We are all on the same page about what comes first and what comes second,” Rameika is quoted as saying in the article.

Rather than four cryostats, phase one of the project will bring two completely online in the near-term, while additional funding can be gathered for the rest of the project.

Additionally, the excavation crews here in Lead have run into trouble mitigating a dust problem literally rising out of the Open Cut as they dispose of the 800,000 tons of displaced rock from the underground caverns. As of the printing of this article, excavation has been halted until officials from Thyssen Mining and Fermilab can satisfy the conditions of a land use agreement issued

by SURF and the City of Lead.

“The longer it takes to do it, the more it will cost,” Rameika told the Pioneer.

She said she hopes to have the detectors operational by 2029, with the beam line facility in Illinois up and running around two years later.

Deep Observatory

Life exists in some extreme places on this planet, including inside solid rock.

Since 2015, research in the field of exobiology has had broad reach-

The Black Hills Pioneer ing applications, including NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover mission currently scouring the surface of the red planet for signs of ancient life.

On board the Perseverance rover, is “SHERLOC” (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), a highly sophisticated piece of equipment that was tested in the Deep Observatory, located on the 4,850-foot level of SURF. The research done at the underground observatory has always centered on studying microorganisms and how they can survive and thrive in conditions too extreme for any other life forms. But for SHERLOC, the underground facility had its sights set much, much higher.

“They had quite a large collaboration of different national labs but also a mixture of biologists and geologists, as well as some physicists looking for processes that cross (normal) boundaries (between disciplines),” Heise said. “It was a really interesting collaboration, it still is an interesting collaboration.”

Some of the tests they conducted involved running water across different mediums in order to see what conditions promote microorganism growth. Another test ran electricity into water flowing through rock to observe how the microorganisms process energy.

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than here,” Heise said.

Practical Implications

With all the high concept science taking place at SURF, it can be easy to lose sight of how the work being done can relate to the everyday lives of the general population of South Dakota.

Heise said the opportunity for education is probably the largest real world application SURF has to offer in the short term.

“If you ask the scientists, it’s knowledge for knowledge’s’ sake, it’s understanding how the universe works and putting the pieces of that puzzle together in a way that makes sense,” he said.

On the practical application side of things, Heise also said that once scientists gain a better understanding of how to detect and read information from studying quantum particles like neutrinos, it could open the door for all kinds of commercial and defensive use.

“Rather than bounce signals off of satellites around the planet, you can shoot a beam of neutrinos through the Earth and detect it on the other side,” he suggested.

Heise said the properties of neutrinos might, the future, also be used to take readings from places inaccessible by any other means.

“It’s like neutrinos coming from the center of the sun, you can’t get there, but you can know what’s going on in the center of the sun because of the information that the neutrinos bring. For countries that we worry about the most, they’re not going to invite us in to take a look at their reactor but the neutrinos coming out bring that information with them,” he said. “So you can park a small neutrino detector off the coast of your least favorite country, … and it can tell you what that reactor is doing: is it producing weapon’s grade plutonium, or is it producing energy to heat homes?”

Mike Headley, laboratory director at SURF, and executive director of the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority, added that it’s not just about the science at SURF. There’s a sense of pride that should come from the work being done on American soil.

“These are incredibly competitive fields and if the U.S. decided, ‘hey we’re not going to play in these fields,’ the work’s still going to get done,” he said. “I look at LBNF/ DUNE and the number of people who are not only staying in the U.S. to do that kind of work, but people from around the world that are coming. Certainly it’s a help having incredibly smart people here in the U.S. who are a part of R&D and the advancement of our economy as well.”

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 5

WOOL cade of leasing space inside a couple of hangars at the old airport on U.S. Highway 212 to store wool, he said the company has opted to purchase a lot adjacent to the warehouse.

“The wools come in so much faster … they get shorn, and they come in so much faster than they ship,” he said. “We can sell them, but the limitation is getting them shipped as fast as it comes in the door. Delivery drags out.”

The problem is, Prager said, the manufacturing chain continues to experience chinks in the system.

“The bottom line is … we’re going to shear 23, 24, 25 million pounds of wool every year in the United States,” he said. “If everybody in the United States was processing at full capacity of what we have here, we could only consume about half of that. And the other half has to be exported for processing.”

For the types of wools that don’t meet the specific wool characteristics that individual market products value, Prager said those require exportation to be utilized in alternative markets.

“The markets are very specific to the quality of the wool that they (the buyers) need for a particular product line,” he said. “And if you can’t meet those specs, whether it’s length or strength or grade or packaging

Our Towns 2022, Page 17 issues, it’s not a discount. That market is just not available to that particular grower.”

For example, Prager said, for military-grade material, the specifications are stringent.

“It’s got to be contamination free, from all sources,” he said. “It’s got to be good length, it’s got to be fine (textured), … It’s a great market.

Problem is, there’s a lot of wool that comes to our door that is not either fine enough or long enough or it just won’t work.”

Wool utilized in U.S. military dress uniforms is typically comprised of a 50/50 blend of wool and polyester, Prager said. Of the wool supplied to the U.S. military, he said that Center of the Nation Wool provides more than half.

In 2020, Prager said that very little U.S. wool was exported. Although somewhat more wool was exported in 2021, he said the business is still continuing its recovery.

For at least the last two decades, Prager said, U.S. wool that doesn’t meet the country’s market standards have been exported to China.

“Because that’s where the textile machines of the world are,” he said, adding that when marketers and producers cannot routinely sell their products to overseas buyers on a weekly or monthly basis due to shipping and pandemic-related issues, vast consequences are inflicted upon on the market.

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company’s expansion is appealing, Prager said.

“Our true mission here is marketing,” he said. “We’re not storage. We don’t make any money off storage; I don’t think anybody does.”

For the last 29 years that Prager has managed the wool warehouse, storage has been an issue.

The new steel structure, slated to encompassing approximately 10,500 square feet of space, is currently intended to be utilized for storage, Prager said.

“We’re not going to put any manufacturing (equipment or lines) at this point,” he said. “We need more space for a lot of reasons.”

The current space within the long metal 25,000 square-foot warehouse that hugs the railroad tracks, fashioned from a recycled grain storage building placed in its current location on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Railroad Street somewhere around 1966, is limited, Prager said.

“It’s worked for a long time,” he said. “But we’re still limited as far as If you look at this warehouse, it’s a long tube, but the aisle and the working space consumes more than a third of this building, by far. The usable floor space for storage … is only probably about half that number (of square footage).”

“And so, now instead of having wool stored at different locations the way it is now, we And we always have to have an aisle, but that building is going to

be structured differently. The aisle will be a lot lower (in relation to) the storage space available.”

At times, access to the wool stored at the former airport was limited due to weather and other factors, Prager said.

“It’s a nuisance to have to trailer that stuff out there,” he said. “Time consuming (and) not very efficient, really.”

For those reasons and the convenience of storing the product right across the street, Prager said that he’s really looking forward to the new system being in place.

“I wish we had the doors open on it today,” he said.

Prager said ground was broken on the new building on Jan. 10. As is typical in South Dakotan winters, the weather has not always cooperated with the undertaking.

“It’s probably been close to a month where it’s probably been too cold (and) it didn’t work,” he said, adding that the building’s floors are expected to be poured sometime mid-April.

Prager said he hopes to have the building constructed and ready to be utilized around May 15.

“Once you start thinking about the options it’ll give us that have never been available to us,” he said, adding that more storage will offer additional business opportunities that the company has historically not have available.

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CENTURY 21 SPEARFISH REALTY, INC.

The Black Hills Pioneer

CTE center to offer students more career exposure opportunities

By Mark Watson Black Hills Pioneer CENTURY 21 Spearfish Realty, Inc. is a full-service real estate company. We've been a part of Spearfish for over 68 years.

Our professionals bring the experience and expertise to guide you through the transaction process tailored to your needs and can provide you with deep local-market knowledge and insight about the ever-changing real estate market in the Black Hills. We are here to help!

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The Deadwood-Lead Economic Development Corporation's mission is to promote the growth and development of existing businesses, attract and pursue quality new businesses, and create quality jobs in Deadwood, Lead and Central City. DLEDC's efforts provide businesses with a larger toolbox to help meet their needs and cultivates a network of partners whose resources are shared and maximized throughout the communities. The work that DLEDC is doing fosters clear communication and an environment for action. To learn more about DLEDC visitwww.deadwoodleadedc.com.

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Belle Flowers Design and Decor is a family owned and operated florist in Belle Fourche, SD for over 40 years. We offer same day delivery, 6 days a week throughout the entire Northern Hills area of South Dakota. We are dedicated to providing the highest quality flower arrangements and gifts, paired with world class customer service. Our customers are very special to us, (many go back generations) and we want to give them the respect, trust and personal touch they deserve.

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SPEARFISH — Construction of the new Career and Technical Education Center for Spearfish High School has now begun.

That first shovel of dirt being turned was a long time coming.

Principal Steve Morford said discussions on whether to construct the center began about four years ago with serious discussions over the past two years.

Now, with construction underway, the $15.35 million center, is slated to open for the spring semester in 2023-2024. It was slated to open in the fall of 2023, but the large, precast concrete walls, slated to be delivered in August, now will not be delivered until October or November.

So there’s the bad news.

The good news is that the school will begin moving into the new 58,000-square-foot facility that fall.

The district will continue to offer its family and consumer science – often called home ec., business education, a computer information technology class, wood working/cabinet making, and welding.

Added will be a medical science program, computer lab where perhaps robotics and automation aspects can be added, building trades — a class where students construct a home, automotive technology, and an additional classroom that will be a flexible use space.

Kirk Easton, superintendent of the Spearfish School District, said that space can be used for additional classes and in particular instruction in tourism and hospitality, law and public safety, and other high-interest classes students select.

For years, the schools throughout South Dakota, and nation for that matter, have pushed students toward obtain-

ing a four-year degree. However, there has been a nation-wide shift.

“It’s really left a labor shortage in a lot of these skilled trades,” Easton said. “We still want to prepare kids for a four-year university, but we also want to give those

kids, who are not (seeking a fouryear degree), an appropriate education that will allow them to be successful to go into the world of work or a technical CTE CENTER Pg 22

Top right, classes such as welding and wood shop will continued to be offered in the new CTE facility, and in larger spaces, but new classes will be brought to the district to offer more Spearfish students more exposure to different fields. Pioneer photo by Jason Gross. Above, shown is an artist’s rendition of what the new career and technical education center will look like.

Image courtesy Williams and Associates

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 19

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AMERICAN COLLOID COMPANY DIV. OF MINERAL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Sturgis CTE classes a hot ticket

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CARPET BUYERS OUTLET

James A. Pellegrino has been owner of Carpet Buyers Outlet for over 40 years. Along with 2 employees, Jim offers a full range of flooring options such as carpet, luxury vinyl tile & plank, hardwood and ceramic tile. Carpet Buyers also offers free in-home estimates and our personal touch & experience to help the consumer make the right choice to fit their flooring needs.

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RANCH A Sturgis Brown High School sophomore Jace Owens works on a project in the machining lab at the high school. Looking on is student Makayla Horst. Pioneer photo by Deb Holland Ranch A provides a beautiful, serene setting to get away from it all and relax — whether that means hiking, fishing, or sitting back with a good book, Ranch A can serve your needs.

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By Deb Holland Black Hills Pioneer

STURGIS — Cyle Miller has a waiting list for his classes at Sturgis Brown High School.

The veteran educator teaches classes in machining and welding. Both skills are in high demand in the workforce today.

Miller believes the programs are so popular because it gives students the opportunity for hands-on learning.

“The students can be creative. They learn new skills. And, it may be a little more interesting to students than English class,” he said.

Currently, there are about 27,000 available jobs in machining and manufacturing in the region, Miller said. He gave the example of Trail King, a major manufacturer of trailers in Mitchell. Trail King’s HR manager told Miller recently that he could hire 50 people immediately. The manager shared that many manufacturers in the Mitchell area are in the same boat.

“I talked to another

manufacturer from Huron who manufactures jail cells. They were about 75 to 100 employees down.

There’s a demand,” he said.

Miller said many students who have taken Career and Technical Education classes at Sturgis Brown High School can immediately step into jobs at manufacturing facilities.

“I do my best to convince them to go to post-secondary. It’s really more from a maturity standpoint than it is from a skills standpoint,” he said.

Miller’s goals for his students include encouraging enrollment at a post-secondary institution including giving them a little time to make a few mistakes and not hurting their career as well as picking up some additional skills. Additionally, some may realize machining or welding is not the career for them.

