News

Libraries are a vital part of our rural communities. That’s why I invite you to celebrate the library in your small town during National Library Week, April 19 to 25.

The Billie Sutton Leadership Institute has announced its 2026 class of Sutton Leaders and Rural POWER participants, marking its eighth year of inspiring and preparing leaders in South Dakota. Fifteen new members gathered this past weekend in Gregory, SD for a kickoff training seminar that launches the year-long leadership development program.

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Bethany Eggers, MA, LPC-MH Grief has a way of unsettling everything we thought was stable. It distorts time, rewrites priorities, and introduces emotions that can feel unfamiliar or even frightening. In those moments, many people quietly ask themselves a question they’re almost afraid to say out loud: Am I losing it? Erica Sirrine offers a powerful reframe: “You are not going crazy, you are going human.” That idea doesn’t just comfort, it corrects a deep misunderstanding about what grief actually is.

Burke VFW & Auxiliary Post 9950 will be hosting a “Loyalty Day Celebration” at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 3, 2026 at the Burke VFW Post. The celebration is a potluck that is open to the public. Included in the celebration will be recognition of youth, adult, and group accomplishments of community leaders from the Burke area.

At the Gregory City Council meeting, held at 6 p.m., Monday, April 20, 2026, Mayor Al Cerny presented three alternatives an engineer from SPN Helms provided for street reconstruction as part of the city’s water and sewer project. The council agreed that they didn’t want to go through all the work for new streets and not make them last as long as possible. They, therefore, chose full reconstruction with three inches of asphalt.

At the regular meeting of the Gregory School District Board of Education, held at noon, Tuesday, April 14, 2026, Superintendent Sara Anderson reported that she, Business Manager Kevin Myrmoe, and the building and grounds committee recently met with city representatives to discuss the Gregory Memorial Auditorium as a whole.

A ten-minute phone conversation was all it took to convince Rick Shippy to purchase the Elder Inn in Winner. The Shippys were already successful business owners, with a real estate company, a family ranch, and several storage units, following Rick’s 31-year career with UPS and thought they were ready to start slowing down.

ROCS Dining Services has been an asset to the town’s senior citizens, and each year, the local community is asked to provide more of the funding to keep the program running or risk shutting down. Other communities in the county have lost their senior meals program through ROCS and have had to look elsewhere for funding.

Grant Winters is proof that setting goals pays off. Winters grew up in Hamill where he attended country school before graduating high school in Winner in 2016.