Opinion

Just below the South Dakota border in northern Nebraska on the Sunday before Memorial Day in the 1890’s, a most unusual situation was created by the older children that took their parents several weeks to resolve.

DITOR Dear Editor, This letter is to inform people about the dire need of a family from our area. Jim and Donette Lyon’s daughter JeanAnn and husband Beau Bryan have two beautiful boys Sawyer and Wesley who have been diagnosed with the extremely rare disease Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This rare form of muscular dystrophy is fatal. But there is hope.

The first Fourth of July celebration in South Dakota, according to the best available information, occurred in 1876, the same year as the state’s centennial. The merrymaking included a parade of wagons, dances, speeches, lots of food, and a grand ball. It is assumed that only their best wagons were entered in the parade. Mom probably made the children wash all the dirt from the wagons.

Dear Editor, Government is Doing Bad #1 On June 5 my husband and I headed to our state capital building in Pierre to participate along with around 200 other persons in the nation-wide NO KINGS citizen rally against Donald Trump’s governmental actions. The poster of a fellow protester perfectly expressed the reason for our participation: “Things are so bad that this is our first protest.” What we felt to be intolerably bad about Trump’s actions were: 1) his stripping away of social care services from VAST numbers of South Dakotans, particularly rural citizens, and 2) his undermining of fundamental principles of democratic politics.

I was born and raised in West River, and that part of the state reflects the great American West in a lot of ways. The hill crests and valleys are a bit sharper, the prairies have more cows and grass than corn and soybeans, and the Black Hills are similar to the Rockies (though far more beautiful).

Construction season is here and safety is the number one priority when it comes to digging, excavating, and locating utility lines. Just one strike of a gas line, electrical cable or a water pipeline can have catastrophic consequences for workers and residents.

On the night of February 26, 1866, James Hogan was lynched at Vermillion. It was one of those cases where the people of the community felt that their personal safety demanded that the desperado should be put out of the way of doing violence to others. However, after he had been hung it was said that this act was the most barbarous thing to do and not altogether necessary.

On Tuesday, June 24, 2025, Governor Larry Rhoden and United States Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced that the State of South Dakota and the United States Department of the Interior are moving forward with planning for the Mount Rushmore Fireworks celebration to celebrate America’s 250th Birthday. Governor Rhoden and Secretary Burgum signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to move forward with planning.

Here in South Dakota, we’re blessed to have some of the best healthcare in the country. In fact, a recent ranking by WalletHub rated South Dakota 3rd overall for the best health care. Unfortunately, more than half of the state’s residents will pay more for worse health care if a new tax on health insurance passes in Congress.

Dear editor, I am writing this for the readers of my Canadian Perspective Byline articles, which are published in the Gregory, Winner, and Todd County newspapers. I like to use my byline because it gives me more space beyond the 500-word letter to the editor limit.