“My real goal is to give them enough skills and enough experience and enough confidence so that when they get to post-sec-

Tom Shaw, a Sturgis Brown High School graduate, works on a water tower in Depue, Ill. Shaw took welding and machining classes at Sturgis Brown High School, attended and graduated from Mitchell Tech and now works for Maguire Iron.

Courtesy photo ondary, they are ahead that first semester or first year. It makes that transition into adulthood so much easier because they are not struggling with school and all the other things that come along with that,” he said.

Sturgis Brown High School graduate Tom Shaw said Miller’s classes were a springboard to his career with Maguire Iron building water towers.

“The welding program at SBHS has done so much HOT TICKET Pg 22

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 21

There’s no place like Spearfish.

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And we’re pround to be here celebrating 35 years of service.

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American Family Mutual Insurance Company, S.I. & its Operating Companies, American Family Insurance Company, 6000 American Parkway, Madison, WI 53783 0021030 – Rve. 11/16 ©2016 – 16078213

Page 22, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 18

CTE CENTER Owned by Greg Hartman, Scott Hartman, Dan Hartman, and Ben Arambel, Wolff’s Plumbing and Heating has been in business since 1946. Irvin Hartman worked for the previous owners before purchasing the business with sons Greg and Scott, and eventually Dan and Ben. The company is experienced in all aspects of plumbing, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

Their 37 employees carry many years of experience in commercial, residential, and service applications.

Wolff’s won the Construction Industry Center’s Master Craftsmanship Award for their work on the Davis Campus at the Sanford Lab, as well as the BHSU Central Plant Upgrades.

Wolff’s Plumbing and Heating prides itself on quality finished projects and excellent customer service throughout the building process. They appreciate every customer and enjoy helping any way they can. They are a family owned business that values their employees and their families.

THE REAL ESTATE CENTER OF SPEARFISH

The Real Estate Center of Spearfish has been helping people buy and sell real estate since 1992.

Seven Owner/Broker Associates, four Broker Associates, two Broker Assistants and two Office Coordinators are ready to assist you. With a combined experience of over 150 years in real estate, we know our business and can help you through the process!

Our dedicated support staff helps with every step of the transaction. This provides our realtors with more time to focus on sales, networking and excellent customer service to both current and potential clients. We invite you to join our satisfied clients. Let one of our brokers work with you on your next real estate transaction!

Visit spearfishrealestatecenter.com for the most up to date property listings and find them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The Olive Branch is a unique, eclectic mercantile, locally owned. It focuses on handmade items and features merchandise made in the USA including women’s and children’s apparel, home decor, jewelry, custom woodworking, greeting cards, and so much more.

The Olive Branch endeavors to be a blessing to their customers and their community where everyone feels welcome. Stop by to browse and shop in Belle Fourche at 501 State Street. You can reach them at 605-723-1111 or visit their Facebook Page at The Olive Branch.

WILD MAGNOLIA

At Wild Magnolia we are pleased to offer a wide variety of coffees, teas, fun, seasonal, specialty drinks as well as a large breakfast and lunch menu. As new owners in 2020, we have made many improvements to the building, added upscale décor and expanded our menu.

At 710 State Street in Belle Fourche SD, we are truly a staple in the downtown community being just walking distance for most of the shoppers and business owners alike. We are a fast paced environment and strive to meet all expectations of our customers who enjoy their gourmet coffee, blended drinks and teas on a regular basis. Our indoor seating is convenient as well offering scratch made desserts for that sweet tooth and free Wi-Fi. Dine in or drive thru, we aim to please!

school.”

Easton, a former CTE instructor, can discuss the possibilities at length, and his enthusiasm is infectious.

“I get excited about offering opportunities to kids that we don’t have right now. We don’t have the medical sciences classes right now. So for those kids wanting to go into a medical career, a nurse, dentist, dental hygienist, chiropractor, you name it, we don’t have anything that exposes kids to that in high school, so I am excited about that.”

He said he hopes to use local contractors to come in and talk to the students about the building trades such as carpenter, plumbing, HVAC, etc.

“It’s going to expose our kids to so many more opportunities than what they are being exposed to right now,” he said.

He pointed out the new auto shop classes.

“While we will teach our kids about where our automobiles come from and where they are now, the

from Pg 20

HOT TICKET for me. Without those classes in high school, I wouldn’t have known that I could make a great career out of welding,” he said. “It kickstarted my interest in welding where it grew to me going to college for welding and now into my full-time career traveling the US building new water towers.”

Shaw said he can’t thank Miller enough for everything he did as a teacher and a friend in getting him to where he is today.

“It’s a vital component of the high school and is a great opportunity for students,” Shaw said.

Miller has mutual admiration for Shaw.

“Tom was a great student who went on to Mitchell Tech and went through their two-year program. He’s gone out and is making a great living,” Miller said. “He’s a real success story. He’s exactly what we hope for all our students.”

The Sturgis Brown High School CTE machinist program relocated from the high school to the Sturgis Industrial Park in 2015. Through two Future Fund grants totaling $189,967, awarded by

thought of teaching kids about electric vehicles, how they’ve advanced and where they’re going, I think of that and think, ‘what kid wouldn’t want to learn about that,’” he said.

The new classes stem from surveys completed by students.

The current CTE line-up of classes likely will not be able to accept more students into the program; however, the expanded spaces will allow them to “not trip over each other” while working, Morford said.

“We like to have a broad array of offerings, because sometimes, kids take classes because they know they are going to like it. And sometimes kids take classes because they don’t know if they are going to like it,” he said. “They might say they really like it, or they may say, ‘man, I don’t want to do that anymore.’ That’s the flip side of things.”

Morford said teachers see that now in career classes where students complete mentorships in area businesses.

“Some kids are completely convinced they are going to go do ‘X’.

They do it and say, ‘that’s not what I expected. I’m not going to do that anymore,’” he said.

Morford added that the district

Gov. Dennis Daugaard to the Meade School District and the Sturgis Economic Development Corp (SEDC), and an additional $99,999 from USDA Rural Development, a 5,100 square-foot incubator building was constructed.

A portion of the facility housed the CTE machinist shop and classroom, and another offered space for industrial start-ups.

The Sturgis Economic Development Corp. has and continues to support the high school’s CTE programs because metal fabrication, welding and other metal-related manufacturing are key economic drivers for the Meade County economy. Sturgis has several gun manufacturing and metal fabricating businesses.

Because students had to provide their own ride out and back from the facility off the Whitewood Service Road, the school district has moved the program back to Sturgis.

“There was a whole demographic of students who really didn’t have the opportunity to take the classes because they were in the Industrial Park,” Miller said.

Now with the welding and machining classes all in one place, it encourages students to step up and take the next level classes,

wants to create an awareness of different fields for students rather than to push them in a certain direction.

“Not every kid has to go to a fouryear school. Tech schools have great programs and offer great careers.

We want kids and families to understand that,” he said. “We are not trying to take away four-year college.

We’re not trying to push kids into tech school. We are trying to prepare kids as best we can do so they can go out and do anything they want to do when they graduate.”

Easton agreed and said he hopes the district can form agreements with Western Dakota Technical College to offer dual enrollment courses.

For Western Dakota Tech, that might be courses allowing students to work toward their licensed practical nursing degree, and for Black Hills State University it might be classes working for their tourism and hospitality degree.

“It’s about exposing our kids to those programs and their instructors,” Easton said. “We, as a school district, are excited to bring more rigorous, hand-on learning opportunities to kids to explore more options for their career.”

he said.

Students in the Machining I class make a miniature motor using bar stock. By doing so, they learn all aspects of a machine shop from drilling precision holes, making all the screws, pins, springs, nuts as well as the cylinder and the piston.

Students in Miller’s Welding I class make a BBQ grill as their project.

“Instead of taking a final exam, we BBQ,” he said.

More than skill development, Miller’s classes are more about building confidence, he said.

“The way I teach, I try to give the students a starting place, give them enough latitude and enough encouragement to do some experimentation to learn it for themselves,” he said. “That’s real successful for some students, but can be a little frustrating for others because they are not used to that.”

Miller said the reason he teaches that way is because he hopes that if he instills confidence in the students, they can figure things out by themselves.

“Two years from now when they step up to a welder or a lathe, they may not remember all the exact numbers, but what they do remember is they can figure it out. That’s

what I am really after at this level,” he said.

Sturgis Brown High School sophomore Jace Owens said he enjoys the hands-on work in the machining class.

“Not having to sit in a classroom and write with a pencil all day is great.

I get to come down to the shop and work on stuff I actually like doing,” he said.

Owens said he hopes to someday go to power line school or something that involves machining.

“I’ve got two more years to figure that out,” he said.

Today’s education system is set up to prepare someone to attend post-secondary education for a four-year college degree, Miller said.

“Our programs are designed for 100% of the students to go, but only about 11% end up making a living at what they went to college for,” he said.

Miller believes there is a shift coming in the workforce with blue collar jobs being in high demand.

“We are going to see an increase in the opportunities for people who want to work with their hands in the United States. We are figuring out as a nation that we can’t be dependent on other places for our labor,” he said.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 23

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Page 24, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

OUR TOWNS

Section

3

For the last century, the Days of ‘76 rodeo has thrilled the crowd. It celebrates its 100th year in July. Pioneer photo by Jason Gross

SECTION 3

OF

4

Days of ’76 to turn 100

2022 • BLACK HILLS PIONEER

By Jason Gross Black Hills Pioneer

DEADWOOD — The historic Days of ’76 Rodeo will observe its centennial anniversary Monday, July 25 through Saturday, July 30, in Deadwood.

Five PRCA rodeo performances highlight the schedule. Those are set for Wednesday, July 27; Thursday, July 28; Friday, July 29; and two on Saturday, July 30.

The historic parade is slated for Friday, July 29 and Saturday, July 30.

See the schedule highlights at the end of this story for times.

Parade lineup begins at the Days of ’76 grounds in Deadwood and proceeds down Main Street to Deadwood Street, past the V.F.W., and back to the Days of ’76 grounds.

Celebrations began in 1924 to honor the Deadwood mining camp’s history from its establishment in 1876.

Festivities attract local residents as well as tourists.

Parade entries have featured historic re-enactors, historic horse- and oxdrawn vehicles, and floats celebrating Deadwood’s early history.

Excellence serves as a Days of ’76 hallmark, as the rodeo has collected

19 national awards. They include four PRCA Small Outdoor Rodeo of the Year honors from 1998 to 2001, which came before 14 consecutive Medium Outdoor Rodeo of the Year awards from 2004 to 2017.

Days of ‘76 moved into the Large Outdoor Rodeo category in 2018 and received nominations for the top honor in 2018 and 2019. It received top honors in this category in 2020: its 19th and most recent award.

This rodeo is the first in the PRCA to win rodeo awards in all three outdoor categories: small, medium, and large.

Its committee entered the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2011.

Greg Nelson serves as the Days of ‘76 general chairman. He has sat on the board for 27 years, but his involvement in this event has spanned most of the 50-year-old’s life.

Nelson’s earliest memories center on the parades and grand entries, with many people lining the streets.

“It’s still one of those celebrations that are kind of like Family Week,” Nelson said. He added many committee members boast a multitude of family members who have served in that

capacity.

Rodeo growth constitutes one of the biggest changes Nelson has seen over the years.

Days of ‘76 was a three-day rodeo right before the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. It was moved up to the time around Cheyenne Frontier Days and later extended to five days.

“We’ve added single steer roping, which added another day,” Nelson said in outlining another change. This will be the second straight year that barrel racing slack has the arena to itself.

Nelson’s role as general chairman includes relying on those overseeing the grounds, parade, advertising, and rodeo, among others.

“We have a great group of people,” Nelson said. “It makes the general chairman job a little easier because those people all do a fabulous job and take care of their business.”

Days of ’76 celebration records prepared by Jessica Michak and Jenna Himsl indicate the first Days of ’76 took place Aug. 15-16, 1924. Festivities included a parade, historic re-enactments, horse riding, and facing exhiDAYS OF ‘76 Pg 4

Page 2, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Sturgis Public Library celebrating 100 years

The first Sturgis Public Library in 1954 and the library today.

Courtesy photos

By Deb Holland Black Hills Pioneer

STURGIS — Since 1922, the Sturgis Public Library has fostered a lifelong desire for reading.

And it is still relevant today because it has adapted to meet the changing needs of the community, supporters say.

“In addition to our wonderful collections, the library provides programming and is a gathering place for everyone from children to seniors,” said Sturgis Library Board President Terry Hermann.

