The 2025 South Dakota Pheasant Season is underway, and the reports from opening week have been fantastic! “We live for pheasants, my family came back to town for the hunt, it was a little windy but we got our birds. On the second day we hunted a food plot and got 25 pheasants and must have seen 500 hens.

On Oct. 19, Gregory High School held its annual local oral interpretation contest to decipher who would represent the school at the district competition. Each school can only take one entry in each of the seven categories: serious, humorous, poetry, storytelling, duets, oratory, and readers theatre.

A fisherman once described what happens when you catch a bunch of crabs and put them in a bucket. Logically, if all the crabs would just move to one side, they would almost all be able to crawl out of the bucket. A little teamwork would save the vast majority of them. Crabs, however, are incapable of this. As soon as one crab gets to the top of the pile, the other crabs claw and grab at them and pull them back down to the bottom.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced today that Social Security benefits, including Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments for 75 million Americans will increase 2.8 percent in 2026. On average, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by about $56 per month starting in January.

The Government Operations and Audit Committee will hold its fourth meeting of the 2025 Interim on Thursday, October 30, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. (CT). The meeting is being conducted via electronic conference and in Room 412 of the State Capitol in Pierre, South Dakota, to allow for both remote and in-person participation.

The state minimum wage for non-tipped employees will increase from $11.50/hour to $11.85/ hour effective Jan. 1, 2026.