Stephanie Herseth Sandlin Stephanie Herseth Sandlin grew up on her family’s fourthgeneration farm and ranch on the edge of the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Houghton, South Dakota. She was raised in a family deeply committed to government and public service. Her grandfather, Ralph E. Herseth, served in the state senate and as South Dakota’s 21st Governor from 1959-1961. Her father, R. Lars Herseth, served for twenty years in the state legislature and was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1986. It was her grandmother, Lorna Buntrock Herseth, however, who was the first in the family to win elective office. She was elected as Brown County Superintendent of Schools in the 1930s, and after serving as First Lady, Lorna was elected and re-elected to the office of Secretary of State of South Dakota, serving from 1973-1979. Stephanie was a typical farm girl—she loved horses, raised pheasants, and picked sweet corn to sell on the roadside with her older brother, Todd. She also started playing the piano in the second grade and continues to play to this day. In high school, she excelled in athletics, playing on the varsity basketball team all
Professional Sioux Falls, SD
four years and running the third leg for the 1988 state champion 1600-meter relay team for the Groton Tigers. During her senior year, Stephanie was also elected Governor of South Dakota Girls State sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary, and was valedictorian of her graduating class. The importance of good government and the art of politics were instilled in Stephanie at an early age, and she inherited the desire to serve in public life. Stephanie chose to attend college in our nation’s capital of Washington, D.C., graduating summa cum laude from Georgetown University, where she also earned her law and master degrees. During this time, she interned for then Congressman Tim Johnson, studied abroad in Quito, Ecuador, was elected Chair of the Georgetown University Student Assembly, and was a senior editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. After working for two federal judges—Charles B. Kornmann of the District Court for South Dakota and Diana Gribbon Motz on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals—Stephanie joined the litigation group of a national law firm, but shortly thereafter decided to run for Congress at the age of 31, following encouragement she received from family and friends who believed in her leadership and her ability to effectively represent South Dakota. It was her mother, Joyce Stiles Guhin, who gave Stephanie the final push and courage to become a candidate for public office. While she was able to secure the Democratic Party nomination in a four-way primary election in 2002, the late former Governor Bill Janklow won the general election, and Stephanie transitioned to lead the South Dakota Farmers Union Foundation as its first Executive Director, working to strengthen cooperative education and enhance rural economic development. In 2004, Stephanie ran for Congress again and won a special election, going on to serve four terms in the United States House. She was the first woman elected
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South Dakota Hall of Fame