Sturgis Mayor Mark Carstensen said he loved the library as a youngster and now takes his sons to enjoy the library’s offerings.

“Our boys love to go the library and check out books. They were really excited when they got their own library card. It’s such a resource for the community and for the next generation,” Carstensen said.

It was through the efforts of various supporters that the library originated and has thrived for 100 years.

The story began in 1922 when a woman from Chicago, Mrs. Annie McClymonds, gave Sturgis $1,000 worth of current books. Mrs. McClymonds’ only stipulation was that the books be housed in a fireproof building, and that they always remain free to the public. Those original books are now in the library’s reserve collection.

At that time, the city had no funds for either a building or for maintenance of the library. The only solution to the housing problem was to store the books in the schoolhouse, the only fireproof building available.

The main tenancy question was solved by paying a librarian five dollars a month and turning the operation of the library over to the Sturgis Literary Club.

The first librarian was Nellie Bradley - a member of the Literary Club and a teacher.

The Literary Club took on the project with open arms. Out of its membership a board was appointed with

the duty of raising $100 annually for library maintenance.

The club periodically checked out the possibility of voting a tax levy for library support. Each time, however, it felt the town was not ready for the responsibility and would vote down the measure. After maintaining the library for 15 years, relief came in 1939 when legislation was passed legalizing and validating all public libraries in the state. The law required that a Library Board be appointed, and librarian hired by the city.

In 1953, with the library wanting for space, the Literary Club began a publicity campaign and later asked the city council to consider a bond issue for a new building.

In the end, to the disappointment of many, the bond issue was defeated by 66 votes. The Literary Club and Library Board were disappointed but not defeated. In June 1954, Mrs. Allen Lushbough, a Literary Club member and president of the Library Board, approached the owner of a tin shop requesting an option on the building for a library.

That fall the new library was occupied. It was a community event with trustees, Literary Club, P.E.O., Rotary and Isaac Walton club members packing and hauling books.

A city council member repainted the old shelves and various people donated furniture and volunteered their time for remodeling the building.

Plans for a new building had been discussed for some time but when the property adjacent to the library on the north was offered for sale in 1969, the board of trustees opted for expansion and remodeling.

Then, in 1974, a bond issue was placed on the ballot seeking $150,000 for library expansion.

Then librarian Carol Davis said: “We feel this is needed in the community. A library is a unique institution especially in smaller communities where they serve cultural, LIBRARY Pg 6

Sturgis Public Library employee Kathy Dykstra talks with a patron about her remembrances of the library. Pioneer photo by Deb Holland

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 3

25 years of glamour for a good cause

Hospice Ball raises more than $700K for patient care

BLACK HILLS PSYCHOLOGY Black Hills Psychology would like to welcome our new psychiatric provider Katherine Corey, PMHNP-BC. She will be available to perform psychiatric evaluations and follow up visits for diagnosis, medication management and other available treatments options for patients of all ages.

Katherine has over 18 years of experience in the medical field working in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. She has a wide range of specialties including trauma, research, and medication management.

Black Hills Psychology has been serving Spearfish and the surrounding area for 8 years and can offer in-office and telehealth appointments. For more information or questions reach out to us at 605-645-0100 or visit us at blackhillspsychology.com

DEADWOOD MOUNTAIN GRAND

Deadwood Mountain Grand is the most unique property in the Black Hills. We offer a 98 room luxury resort with free covered parking, indoor pool, hot tub, two restaurants, gift shop, modern casino with the largest sports-book in Deadwood, a 3,000 person event and convention center and unparalleled customer service with over 200 employees. The property has been nominated for an American Country Music Award, Rocky Mountain Country Music Award, won the InterContinental Hotel Group Award, and is consistently ranked as a top five Holiday Inn Resort in the world. The Deadwood Mountain Grand takes great pride in giving back to their community and working with nonprofit groups in the region. Visit www.deadwoodmountaingrand. com or call 605-559-0386.

VERSATILE CARPETS & INTERIORS

By Wendy Pitlick Black Hills Pioneer

SPEARFISH — Over the last 25 years the Hospice Ball in Spearfish has helped raise more than $700,000 for Hospice of the Northern Hills.

That money has helped thousands of patients maintain their dignity in their final days, by providing comfort and care that enhances their quality of life. Today, esti-

Courtesy photos mates are that Hospice of the Northern Hills serves about 200 patients a year, and for the last three years 100% of the proceeds raised with the annual Hospice Ball have gone to patient care.

“There’s not many charities like that,” said Mavis Jewitt, former director of Hospice of the Northern Hills, and founder of the Hospice Ball.

Jewitt originally started

the annual ball as a way to raise money for the program. The inaugural event was held on Valentine’s Day in 1998, and the theme was Heart and Soul. From that first event, which has always been billed as a black-tie formal with dinner, dancing and auctions, the community was hooked. While businesses freely gave donations for the auction and other event aspects, men and

women in the community looked forward to getting dressed up for a classy evening and a good cause.

The event is almost as old as the Hospice of the Northern Hills program, which was certified in December 1997.

“When I was interviewed to start Hospice of the Northern Hills I requested that we could also raise money,” Jewitt said.

HOSPICE BALL Pg 14

Tim and Lois Verhulst moved to Spearfish in the spring of 1991 with four young kids and everything they owned in a truck. They were broke, in debt, and Tim had $1,200 cash in his pocket. They moved into the apartment above Versatile Carpets and never moved out. Within the first month, Lois suffered a deep vein thrombosis blood clot in her leg. She spent 10 days in the hospital. They had no insurance and accumulated another $25,000 in debt. Tim can still remember writing checks to the hospital each month for $15.00.

Things turned around and by the spring of 1992, they were able to purchase the business from Mr. Vern Lecy.

Vern Lecy was the most kind and understanding person they had ever met. As he took Tim & Lois around and introduced them to other citizens, they were greeted repeatedly with the phrase, “Welcome to Spearfish! You are going to love it here!” To this day, that phrase is printed on the back of Tim’s business card and on a sign on the north side of their building.

Today they offer all types of flooring, along with Hunter Douglas and other brands of window fashions.

They are exclusive distributors of “Step Warm Floor” in floor radiant heat. Warm floor is a unique, low voltage floor heat system that can be installed safely under any flooring, including WOOD! It self regulates, so it can be installed anywhere, even under fixed furniture, without the danger of overheating and damaging the finished floor.

Tim and Lois have enjoyed their 30 years here and look forward to many more!

Page 4, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

from Pg 1

DAYS OF ‘76 bitions.

The rodeo was firmly established in 1929. Early celebrations featured horse riding and horse racing exhibitions, with the gradual addition of rodeo-style events.

For many years, the Days of ’76 featured many specialty acts and adjudicated competitions. The rodeo had become the celebration’s premier event by the 1950s.

Schedule highlights follow.

July 25: Barrel racing slack, 11 a.m.

July 26: Steer roping, 9 a.m.

July 27: Timed event slack, 8 a.m.; PRCA rodeo performance (Military Appreciation Night), 7 p.m.

July 28: Timed event slack, 8 a.m., PRCA rodeo performance, 7 p.m.

July 29: Parade, 1:30 p.m.; PRCA rodeo performance (Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night), 7 p.m.

July 30: Parade, 10 a.m.; PRCA rodeo performance, 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Pioneer file photos

Antiques, Refreshed & Vintage Furniture

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See us on Facebook!

Private Appointments Available Closed Sunday and Monday

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 5

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Stop in and enjoy our everyday low prices, volume discounts, and great in-store specials! We have a large variety of wines and a vast selection of craft beers to choose from, including local favorites like Crow Peak and Prairie Berry.

If we do not have your favorite wine, beer or spirit in stock, let us know and we will be happy to place a special order.

We also offer nonalcoholic treats such as old fashioned 1919 Keg Root Beer and snacks.

Wine Lovers Wednesday

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Page 6, Our Towns 2022 Smokes N’ Things has had its doors open in Spearfish since 2018. We now have our Sturgis doors open as well since January 2021. We offer an extensive selection of tobacco products, apparel, accessories, Cigars, Vapes, novelty items, and more. We provide a clean and friendly atmosphere, and extensive knowledge on all our products.

We believe in giving back to the community.

We donate a percent of sales to charity. We try to be ecofriendly and support brands that give back to the planet and support humanity.

Smokes N’ Things is a family-owned business, and we still believe in fair prices, providing friendly services, and quality products.

Please stop in to visit at either location.

Spearfish 348 E Colorado Blvd., 605-717-5818 Or Sturgis 2715 Lazelle Street, Suite A, 605720-8658. Or you can follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/smokesnthingsllc/

For more than 130 years, BankWest has earned long-term customer relationships by helping our customers and communities succeed. We pride ourselves in adapting to meet our customers’ changing banking needs — while retaining our hometown values and roots. Our experienced associates at our Spearfish Loan Production Office are your financial partners; committed to your success. “To me, banking is more than a series of financial transactions. It’s a personal relationship involving mutual trust and a common goal of financial success. At BankWest, you will always have a financial partner. That’s what community banking is all about.” - Casey Derflinger, Northern Hills Manager. Member FDIC | All loans subject to credit approval

Mother and Daughter, Rose and Tiara, both born and raised in Spearfish have been operating The Wild Rose for more than 20 years. At The Wild Rose they not only offer great service, but also love to get to know their customers on more of a personal level and create relationships.

The Wild Rose sells gifts, home accessories, and baby & children goods. Stop in and check out this charming store at 616 Main Street in downtown Spearfish. Or find them on Facebook!

TRI-STATE CHIROPRACTIC

Serving the tri-state area for over 40 combined years and caring for the people of Belle Fourche and the surrounding communities, Tri-State Chiropractic has chiropractic care for all ages. We are a family owned business whose doctors have treated and worked with patients and athletes at all levels, including professional and Olympic. We offer sports injury rehab, DOT physicals, sports physicals, pre-employment physicals, as well as Workman’s Comp and auto injury. We also offer our patients Foot Levelers Custom Orthotics, post-concussion care, prenatal and infant care and a nutritional product and supplements line.

To accommodate our patients’ needs we recently added a digital x-ray machine. Come and see us and look for us on Facebook or @tristatechiropracticbellefourche.

The Black Hills Pioneer

The interior of one of the first locations of the Sturgis Public Library and the library today. Courtesy photos from Pg 2

LIBRARY educational and recreational needs,” she said.

A majority of voters approved the bond issue for library expansion, but short of the needed 60% approval needed for a bond issue.

It was again put on the ballot in 1977 calling for a bond issue of $75,000 at an annual interest rate not to exceed 8%. It passed.

In 1978, the library space doubled when it purchased Gapp’s Meat Service next door with money from a federal Public Works Funds grant.

Then, in 2004, Sturgis broke ground for a new city hall, public library complex. The library would encompass two-stories in 1,700 square feet.

And in 2019, the library got a much-needed renovation which added a groovy new children’s area, 1,000 square-foot community room and 350 square-foot kitchen and storage area. The new children’s area and community room were made possible by a generous gift from long-time Sturgis residents, Albert and Laverne Elliott.

Kathy Dykstra, who has worked at the library for 21 years, said she is grateful to former librarian Carol Davis and her desire to move the library forward.

“I never knew how much effort Carol put in to making this library what it is today,” Dykstra said.

In this digital age, the library has focused on securing computers and providing wi-fi hot spots for library patrons in addition to their collection of books.

“Computer usage is huge,” she said. “We continue to be relevant because we are here for the community. We are a gathering place. And there are still people who would rather hold a book than read it online.”

What do you love about the Sturgis Public Library?

Dawn Geppert: “When I was teaching, I loved to bring in my classes for story time.

They are always excellent at that program.

Today, I like the variety of projects, activities, fundraisers, social events that the staff does besides just checking out books.”

Elvira Bender: “I enjoy my time here. I’ve heard so many people say what a great library we’ve got here. We’re very fortunate to have such a wonderful facility with great staff.”

Francie Ruebel-Alberts: “I love the fact that I will go in and ask if they have a book, and if they don’t, they are more than willing to seek it out for me. They are always looking for other ways to help people take advantage of information.”

Terry Hermann: “The Sturgis Public Library created a life-long desire in me to read. I remember going in as a young person sitting and feeling like it was in the biggest bookstore in the world.”

Mark Carstensen: “As a kid in elementary school we would walk from the school to the library once a month. Then, we would get to check out books. The time spent there was always really exciting.”

NEWSPAPERS Real news is our business.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 7

OUR NUMBER ONE GOAL IS CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Family owned and operated for 37 years.

• Collision Repair • Paint-less Dent Repair • Full Auto Body Work • Vehicle Frame Repair • Auto Glass Replacement • Towing Service Hours: Monday-Friday: 8am-5pm Saturday:

By Appointment Sunday: Closed

Werlinger Auto Body Repair 3441 Whitewood Rd. - Sturgis, SD 57785 605.347.5550 - werlingerautobodyrepair.com

TAKE DELIGHT IN YOUR HOME!

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APRIL 1 - JUNE 30, 2022 Remember, cordless lift comes standard (every day!) with Graber Cellular Shades. * Fabric shades include looped Roman, classic flat Roman, and seamless Roman styles only.

Offer not available for Graber UltraLite Cordless or Dual Lift Systems. Excludes Graber Foundations products and commercial orders. Costco sales are excluded.

731 Main Street • Downtown Spearfish • 605.642.7300 facebook.com/warmfloordesigns • warmfloordesigns@gmail.com

Page 8, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 9

Page 10, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Physical Therapy can help you move better!

Dr. Brandie Rainboth, DPT, OCS 305 N. Main Street, Suite 2, Spearfish

605.559.0381 www.spearfishpt.com

Belle Fourche 1413 5th Ave 605-892-2658 Central City 101 US Hwy 14A 605-578-3552

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 11

Lead Country Club celebrates 100th year

DEADWOOD RECREATION & AQUATICS CENTER

Deadwood Recreation & Aquatics Center has everything you need for fitness and fun! Our facility features a zero entry pool, lap pool, indoor walking/running track, racquetball/squash court, cardiovascular equipment, weights, basketball court, sauna, and a new hot tub.

We offer affordable memberships starting at a one-month minimum, with special pricing for families, single adults, children, seniors, and high school students.

Deadwood Recreation Center is located at 105 Sherman Street. For more information, visit our page on the City of Deadwood site at www. cityofdeadwood.com or call 605-578-3729.

BUTTE ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE

Butte Electric Cooperative is celebrating 80 years in business as a member-owned electricity utility, providing innovative products and services to over 5,000 members in Butte, Lawrence, and Meade counties.

The electric company demonstrates its commitment to its members and communities through its mission to continually improve customer services; to provide safe, reliable, and competitively priced electricity; and to continue to lead in developing communities for the benefit of its members.

Headquarters is located in Newell at 109 S. Dartmouth, with a Member Services Center in Spearfish at 1940 North Ave., Ste. 1. For more info., call 456-2494 or visit butteelectric.com.

Founded in 1980, Spearfish Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) is a private non-profit dedicated to improving lives by creating economic opportunities for the Spearfish commuity and its residents.

SEDC's primary areas of focus are business retention and attraction, workforce recruitment, and entrepreneurial support.

For more information on joining SEDC and supporting economic growth in the Spearfish community, contact SEDC at (605) 642-3832 or visit www.SpearfishDevelopment.com.

By Paul Higbee Special to the Pioneer

LEAD — Lead Country Club turns 100 years old this year.

It’s a product of a different era when creating a golf course took a few thousand dollars, not millions, and sheep were valued for trimming grass. But that doesn’t make the course a relic.

Today men and women of the Black Hills, as well as golfers from out of the region, consider it a nine-hole natural gem.

This course is one of only a few nationally that draws another kind of visitor. In fall, the haunting sound of elk bugling sometimes echoes through the adjacent for100TH YEAR Pg 12

THE REAL ESTATE CENTER OF SPEARFISH LORI DEVRIES

Cutline

Lori is an owner at the Real Estate Center of Spearfish and sells both residential and commercial properties. She has over 16 years of real estate experience in the Black Hills, and over 35 years of insurance experience. She has found that selling real estate and insurance have been a good fit for her, as well as her customers.

She came to college in Spearfish in 1982 and fell in love with the area. After graduation, she moved to the Denver area for five years. Lori was able to relocate back to Spearfish in 1992 and has never left. She enjoys hiking all over the Black Hills, skiing, kayaking, and many other outdoor experiences as well as sporting and cultural events in the area. She looks forward to serving your real estate needs, whether you are ready to buy and sell right now or sometime in the future.

It is never too early to start planning.

Lori can be reached at 605-641-7529 (cell), 605642-2525 (office), www.LoriCaldwellRealEstate. com, or stop by the office located at 140 W. Jackson Blvd.

Page 12, Our Towns 2022 from Pg 11

100TH YEAR est of pine, spruce and aspen. It’s not unusual to see elk crossing the fairways in September. PGA pro Dave Noble will never forget the first time he heard a bull elk bugle at Lead Country Club on a chilly, autumn day several years ago.

While the mammoth animals may startle some golfers, Noble stresses that elk bugle because they’re seeking mates. Disrupting a round of golf is the last thing on their minds.

When course architect John Bland laid out Lead Country Club a century ago, he knew it would likely rank forever as the Black Hills’ highest elevation golf venue,

The Black Hills Pioneer well over a vertical mile at 6,200 feet above sea level. Tourism promoters of the time were calling Hills peaks the highest elevation points “between the Rockies and the Alps,” so it stood to reason that a variation on that claim could be applied to Lead Country Club.

Homestake Mining Company’s supervising staff first proposed a golf course for Lead, and they designated a party to scout out the best location, eventually pinpointed seven miles south of town. Nationally in the 1920s, golf gained popularity as advocates touted healthy living that stemmed from the sport.

Golfers breathed fresh air, enjoyed sunshine (most days), and gained exercise by carrying clubs in canvas bags, stooping to pick up peb-

bles that regularly worked their way up and onto new fairways, and, of course, by swinging the clubs.

The Homestake supervisors brought architect Bland onboard just after he built the Black Hills’ first course at Hot Springs in 1921.

“Bland was really a promoter,” said longtime Lead Country Club manager Al Varland. “He went on to do golf courses at Spearfish, Belle Fourche, Custer, and even Custer State Park near the Game Lodge.”

Bland also lit a fire of enthusiasm for the game in Lead. Main Street stores displayed the finest in golf attire and equipment in their windows. Even residents who never once played a round could describe how Lead Country Club stood apart from eastern South

Dakota’s “midwest parkland” courses, which were comparatively flat with rich soils that nurtured landscape vegetation. By contrast, Lead was a mountain venue and its chief landscape features — trees, rock, and natural contours — were in place long before people played golf. Those features had to yield a bit to accommodate golfers, but not as much as might be guessed. Trees were cut to widen some fairways but the course also ran through natural meadows. Bland commissioned highly regarded local building contractors to add human-made touches: tee boxes (including an elevated box for hole one) by the Juso brothers, and the comfortable log clubhouse in 1923 by Rasmusson 100TH YEAR Pg 13

WHITEWOOD The Hub of the Hills!

Northern Hills Sod Farm Reputable, Quality Sod

Serving the Entire Black Hills & Eastern Wyoming

Twyla & Dirk Bestgen

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Lots of Parking All Rooms Ground Floor with Outside Entrances Specializing in Fresh Baked Pizza 605-717-2418

www.northernhillssodfarm.com 20138 126th Place, Whitewood, SD 57793 6 miles north of Sturgis 6 miles east of Whitewood

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SONSET STATION CASINO, LAUNDROMAT & CONVENIENCE A division of northwestern engineering

Specializing in

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Providing

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Engine Computer Diagnostics Drive Train Repair General Repair Robert D. Haiwick, Owner

605-269-2418

1125 Meade Street • Whitewood, SD

1322 Laurel St. Whitewood, SD 605-717-1003

wood products for the local and surrounding areas.

Teresa Littleton, Manager

The Whitewood location is home to a state-of-the-art computer managed wood preservation plant.

Fax: 605-717-1004

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 13

from Pg 12

100TH YEAR Bros Construction.

In those years most South Dakota golf courses featured sand greens, but early on Lead committed itself to receptive grass greens maintained well for putting.

The 1920s were years when interest in all types of spectator sports boomed nationally. So it’s no surprise that the first round of golf played at Lead Country Club, in July 1922, was an exhibition that drew 200 fans who watched Chicago pro Charles Knight pitted against Omaha pro Claude Uhren. Then it was time for the public to claim the course. Despite fancy golf togs

available in Lead stores the country club, “was built for the working man,” said Varland. “They could show up in their work boots and be welcome.”

The 1930s were tough for South Dakota golfers across the state.

Severe drought turned fairways rock hard, grasshopper hordes ate away vegetation, and dust storms mostly buried some courses. Lead fared better. The surrounding northern Black Hills warded off the worst of the dust storms and grasshopper infestations. The postWorld War II years saw another national jump in golf’s popularity and the Lead Country Club clubhouse saw an expansion in 1957. That same decade, while in junior high in Lead, Bob Phillips first played

the course, at the time not thinking much about its natural qualities but, “just happy to have a place for golf.” Often he played with friends Wayne Paananen, Bill Stork, and Jerry Witcraft. The foursome, over the next 55 or 60 years, golfed at the country club countless times.

A generation later, Lacey Woodle Brown grew up in Lead and felt as if she was “dropped into nature” when on the Lead course. She never encountered elk there but saw deer. Relatively narrow fairways, she thinks, inspire golfers, “to focus, to think about exactly where you want the ball to go.” She especially likes the first hole, “where you hit off that platform. If the ball goes to the right there, you’ll probably never find it again.”

Balls lost forever in the rough are part of the challenges of a mountain golf course. And while summer and early fall are beautiful times for the sport, when the season ends it’s over. Other Black Hills courses often welcome golfers for mid-winter “banana belt” rounds, thanks to moderate weather systems that move through the region. But Varland says the belt doesn’t reach 6,200 feet.

“No banana belt at LCC,” he said.

“We are always the last course in the Hills to open and the first to close. We usually have snow in the shady spots until almost June.”

Then glorious summer takes hold and hangs on until early fall, when elk signal that it’s time to start winding down.

WHITEWOOD The Hub of the Hills!

Family owned & operated since 1968

HOURS MON. – FRI. 8 am - 5 pm SAT. 8 am - 4 pm

605-269-2434 800-564-0224 1020 Laurel St. Whitewood, SD 57793

Family owned business for 54 years and our racks are full of western and casual clothing and boots for men, women & children

Jeans:

• Levi • Wrangler • Carhartt • Cinch • Ariat

Boots:

• Justin • Ariat • Red Wing • Irish Setter • LaCrosse • Muck • Georgia

A & J Supply carries a large selection of hardware, welding and building supplies.

We also have iron, steel and treated posts.

Dr. Will John Johnson Dr. Kylee Johnson

(605) 717-2428

1001 Meade St. • Whitewood, SD

Every bar has a story, but ours is pretty unique...

Bullwacker’s Saloon and Steakhouse has been a continuously operating saloon in this building since 1888. Originally built as a bar, it had two fronts: one faced the railroad and the other faced Meade Street, which was Whitewood’s main street.

Operated for many years as the Whitewood Bar, it has been, and still is, a favorite watering hole for locals and travelers alike. Please take time to look around at the many old-time Whitewood photos, view the original tin ceiling (complete with original bullet holes) and the back bar that has been here since the early days of Whitewood.

We offer a wide variety of menu options to please even the pickiest of eaters!

Haircuts for the whole family Color Services - Nail Services Eyelash Extentions, Lift & Tint Full Body Waxing 1005 Meade St., Whitewood, SD 605-206-1821

Page 14, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 3

HOSPICE BALL

Spearfish Physical Therapy is the newest independent outpatient physical therapy clinic in the northern Black Hills. Founded in 2017,

by Dr. Brandie Rainboth - DPT, OCS, Spearfish Physical Therapy is a welcoming space for patients of all diagnoses to recover and heal.

Dr. Rainboth is an expert in orthopedic physical therapy, with a strong emphasis in manual, hands-on techniques. They specialize in the treatment of muscle and joint pain, and recovery from injury or surgery.

Dr. Brandie Rainboth has her Doctorate of Physical Therapy and is Board Certified in Orthopedic Physical Therapy. Visit spearfishpt.com or call 605-559-0381.

Our mission at Belle Fourche Rec Center is to encourage healthy living by promoting recreational, educational, cultural, and social activities for the citizens of the Northern Hills.

We strive to provide fun opportunities for all by offering a variety of activities including community events, group fitness classes, youth and adult sports programs, and swimming lessons.

Our facilities include a pool, walking track, gymnasium, weight and cardio rooms, racquetball courts, meeting rooms, and an auditorium.

The Belle Fourche Rec Center is here to serve you! Stop by in person at 1111 National Street, give us a call at 605-892-2467, or check us out online at bellefourcherec.com.

“So, at the same time I was training my staff, we were also getting ready for the first ball. I’ve never had anybody who I’ve went to actually turn us down for supporting hospice or supporting the ball. They’ve been very, very generous and very invested in hospice.”

Though the original event was held at the Spearfish Canyon Lodge, the very next year the brand new convention center was built at the Holiday Inn in Spearfish. For the last 24 years that is where Jewitt and her team have put on the glitz and glamour for the event. Until just about three years ago, the event was organized exclusively by Hospice of the Northern Hills. But when the Monument Health Foundation took the reins, Jewitt said the Hospice Ball fundraising became even more meaningful, since 100% of the money raised is used for patients.

“That’s a huge change from when hospice was doing it themselves, because we were paying for everything,” Jewitt said. “With the foundation doing it, these are some of the most honest and caring people I’ve ever worked with. They are making sure that everything is going to the patients.”

That’s something that really hits

home for Jewitt, as over and over again she has experienced first-hand how valuable hospice care can be.

“I was once called in the middle of the night,” she said, as she remembered a particular hospice call that she answered. “They were out in the country, so finding them was the first challenge. Then, coming in and the patient was in a lot of pain, very uncomfortable. The family was terrified. They didn’t understand what was going on and they felt terribly helpless. Within a couple of hours, we had the symptoms under control, we had the right equipment in the house and the patient transferred over, and we were bringing all of the family together. When I first walked into their house it was all dark in there. They had one or two small lights on. After two or three hours with this family, they were sharing stories, the patient was able to rest, the rest of the family was getting their education on how to take care of people, how to call us and we got all the meds there. It’s such a great team effort. Within a few hours the lights were on, they were cooking food and sharing stories and able to laugh and to live again.”

Hans Nelson, said before he assumed his position as director of the Monument Health Foundation he had never had experience with hospice. But visiting the Hospice House in Rapid City helped him realize

how important the program is.

“Hospice maintains patients’ dignity by focusing on their comfort and quality of life,” he said. “The word dignity really shines with me. It’s a really unique perspective that you don’t think about with that time. I’ve lost a lot of grandparents, family and friends, but for them to be part of an experience like that, where they’re in an environment and surrounded by people who help them pass on with comfort and quality is pretty incredible. I wish we could raise $1 million to $2 million per year, and we’re definitely going to work towards that just because of the importance of this.

“Especially with the growing age of residents who live in the Northern Hills, there is more of a need,” he continued.

Money raised with the Hospice Ball and throughout the year is used to pay for medical equipment, patient care items, and other supplies to provide comfort for patients who are at the end of their life.

Currently, Bailey Ellis, research and events coordinator with the Monument Health Foundation said Hospice of the Northern Hills serves about 200 patients a year.

“If they’re taking care of 200 patients a year, they are taking care of the vast majority of people who are dying, which is pretty cool,” Jewitt said.

PARTY TIME LIQUOR/ QUEEN CITY LIQUOR

Party Time Liquor, located at 731 N. 12th St., and Queen City Liquor, at 210 E. Rushmore, provide Spearfish with a variety of spirits, wines, and beers as well as gifts, tobacco products, and video lottery.

The inventory is constantly rotating with a large selection of new craft beers. They also continue to increase wine varietals, and have welcomed the growth of allocated bourbons. Both locations are happy to special order items for customers and are always taking gift basket orders.

Call Party Time at 642-4700 or Queen City Liquor at 642-3662, or visit their Facebook page for new products and specials.

Lindsey Gillette is the owner of The Junk Drawer, and creator of anything wild, crazy or downright offensive. A long-time local of the Black Hills, Lindsey opened the doors of The Junk Drawer in 2014, as a way to support her family and let her creativity flow.

She quickly learned that she loved hearing people giggle and laugh at some of her quirky things. Soooo…. Fast forward to today. There is no other store quite like The Junk Drawer, where we LIVE for funny. Funny gifts, funny tees, funny cards, and quite frankly, anything that might put a smile on someone’s face. Let’s face it, if you’re not laughing everyday, there’s something wrong!

We’re all about the good vibe, and experience you have as soon as you walk in the door!

Come down to The Junk Drawer at 611 Main St., Spearfish, and find what makes you giggle!

Courtesy photos

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 15

Serving Residential/Commercial Flooring needs for nearly 40 years Floors You Love Service You Expect

Your comfort is our priority Enhance the comfort of your home or business and reduce energy costs with our efficient HVAC and plumbing systems.

Our licensed technicnas provide expert installation & service at a great price.

After Hours Service (Weekends & Evenings) Online Bill Pay & Service Scheduling available at www.wolffph.com

PLUMBING • HEATING • AIR CONDITIONING • SERVICE

614 S. 32nd St. | Spearfish, SD | 605-642-5755 | www.wolffph.com

At Carpet Buyers Outlet, Jim combines real world experience with 50 years of knowledge. Experience trumps knowledge everytime. With Jim, you can rest assured; knowing he will provide you the right choices.

Carpet Hardwood Area Rugs Tile & Stone Laminate Vinyl 4425 E. Colorado Blvd. Spearfish, SD 57783 605-644-1665

Page 16, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

• Breads, Spices & Seasoning Blends • Men & Women’s Apparel • Fun, Unique, Crazy Gifts

• Custom Made T’s, Mugs & More

• Local Consignment Artwork

SPEARFISH REALTY DEBBIE SIEMONSMA 605.641.1955

LARRY VAVRUSKA 605.641.3452

RICK TYSDAL 605.641.1030

AMY CARLSON 605.380.8058

HEATHER PLEINIS 605.920.8724

MARK KAZMER 605.645.9196

KATIE FUNKE 605.201.5930

JODIE SIMONS 605.641.1723

MIKE KAITFORS 605.641.6489

ALECIA HOFFMAN 605.580.6230

ALAN CRAGO 605.641.0359

JASON TYSDAL 605.641.7260

RORY ZIMBLEMAN 605.641.1709

GAIL TYSDAL 605.641.0240

MELISSA DEAN 605.641.9164

CARSON WIKA 605.645.9701

MICAH PETERS 605.645.2798

605.642.4607 | 123 E. Jackson Boulevard, Suite #3 | Licensed in SD, WY, and MT | www.spearfishrealty.com

OUR TOWNS

Section

4

2021 Northern Hills business overview

Mike Greco serves a large crowd during a watch-it-live UFC night at The Atomic Pizza Café located at 608 N. Main St. Courtesy photo

SECTION 4

OF

4

Pioneer staff reports

2022 • BLACK HILLS PIONEER

NORTHERN HILLS — Entrepreneurs found opportunities to open new businesses in the Northern Hills throughout the past year. Businesses expanded and new owners purchased existing ventures offering additional services and products to the Northern Hills community.

AJ Farms 605

AJ Farms 605 is a small laying hen and specialty crop farm, family ran, north east of Belle Fourche. AJ Farms 605 was established by first time farmers Joe & Alicia Giaculli.

They sell 100% free range, naturally nested eggs at eight establishments in Belle Fourche, Spearfish, Sturgis, and Newell. AJ Farms 605 Farm Stand is open every Friday at noon throughout the summer at the CBH Travel Center. You will find veggie and flower starts at their farm stand in the spring and produce from their Market Garden throughout the summer and into fall.

Albany Farms

Albany Farms which is headquartered out of Los Angeles, Calif., has officially signed on to relocate to Belle Fourche where it intends to manufacture its signature ramen noodle line of products. Albany Farms purchased a facility and the 15 acres surrounding the location in the Belle Fourche Industrial & Rail Park. With plans to start out with 50-60 employees initially, the company projects that it could have approximately 150 staff within a year, and upwards of 500 as the facility continues through its planned expansion phases in the coming years.

The company ultimately plans to use South Dakota-grown wheat.

Atomic Pizza Café

Owner Mike Greco opened The Atomic Pizza Café in early April, located at 608 N. Main St., in Spearfish.

The Atomic offers Sicilian double-baked pizzas by the slice, whole pizzas, breadsticks, cheese sticks, milkshakes and malts and cater to the college crowd. “We have nine different pizzas on the menu now and we plan to add a few more each month

until we have 30 to 40 pizzas on the menu,” Greco said.

Black Hills Diner

Black Hills Diner Opened in October at Fifth and National streets in Belle Fourche. Owners Adam and Krisi Lee serve breakfast Tuesday through Saturday at the Diner, offering customers the chance to try the family’s homemade buttermilk syrup and Mimi’s seasoning salt. “The buttermilk syrup recipe is from his wife’s mother and Mimi’s Salt recipe is from his wife’s grandmother,” said Adam.

“We have a different daily french toast special and we serve farm fresh eggs from AJ Farms.” The Diner is open 7-11 a.m., five days a week.

Black Hills Pediatric Therapy

After serving children in the Rapid City area for five years, Black Hills Pediatric Therapy expanded by opening an office in Spearfish in January.

They are located at 211 N. Main St., BUSINESS Pg 3

Page 2, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

LET ME HELP YOU FIND THE

Perfect Fit When it comes to finding the right home, finding the right real estate agent is key.

YOUR SOURCE FOR FURNITURE & FLOORS MATTRESSES FURNITURE SETS FLOORING ACCESSORIES & MORE!

Amy Carlson 605.380.8058 (cell) 605.642.4607 (office) spearfishrealty.com amycarlson@spearfishrealty.com

123 E. Jackson Blvd., Suite 3 Spearfish, SD 57783

2535 E. COLORADO BOULEVARD | 605-642-3822 HOURS: MONDAY-FRIDAY: 9:00AM-6:00PM SATURDAY: 9:00AM-5:00PM

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 3

from Pg 1

BUSINESS Suite 104, and offer occupational, speech and physical therapy to children and young adults ages zero through 21. Kelsey Bonavida is an occupational therapist with Black Hills Pediatric Therapy. She said having an office space in Spearfish has resulted in increased interest in therapy services. “Some families are interested in office services only.

We will continue to offer in-home services in Spearfish, too, and meet each child’s needs where they are at, rather than push a child into a mold,” said Bonavida.

Boatwright Heating & Cooling

Boatwright Heating & Cooling, located at 1110 Industry Rd., Sturgis.

A local, reliable source for HVAC services and when you need an experienced and trustworthy HVAC contractor, look to Boatwright Heating & Cooling. They have been in business for over 20 years, so they have the knowledge and expertise to handle any kind of HVAC issue.

Your satisfaction is our highest priority. To make sure that you have no cause for complaints, they offer a one-year labor warranty as well as a satisfaction guarantee on our work.

C4 Fabrication

Located at 1151 Industry Rd. in Sturgis. C4 Fabrication specializes in products for your Toyota Off Road/Overland vehicle. With over 15 years experience in the off road and manufacturing industry, you can trust that C4 products will be the absolute best choice for your vehicle.

100% designed and manufactured in the USA, C4 delivers the highest quality products in the Toyota Off Road/Overland industry. C4 is a trusted company that has been built on a reputation of extremely high quality products that are always delivered within the advertised lead times and fit great every time.

Competitive TriSwim Masters

Competitive Tri-Swim Masters (CTSM) is an official U.S. Masters Swimming club, located in Spearfish, SD. They provide a fun, safety conscious and engaging environment for the adult swimmer-athlete. They believe in developing a swimmer’s physical skills through a challenging and success-oriented program whether you are a fitness/ lap swimmer, competitive swimmer, or a triathlete. CTSM seeks to create a positive, proactive, and supportive atmosphere coaching through excellence and integrity and is located at 1625 St. Joe Street, in Spearfish.

Amy Goodson, right, opened Cowgirl Pizza in Spearfish June 1 with business partner Megan Byrum. Cowgirl Pizza offers delivery and takeout at the corner of Highway 14 and West Fairgrounds Loop. Pioneer photo by Kimberly Talcott

Cowgirl Pizza

Cowgirl Pizza, is located at 3104 West Fairground Loop in Spearfish.

Amy Goodson opened Cowgirl Pizza in Spearfish in June with business partner Megan Byrum.

Cowgirl Pizza offers delivery and takeout. The pizza dough is made in house and topped with freshly grated cheese, hand chopped vegetables and smoked meats. On top of pizza, the restaurant serves salads, starters, deserts and sandwiches.

The menu includes 15 different pizza options. Traditional meat lovers and supreme pizzas are available for order, along with specialties like the Hot Hula Chick featuring Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ with smoked chick-

en and The Hometown with pulled pork, bacon, pineapple and jalapeno.

Elysian Clothing

Elysian Clothing is a small women’s clothing boutique downtown Spearfish. Elysian allows women to shop the latest fashion trends at affordable prices. They strive to ensure that any items ordered will bring you happiness and beauty, all while staying on budget. After all, what woman doesn’t want to feel beautiful in a fabulous new affordable outfit? The store is now located at 615 N. Main St. Spearfish.

BUSINESS Pg 4

With over 60 years of legal experience, we can help in most legal matters: Attorneys at Law

Timothy R. Johns tjohns@johnskosellaw.com

Joseph M. Kosel jkosel@johnskosellaw.com

FIRST GOLD GAMING RESORT

• Appellate Advocacy • Business Law • Constitutional Law • Contract Law • Criminal Defense • Family Law

• Mediation & Arbitration • Property • Real Estate • Wills, Trusts & Probate

605-717-2889 203 W. Main St. Lead, SD 57754

www.JohnsKoselLaw.com

First Gold Gaming Resort – “It’s Where Deadwood Begins!”

We invite you to come and play in one of our 10 casinos filled with all your favorite slot machines. Be sure and sign up for your Gold Club Card and start earning cash back. Stay in one of our deluxe hotel rooms or luxury suites at either Travelodge by Wyndham or First Gold Gaming Resort. Enjoy dining in our Horseshoe Restaurant or try our famous all-you-can-eat USDA Choice Prime-Rib & Crab Buffets served every Friday & Saturday night. We offer free on-site covered parking, free Wi-Fi and free beer, wine or cocktails while playing.

270 Main Street, Deadwood SD 57732 www.firstgold.com, 605-578-9777, 800-274-1876

HomeSource Furniture & Floors is a family owned and operated business specializing in high quality furniture, flooring, and home decor. With a passion to walk with you each step of the way in making your house a true home, HomeSource strives to offer a wide variety of brands and styles to appeal to every taste and any budget.

Since moving to a larger and newer building in 2019, HomeSource has been able to offer even more to their customers including carrying a variety of top-selling selections in stock. With over 100,000 sq. ft. of flooring, from carpet and tile to luxury wood and vinyl, you are sure to find the perfect fit for your home and family.

Stop by the new Spearfish location at 2535 E. Colorado Blvd., visit homesourceff.com, or call 642-3822 to explore a tremendous variety of options for your home.

Page 4, Our Towns 2022 from Pg 3

BUSINESS

Emma’s Dessert Bar

Emma’s Dessert Bar ice cream shop and dessert bar is located at 1063 Main Street, Sturgis. In the front part of the building is the dessert emporium. “It will be all things dessert. We will have ice cream, cakes, cookies, pies, all kinds of stuff. And, we’re going to bake bread every day,” said Amy Groves, owner. Emma’s Ice Cream Emporium will serve a continental breakfast

The Black Hills Pioneer daily. Because they will be open year around, in the winter, they hope to offer warm desserts to entice locals to come downtown.

Garage Door Pros of Sturgis

Garage Door Pros of Sturgis is a leading garage door company specializing in repair of garage doors and garage door openers in Sturgis, as well new garage door installation.

Glacier Gravel

Glacier Gravel is a company in the Northern Black Hills of South Dakota that produces gravel, landscape rock, and topsoil. They are located two miles North of I-90 at exit 2.

Hello Holly Beauty Sundance State Bank Loan Production Office is an extension of our main bank located in Sundance, WY, which has been operating since 1895. We are an independently owned community bank that continually provides the necessary fi nancial products and services for our valued customers to successfully achieve their fi nancial goals in an ever-changing economic world including commercial, agricultural, consumer, and real estate loans.

We can be reached at our Spearfi sh location at 725 N. 12 Street; by phone at 605-559-2265; or online at www.sundancestate.bank.

PETE'S CLOTHING HODGE BOOTERY

Hello Holly Beauty is located at 722 14th St. in Sturgis. At Hello Holly Beauty we have one philosophy. ‘Be Your Own Kind Of Beautiful.’ They believe that every person is beautiful in their own special and unique way. It is our mission to help our clients to feel the most beautiful they can. They know that true confidence comes from within, so we strive to create a warm and inclusive environment that allows our clients to express their own personal individuality.

They customize each service to ensure that their clients are receiving the best skincare, waxing, and lash services that are uniquely suited to their needs.

Iron Side Fabrication Lee and Sheila Hodge took over ownership of Pete's Clothing in October 2019, and have continued to cater to the working cowboy and cowgirl. Every member of the family can find authentic western wear including hats, shirts, belts, and gloves.

In addition to these traditional staples, the Hodges have expanded their inventory to include over 450 pairs of boots on display.

Stop by their Belle Fourche location at 500 State Street, or call 605-892-4773.

WELLS SUPPLY, LLC

Wells Supply, LLC., is the local go-to business for all your plumbing, heating, and electrical needs. Effectively improve your landscape by taking advantage of their innovative sprinkler systems and irrigation supplies, or stock up on farm and ranch essentials.

Not sure what you need? The professional staff is ready to help! Their strive for customer satisfaction and commitment to excellent customer service is demonstrated daily in the laid-back, fun atmosphere provided by knowledgeable and friendly staff.

Stop in their Belle Fourche location at 1700 5th Ave., or call 605-892-2613.

Iron Side Fabrication is a subsidiary of Munro Earthmoving was born out of requests from customers seeking custom-made metalwork, such as deck railing or fire pits or fire tables for their custom-built homes the company constructs. Owners Kirk and Heather Munro purchased a German-made jig and fixture table that can be set to duplicate items such as railings.

The metal work portion of the business allows its staff to remain busy on days they are not able to be out in the field. The business is located at 3309 W. Fairgrounds Loop in Spearfish.

Kilo Arms

Kilo Arms was founded in 2018 by Anthony Koessl. He is the one who customizes all the Glocks that come through the gun shop. Koessl is a veteran of the United States Air Force and after eight years, and two deployments to Afghanistan; he decided to hang up his hat and move out west. Kilo Arms is happy to be based out of Sturgis at 928 Lazelle St.

Massage by Gwen

Mr. Wu’s

Massage by Gwen massage therapy helps relieve stress, feels good and is a healthy reward for our overworked bodies. Gwen Young, owner of Massage by Gwen, said she opened in Sturgis because she wanted to operate a business on her own terms.

“I’ve always just worked at other people’s businesses renting a room, and I just wanted to have my own,” said Young who has 13 years of experience. She is located at Suite 3B at 1010 Ball Park Road in Sturgis.

Mr. Wu’s is located at 560 Main St., in Deadwood. One of the newer casino in Deadwood with new slot machines. They have a great selection of slots that you won’t find anywhere else in town. They invite you to come relax in our bar and lounge and watch your sports on one of their many televisions.

McGuigan Farm Experience

Rice’s Spearfish Canyon Motorsports, formerly known as Outdoor Motorsports, changed ownership in November 2021, and is your go-to powersports store in the Northern Black Hills. The business is located at 3425 E. Colorado Blvd, Spearfish, an authorized Can-Am, Honda, Ski-Doo, SSR Motorsports, Ural, and Royal Enfield dealership serving the Northern Hills.

Come to the McGuigan Farm Experience and wander the yard, hop on a tour, or sign up for the hands-on experience of doing chores and getting an in depth look on the farm. Whatever you choose, you should expect a peaceful, calm morning on the farm at 2350 Dairy Lane, Spearfish. Both Curtis McGuigan and Heather and Ryan Koerner and their sons Skylar, Noah and Asher continue to live on the farm. They are the fifth, and sixth generation of McGuigans on the farm, focusing on hay production and sales. In 2020, they started McGuigan Farm Experience, and the entire family is eager to share their history, along with teaching others about agriculture, and life on the farm in general.

MDRN+ SRPLS

Sisters Gina Daniels and Andria Gustafson opened MDRN+ SRPLS boutique on Black Friday in the strip mall located at 2735 1st Ave. The store sells items for the home, apparel and gifts, through a vendor-based business model.

Mill Iron

Whitewood’s Mill Iron Coffee House will maintain much of its current atmosphere in light of its recent ownership change.

Cheyenne Shafto and her family took over as co-owners in January after residing in Sioux Falls for a couple of years. That includes her fiancé Luke Larson. Handmade pasties, a variety of coffee drinks, and sweet treats are the featured items. Mill Iron is located at 1338 Laurel St., and opened in June 2017.

MJ’s market

Joel and Molly Blair with MJ’s market carry skin and hair care, makeup, dental and shave items, cards, gifts, toys, cleaners, laundry, pet, first aid, vitamins, medicines, and CBD products. They are located at 105 Ziebach Street in Belle Fourche.

Rice’s Spearfish Canyon Motorsports

Phat Bottom Salsa

Phat Bottom Salsa is handcrafted, mindfully made, and one of a kind. Absolutely delicious and full of attitude, this salsa does not mess around. Carefully selected flavorful ingredients to rejuvenate and enliven your meals. Or serve it right out of the jar for a sassy satisfying snack to get the party poppin’. Tires squeal, engines rev, and hearts beat faster for Phat Bottom’s salsa!

Located in Sturgis.

Pointer Roofing & Construction

Pointer Roofing & Construction is a small local roofing company that treats our customers like family.

They understand how communication is the biggest frustration when it comes to home repairs. The business is located at 1932 Pine St. Services offered include, roofing repair and replacement, waterproofing, and rain gutter installation.

Rocket Lube

Rocket Lube, located at 1718 North Ave., in Spearfish is under new ownership as of July 1. Charles Cook, the new owner, said they offer auto oil changes and lube, and have an automotive mechanic with ASE certification available for automotive repair.

Rose Boutique

Armed with passion and decades of sewing experience, Roseanna Koistinen has expanded Rose Boutique at its new Belle Fourche location, offering an array of products and custom services.

The Rose Boutique is now located BUSINESS Pg 6

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 5

Congratulations

Lester Nies

Cheryl Westland, Owner 605-723-5920

Full Service Pharmacy | Drive through available Large selection of over-the-counter medicines & supplies Cheryl Westland, PharmD and Co-Owner

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Stand on the Center of the Nation Monument and let it all revolve around you, then explore historic downtown or take a stroll on the River Walk.

We Have What You Need Wake up to a complimentary hot homestyle breakfast (gluten-free items available), enjoy our indoor pool & hot tub and keep in touch with complimentary high-speed internet access.

2312 Dakota Avenue, Belle Fourche, SD 57717 • 605.892.0900 • americinn.com

Page 6, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer from Pg 4

BUSINESS

The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) is a multidisciplinary science research facility that houses world-leading experiments in dark matter, neutrino research and astrophysics, as well as biology, geology and engineering.

While SURF’s focus is on science, the organization has a strong commitment to education—both formal and informal. Its robust Education and Outreach program, a partnership with Black Hills State University, draws on the science and engineering at SURF to create an array of programs and experiences for K-12 students and educators. Since 2015, the team has reached more than 70,000 students and 1500 educators in every county of South Dakota.

SURF provides programs for students in higher education as well—through internships and the Davis-Bahcall Scholars Program, both funded through the SDSTA. Additionally, graduate and undergraduate students from institutions across the country work with experts from around the world on cutting-edge research.

The Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center offers a public outreach experience. A 3,000-squarefoot exhibit hall features the history of Lead, the Homestake Mine and the science at SURF. It also offers space for special events and science talks.

Trolley tours take visitors around Lead and include a surface tour of SURF. While there, guests can check out the many unique items in the museum shop.

BLACK HILLS PHYSICAL THERAPY

For over 25 years, Black Hills Physical Therapy has been committed to providing evidence-based physical therapy services to ensure our patients receive the highest quality care in rural America.

Our exceptional staff of Doctors of PT include: Cathy Sulentic-Morcom PT, DPT - over 38years of clinical practice with advanced skills in manual therapy, orthopedics, and certified in industrial medicine. Jens Matson DPT, Orthopedic Clinical Specialist, Certified Manual PT.Maria Matson PT, DPT - fluent Spanish speaking orthopedic PT with special interest in Women's Health and Pelvic Health. Katie Schuelke PT, DPT, and Kelli Karr PT, DPT. Our dedicated team has the knowledge and experience necessary to offer the highest quality PT care to our Black Hills community. We treat all musculoskeletal and neuromuscular conditions with advanced specializations in manual therapy, hand therapy, vestibular/ balance disorders, jaw and facial pain, post-concussion syndromes, industrial medicine, and women's health, among others.

We are committed to exceptional service from your first phone call to your successful completion of care and look forward to working with you! Visit bhphysicaltherapy.com Contact us at 520 N Canyon St in Spearfish or call 605-642-7996.

ROBERT BURNETT AGENCY OF AMERICAN FAMILY INSURANCE

The Robert Burnett Agency of American Family Insurance has been serving the Spearfish community for 35 years. We have been awarded the American Star of Excellence in Customer Experience Certification, and have earned the highest praise from customers for consistently providing outstanding service. Our office offers a full line of products including home, auto, life, business, and farm/ranch protection. The Spearfish office is located at 204 N. Main St. We look forward to serving the community for another 35 years!

at 1828 Fifth Ave. They offer a wide range of products to Belle Fourche and surrounding communities – cotton and knit fabric, yarn, clothing, blankets, furniture, vintage items, bath and kitchen supplies, essential oils, decor, and more. Koistinen also offers special and custom orders for fabrics, seamstress projects, and more.

Prairie Rose Healing – Veterinary Acupuncture

Prairie Rose Healing – Veterinary Acupuncture embraces natural and powerful solutions to animal wellness, dogs, cats and horses, and has home-call and farm-call acupuncture service, herbal medicine and food therapy. Kelican grew up in Colorado and now resides in Deadwood. She earned her doctorate in veterinary medicine from Kansas State University and has earned her certification in veterinary acupuncture, and has found her passion in holistic medicine and continues to expand her studies.

Bob and Linnéa Boyd will open a new location of Ruby’s Roost Bakery & Coffee at the corner of Jackson and Main in Spearfish this summer. Pioneer photo by Kimberly Talcott

SML Points Tire

SML Points Tire, owned by John and Mary Cronk, is located at 1909 Fifth Ave., Belle Fourche, own and operate Point S, a group of independent tire dealers who have joined together to create one of the West’s fastest growing tire retail organizations. Through these united efforts, they are able to stock the tires you need at the prices you want.

Rustic Nook Bakery

Rustic Nook Bakery serves up cheesecakes, decorated cakes, cookies, breads, éclairs, muffins, rolls and more will tempt the tastebuds, located at 318 Main St., Lead. Leigha Patterson and Karen Linn, owners, have already been serving the people of Lead, the surrounding area with special orders.

Patterson, who has a background in restaurant management, said she is excited to serve the people of Lead.

She hopes to create a space where families can make memories together over delicious baked goods, and in the future she may expand her vision to include some catering services.

Superior Nutrition

moved from Lourie Lane to 414 Main St. The business buys, sells, trades or can appraise your silver, gold, coins or currency and is open Monday through Friday.

Superior Nutrition, a sports nutrition and supplement store, opened in September at 414 N. Main St., in Spearfish. Former football teammates and owners, Brandon Perce and Andrew Vanderpoel own the store. “At Superior Nutrition we will guide you in the right direction for whatever fitness goal you want to achieve,” said Perce. Perce said he has used many of the products sold at Superior Nutrition. When selecting products for the store, Perce and Vanderpoel said they chose products with high quality ingredients that are the most beneficial for fitness goals such as weight loss and muscle gain.

Smokes n’ Things

Superior Water

Spearfish Coin & Ruby’s Roost Antiques Bakery and Coffee Spearfish Coin & Antiques Ruby’s Roost Bakery and Coffee is located at 741 Main St., in Spearfish. Bob and Linnea Boyd, own and operate a bakery and coffee shop and they invite you in to try a breakfast pastries and a full espresso bar with a Scandinavian flair. The bakery and coffeeshop is located at the corner of Jackson and Main Streets. Boyd’s are of Swedish descent and looks forward to sharing her family’s traditional pastries with the Northern Hills community.

Spearfish.

Smokes n’ Things opened in Sturgis on Jan. 11, 2021. They carry everything that the Spearfish location offers-including Tobacco, E-Cigarettes/Vapes, Water Pipes and Accessories, Smoking Accessories, Incense, Apparel, and a lot of miscellaneous. The business is located at 2715 Lazelle St Boulder Canyon Station #2 Suite A, Sturgis.

Spearfish Strength and Fitness

Pete and Sara Skvicalo have spent much of their lives living in the Black Hills and have a passion for working out and lifting. Owning a gym has always been a dream for Pete and now they have took the leap and make the dream a reality when they opened Spearfish Strength and Fitness. They look forward to creating a gym experience that is appealing to everyone. They pride themselves on having a clean gym environment with quality equipment. The fitness center is located at 4311 E. Colorado Blvd,

Superior Water is proud to be the authorized Hague Quality Water dealer in Spearfish and its surrounding areas. Since 1960, Hague Quality Water has been manufacturing the most reliable and efficient water treatment systems in the USA. They are water treatment specialists, experienced, knowledgeable and eager to offer expert installation and service. They are located at 5115 Turtle Lane, Spearfish, specializing in water softeners and drinking water systems

Triton Plumbing

Triton Plumbing is a full-service plumbing business locally-owned in Sturgis. Erik and his team will make sure your project is up and running and can be contacted at (605) 499-9744 to schedule a service call. Triton takes pride in serving the Sturgis area and are located at Sturgis Industrial Park, 1110 Industry Road, Unit A, Sturgis.

BUSINESS Pg 7

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 7

Designs by Daphne Gallery adds a shop unlike any other to downtown Belle Fourche. Owners Paul and Daphne Johnson have a passion for taking old treasures and making them new again, specializing in refinished and painted furniture. While they carry a unique selection in stock, they also offer services to renew pieces you already own and love, providing custom painting, refinishing, and upholstery.

In addition to furniture, Designs by Daphne carries a hand-picked collection of antiques, art, and home decor, as well as a line of custom silver and copper jewelry created by Dana Licking.

Stop by the store at 614 State Street in Belle Fourche to find a one-of-a-kind piece you will be proud to have in your home. You can also view select inventory and see before/after photos @designsbydaphnegallery on Facebook, or call the store at 723-1640 for more information.

MJ PLUMBING INC.

Miles Foley sells, installs and customizes truck, trailer and van accessories at Work Rigs Unlimited located at 67 N. 6th Ave., in Belle Fourche. Pioneer photo by Kimberly Talcott from Pg 6

BUSINESS

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Tap House

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Tap House will have a military themed in honor of Mike Groves, who is a retired sergeant major. “The building itself kind of looks like a bombed out Italian building. We left that purposely so it looks very rustic. That will play against a shiny stainless steel bar system,” Groves said. “It will be just a nice place to hang out.

It’s not going to be loud with music or a band. It’s just going to be a cool place to hang out.” The beers on tap will be more local than regional, Groves said. “We’re not going for any of the major name brands. We will be doing events with each of the different beer makers to come in and talk about their craft beer.”

Winnie’s

Winnie’s, a chocolate and dessert shop opened for business in April at 806 N Main St., in Spearfish.

Manager Lacy Hotchkiss said Winnie’s is a place where you can enjoy locally made desserts while finding faith and community connection. “We are a Christianbased space with a cherry on top of desserts,” said Hotchkiss. “We have a great space where you can buy desserts then go to the back room where you can eat and have

meetings or bible studies,” said Hotchkiss. Winnie’s specialty is chocolate-dipped treats including strawberries, bananas, and cheesecake. They also offer caramel rolls, bread pudding, Italian love cake and pies made by Kari Clites of The Rustic Rolling Pin, which formerly had a storefront in Spearfish.

WM Heating and Cooling

WM Heating and Cooling specializes in residential HVAC services. They are available to relieve problems with heating and cooling equipment. They are licensed professionals in preventative maintenance, diagnostics, whole house air purifiers, thermostats and much more. They can be contacted at 605641-9705 and are based out of Belle Fourche but serve the entire northern Black Hills area.

Workhorse Nutrition

Workhorse Nutrition is located at 1064 Main Street, Sturgis, Workhorse Nutrition is a veteran owned and operated nutritional supplement store. They provide the same brand name pre-workouts, proteins, vitamins, and performance products that the big franchise stores carry, but as a local small business. Workhorse was the owner’s callsign while serving overseas in Afghanistan in 2011-2012. The

name is a perfect fit for his supplement store because everyone knows that when you work hard in the gym or in life you can’t stop there, you must continue to work on your nutrition and supplementation to achieve your goals.

Work Rigs Unlimited

Work Rigs Unlimited, is your one stop shop for everything for trucks.

From pickups and SUVs to vans and trailers, they sell any accessories you may need for your truck, big or small. Truck accessories store and shop Work Rigs Unlimited is now located in the old Knecht’s location at 320 S. 26th St., in Spearfish. Owner Miles Foley relocated the business from Belle Fourche to Spearfish in October.

ZY Glam

ZY Glam smoke shop opened its doors in June at Jackson and Main Streets in Spearfish. The shop offers CBD products, pipes, torches and clothing. Rodriguez said his family has another Zy Glam location in Scottsbluff, Neb. His mother initially began the boutique by selling clothes and makeup. Rodriguez said he talked his mother into adding smoking products to the shop, which then took off. Andres Rodriguez runs the shop along with his brother, Ben, and his mother, owner Elizabeth Lamas.

With over 11 years as a family, woman owned business MJ Plumbing provides all aspects of plumbing, service, new and old construction, and much more! Giving back to their community is important and they do so in not only donations but volunteering as well.

They get a lot of questions on their logo, which stems from the owners, Theresa and Anthony, both growing up in Chicago. When they made the choice to open their business and thinking of a business name they thought of their 4 kids Markus, Mathew, Jasmine and Juliet and wanted their business name to involve them. So MJ it was and with them growing up watching Michael Jordan they fit the logo with some design work. Copy written so it would officially be theirs!

For any plumbing needs contact MJ Plumbing Inc. at 605-641-8881, www.mjplumbingnd.com.

SPEARFISH AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

As a membership based organization, the Spearfish Area Chamber of Commerce serves their members and community by providing advocacy, leadership, and resources. They offer marketing, recognition, growth, and networking opportunities for their members. The Chamber serves Spearfish as an information portal for relocation information and local businesses, an educational platform for governmental and civic events, and a mentor for emerging professionals.

The Spearfish Area Chamber of Commerce has a dynamic range of members and services. They offer a 9-month Leadership Spearfish program, host an active young professionals group, provide marketing opportunities, and arrange recognition and community events.

Stop by at 106 W. Kansas St. in Spearfish, call 605-642-2626, or visit www.SpearfishChamber. org to find out how you can get involved.

Advertise in

122

NEWSPAPERS

in South Dakota with a statewide classified or statewide display ad.

605-642-2761

Talk to a representative to learn more.

Page 8, Our Towns 2022

The Black Hills Pioneer

Western Dakota Tech Whitewood satellite learning center seeing success

By Jaci Conrad Pearson Black Hills Pioneer

WHITEWOOD — A site that sets its sights on training licensed practical nurses for work in the high-demand field of nursing enters its second year of serving pupils in Whitewood’s Hale Hall this fall, and it seems to be just what the doctor ordered for both staff and students.

“We will have six graduate,” said Western Dakota Tech (WDT) Interim Director of Nursing Kristen Hybertson. “I expect more in the fall. We have a very promising amount of students that are applying to Western Dakota Tech nursing, and I have a feeling that we will be full this coming fall. It’s been pleasant to see all of the interest in Western Dakota Tech nursing has been amazing. We already have some potential students interested in Whitewood and I have a feeling that we definitely will have more, come fall.”

There is a 16-student cap per semester for the Whitewood satellite learning center’s LPN program.

“I have a very good feeling we will have more this semester than we did this spring, for sure,” Hybertson said.

Students completing the course work offered at the Whitewood center earn a diploma in practical nursing.

“It takes about three semesters, depending on if they have their CNA certification,” Hybertson said. “If they don’t, they do have to take one additional course to get that CNA portion done.”

Coursework offered at the Whitewood campus focuses on practical nursing, with pre-requisites taken online, at the main WDT campus, or another school, where they can be transferred in.

“For their first semester, we do a fundamentals class, which is just the fundamentals of nursing. We have mental health, which they have a course on that first semester and then we start them on an introduction to pharmacology, medical terminology, and things they need to get things up and running, as far as a nurse would be concerned,” said WDT Nursing Program Instructor Jeannie Wiege.

“Then their second semester, we jump into a little bit more of pharmacology. We have a med surg(ery) class. We have a maternal child class. And then, we also have what we call a transitions course, where we kind of transition them into thinking like a nurse, rather than a student.”

Hybertson said, based on student feedback, offering course work at the Whitewood site has really helped students in the Northern Hills have

“

With nursing right now, the opportunities are kind of endless.

Lisa Alishouse,

WDT Nursing Program Instructor

”

easier access to nursing education.

“You think of it as a smaller community, so it has that small-town vibe,” she said.

“They’re a close-knit group of students. They get to know each other really well. The smaller class size offers more one-on-one instruction with the faculty. And, again, it just offers that camaraderie when you have a small group of students doing something a little bit different than what the main campus is doing.

They get the same education. They get the same curriculum. Everything is the same, but they get to do it in a different location. A very tight-knit group of students that end up graduating from there.”

Sue Morales, a student at the Whitewood campus, came to the site for her schooling, when the main campus course offerings filled up.

“I’m really glad that I got in here,” she said. “I actually have to drive a little bit of a ways to get here. I’m from Newcastle, but it’s closer to Whitewood than it is to Rapid, and I have really enjoyed this campus,” Morales said. “I LEARNING CENTER Pg 10

Pioneer file photos

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 9

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Page 10, Our Towns 2022 from Pg 8

LEARNING CENTER would have had the opportunity after the first semester to enroll into Rapid, but I chose to come here because I knew the instructors. I knew the students that I’d been studying with. And I think it’s a very quality program.”

As an instructor, Wiege said the benefits she sees of the Whitewood site are many.

“We teach the same things as they do on the main campus,” she said. “Our benefit here has been that we offer small classes, so we get to know our students really well. I think that helps to

The Black Hills Pioneer open up the lines of communication, so they’re not afraid to talk to come talk to us when they’re having problems. It also helps concentrate on what they need, rather than what a large group would need.”

Hybertson said the program also offers opportunities for clinics, such as the Sturgis Hospital and the VA. “It puts more students in those clinics as potential employees, so that’s another benefit of reaching out to some of these smaller communities, is putting students into these smaller areas for potential job placement,” she said.

“Another bonus for this area is to be able to use the health facilities in this area

and hopefully produce LPNs that can go back out into the work force and work at some of the health facilities that we had used as clinical sites,” said WDT Nursing Program instructor Lisa Alishouse.

Once a student finishes the three semesters and becomes an LPN, they can go on to work in several different medical settings.

“A lot of our students have jobs before they even graduate,” Hybertson said.

“With nursing right now, the opportunities are kind of endless. A lot of these nursing students, when they graduate, will work in clinics a lot of times. But the VA and Sturgis Hospital hire LPNs in their in-patient

areas. A lot of these nursing students will get jobs in long-term care facilities, assisted living homes … most clinics in the Rapid City and in the area will hire LPNs. School nursing is another area that’s an option. Home health nursing. Those are all areas, definitely, that they could potentially work in.”

Hybertson said the Whitewood community has been very supportive in regard to the use of their facility.

“They’re making upgrades to the community center that we’re using. Hale Hall is the building that we’re using,” she said. “They’re making upgrades this summer to the flooring, so those are some things that will

be great for the incoming students this fall. They’ve been very supportive of us there and they’ve been very accommodating. It’s been a good partnership, I feel, with us and the Whitewood community.”

Wiege said Whitewood has been very welcoming to WDT and the LPN Program.

“The city council’s worked with us really well with our facility. Whenever we’ve had issues here, they’ve been right over to help,” she said. “Because we’re in this building, the money that WDT is using for rent is actually going for improvements to the building, so we’re really excited to come back this fall and see what they’ve done.”

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 11

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Page 12, Our Towns 2022

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The Black Hills Pioneer

Forestry industry in flux

Black Hills National Forest faces pivotal moment in management

By Alex Portal Black Hills Pioneer

SPEARFISH — The U.S. Forest Service has announced plans to drastically reduce its allowable timber sale allocations for the Black Hills National Forest in the coming years. For the forest products industry, which has already suffered from the March 2021 closure of Rushmore Forest Products in Hill City, the decision could deal a devastating blow.

“With the loss of Rushmore Forest Products last year, with the reduction in the timber sale program, as an industry, we’re terribly concerned that the forest is setting up for a catastrophe,” said Ben Wudtke, executive director of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association.

From a forest management standpoint, Wudtke said, that catastrophe could come in the form of another mountain pine beetle epidemic, or more devastating wildfires, endangering watersheds, and reduced air quality. To understand Wudtke’s concerns, we first have to go back to 1997, when the Forest Service implemented its current forest management plan.

“When you look back at the late 90s this forest was stacked with timber,” Wudtke explained. “But industry wasn’t the only entity looking at the forest. You had mountain pine beetles looking at it, you had Mother Nature looking at it from a wildfire perspective.”

Those over-crowded conditions set the forest up in a bad way – water was unable to move freely through-

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out the forest due to the amount of trees slurping up every drop, the tightly packed stands made it easier for the pine beetles to jump form tree-to-tree, and wildfires could more frequently devastate the land posing threats not only to life, but releasing smoke and carbon dioxide back into the air.

In its 1997 management plan, the Forest Service set a saw timber harvest allotment of 18.1 million cubic feet (CF) per year, in order to get a handle on the overpopulation of trees in the forest. However, that number acts as more of a bench mark for the management plan.

The Forest Service can allocate more or less as re-evaluates the wellbeing of the forest. Even at that level of harvestation, the pine beetles came, and severe wildfires spread until 2017, when the Forest Service was able to declare the epidemic over, and at a healthy density.

“It took every bit of the industry capacity that we had to really win that war,” Wudtke said.

Now that the war is won, the Forest Service is pulling back on how many trees it will allow to be harvested by the forest products industry. Last year it released a three-year reduction plan that dropped the allowable timber sales from 18.1 million CF to 12.4 million CF, then to 9.1 million CF in 2022, and 8.86 million CF by 2023.

Although the Forest Service has said that it does not use any one document to set policies, the proposed timber sale program falls in line with conclusions drawn from a highly-contested general technical report (GTR), which was issued in February 2021 by the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort FORESTRY Pg 14

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 13

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Page 14, Our Towns 2022 from Pg 12

FORESTRY Collins, Colo. “(The GTR) doesn’t propose to keep the forest inventory the same as it is now, it proposes to grow it back to numbers greater than what we saw that started the mountain pine beetle epidemic and those large wildfires in the early 2000s.” Wudtke said. “It just seems illogical to want to repeat history, to want to get it back to those same conditions that really started the emergencies that we had in the Black Hills.”

Wudtke’s assertion, that the new Forest Service’s timber sales plan will regrow the forest to the problematic levels it was at in the late 90s, is contested by the Forest Service, which says that there aren’t enough trees on accessible lands to maintain that largescale logging.

“The landscape on the Forest has changed significantly over the past 25 years due to large wildfires, the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic and an accelerated timber harvest program,” read a statement from the Forest Service. “From 2008 through 2018, the Black Hills National Forest Timber Sales program exceeded the ASQ to rapidly commercially thin the Forest in order to help prevent the spread of the Mountain Pine Beetle.”

Wudtke holds firm that the scope through-which the Forest Service is looking is too narrow, rather than just looking at land that is accessible to loggers, the Forest Service should be seeing the forest as a whole sum of trees.

The conflict between the Forest Service and the forest products industry as to what action is best to maintain a healthy, vibrant, and profitable forest is exacerbated by the economic mechanisms that drive the industry.

Wudtke said the drastic reduction in available material has already caused the closure of one sawmill in the Black Hills. The amount of time it could take to convince the Forest Service to reverse course could end up costing more closures sooner, rather than later.

“There’s a lot of impacts from these closures that people don’t always see,” Wudtke said. “It really is about other companies and it’s really about the forest.

The Black Hills Pioneer At the end of the day it’s, ‘what are we going to do to take care of the forest,’ and if we grow this forest back and (there are no sawmills left), what’s going to stop the Mountain Pine Beetle next time?”

In November 2021, the Black Hills Forest Resource Association filed a Request for Correction of Information challenge to the GTR under the Data Quality Act. That request was denied after being reviewed by the Rocky Mountain Research Station.

“The intent was to present the Forest Service’s own data to them, their own information, in hopes of getting some corrections to their GTR,” Wudtke explained. “It’s unfortunate that that review was conducted out of the same office that produced the report.

When you look at that, it’s a little bit like asking the law student to grade their own bar exam.”

Wudtke said the forest resource association is in the process of filing an appeal to the challenge’s review, and is also looking into other options to get it’s information to the Forest Service’s higher agencies.

Also in November 2021, Gov. Kristi Noem and Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming visited Spearfish Forest Products in Spearfish, during which Noem called for other states to join her in a coalition of National Forests to gather independent forest inventory data to counter the findings of the U.S. Forest Service.

“I’m going to be asking Gov. (Gavin) Newsom (of California) and maybe (Gov. Jared) Polis in Colorado, (Gov.) Kate Brown in Oregon, they’ve all had tragic wildfires this year and they’ve been dealing with the reality of that; the threat to public safety, the costs of it – see if they would be interested in going to the (National) Forest Service with me,” Noem said.

To date those discussions have not taken place.

“The governor did work to schedule calls with other governors, but those efforts were not fruitful. The state of South Dakota is currently working on its own forest inventory survey to try and challenge the GTR findings.

We will let you know if there are any developments,” read a response to the Pioneer from the governor’s office.

In the meantime, Sen.

Pioneer file photo John Thune, R-S.D., along with Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., in February, signed the Black Hills Forest Protection and Jobs Preservation Act, which will allocate $40 million to be split between three National Forests in South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, giving priority to the Black Hills National Forest and the Big Horn National Forest.

“Thune’s legislation concentrates on the funding,” Wudtke said. “Congress can’t solve a staffing issue, but … it concentrates on the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) side, urging the (Forest Service) to conduct more NEPA (studies), make new decisions for NEPA projects, use expedited authorities in the near-term to help do that, while looking – the next couple years – at larger projects that can be implemented as well.”

Wudtke said that the funding committed by Thune’s legislation could provide the Forest Service with the ability to perform more in-depth and specialized surveys, which could paint, what he thinks, would be a more accurate picture of the Black Hills forest; one that supports the industry’s conclusion that timber sales should remain higher. He pointed out a recent report assembled by the Forest Service addressing high-risk fire sheds in the Black Hills.

“This document really recognizes that this is something that was driven by forest density, by fuels,” he said. “This really focusing in on, ‘what can we affect right now,’ we can affect fuel structures, we can affect forest density and we can change the impacts from wildfires.”

Regardless of what new data comes to light, or

whether the Forest Service will change course, Forest Products companies will need to adapt to the restrictions imposed on the Black Hills National Forest now.

“And I think that’s driving in the direction we need to be in the Black Hills, which is looking at forest health as a whole and I think we can fit all the good things in one basket,” said Marcus Neiman, vice president of Neiman Enterprises, which owned and operated Rushmore Forest Products in Hill City.

Neiman said that although the closure of the Hill City sawmill is a real loss, not only to the community and its employees, but also as a tool for forest management, he is optimistic that the industry will be able to find its place in the forest management plan however the Forest Service decides to move forward.

“Those with the ability to assist with what the forest should look like will be adaptive and supportive to what that needs to look like,” he said. “That means developing out new markets and adding low-value products to portfolios and stressing the partnerships from the standpoint of trying to make sure that the right treatments are done in the right areas.”

Wudtke said the industry has already spent years adapting production practices to be the most cost efficient they can be.

“When you talk about ponderosa pine, post and poles, boards, those are all economies of scale, it’s not fine veneer,” he said. “And to keep a company going, you have to run enough material.”

Black Hills companies have already started hauling material from Montana, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming, to meet produc-

tion needs.

“There’s not a lot of economy left on that material after it’s rode on a truck for a couple hundred miles, but it’s the only choice that these companies have,” Wudtke said.

Wudtke’s concern is that there is a proven track record of forest products companies staying shuttered once they’ve been forced to shut down, and without a thriving forest products industry, the Forest Service will lose a primary forest management tool.

“The Forest Service has been trying for decades to reinvigorate an industry down in the New Mexico/ Arizona area, they have a million-acre NEPA project that they pushed through and they can’t make it work, they can’t get companies on the landscape that will actually get the work done,” he said. “Without a course correction we’re going to have other losses, and with every loss we lose our capacity to care for the forest.”

The U.S. Forest Service is currently in the process of developing a new forest management plan for the Black Hills National Forest, which the public is encouraged to be a part of. To stay up to date on public meetings, the Black Hills National Forest recommends subscribing to its social media pages.

For more information about the National Forest Advisory Committee, which advises and makes recommendations to management plans and revisions, contact Scott Jacobson, public affairs officer for the Black Hills National Forest and NFAB coordinator, at (605) 440-1409, or visit www.fs.usda.gov/ main/blackhills/workingtogether/advisorycommittees.

The Black Hills Pioneer

Our Towns 2022, Page 15

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The Black Hills Pioneer

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