Author Archives: Colton Hall

Autumn Simunek of Hot Springs was crowned Miss South Dakota 2015 Saturday night.

She is the daughter of Kelly and Diane (Harter) Simunek, who grew up in Colome and now live in Hot Springs.

The new Miss South Dakota platform is “5 stars for serving those who served.” For her talent, Simunek performed the classic pop vocal “Hallelujah.” She is the second former Miss South  Dakota Outstanding Teen in a row to win the title of Miss South Dakota.

Simunek won the preliminary talent award Thursday night. She is a 22-year-old senior at the University of South Dakota. She also won the $1,000 Miss America Community Service award, top fundraiser award, state quality of life scholarship, Children’s Miracle Network maker award, as well as $10,000 from the Miss America organization for the Jean Bartel military awareness scholarship.

Simunek will represent South Dakota at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N. J., in September.

The South Dakota Retailers Association (SDRA) Board of Directors created a new scholarship honoring a past president of the organization recently at their annual board retreat.

Tom Morrison, a former SDRA board member from 2002-2009, serving as Board President in 2007, was general manager of the JC Penney store in Rapid City and passed earlier this month. “Tom was a firm believer in the Scholarship Program and the opportunities it creates for young people studying careers in retail,” said SDRA executive director Shawn Lyons.  o ignored

The scholarship, which will come from the overall Jerry Wheeler Scholarship program, will be an additional $500 annually for SDRA’s top scholarship recipient.

SDRA’s Jerry Wheeler Scholarship program is designed to encourage and support students studying for a career in retailing. Since 1992, SDRA has awarded 215 scholarships totaling over $137,900. The scholarship program is named in honor of former SDRA executive director, Jerry Wheeler, who started the program. To learn more about the Jerry Wheeler Scholarship program or the Tom Morrison Scholarship, please visit http://sdra.org and click on training and click on “Scholarship Program.”

BROOKINGS, S.D. – In response to the recent Avian Influenza outbreak, SDSU Extension launched a multi-state approach to providing research-based information and resources to families.

“By leveraging our resources and strategically sharing information with families throughout South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa we are able to provide daily updates and recommendations,” said Suzanne Stluka, SDSU Extension Food & Families Program Director of the cooperative project with Iowa State University Extension and University of Minnesota Extension

Together, extension staff from the three Land Grant Universities will provide families with information on everything from food safety education and stretching food dollars as the cost of eggs and poultry increases to implementing strategies to manage a family’s finances and stress during tough times.

“Avian Influenza has had a very real impact on families – while our SDSU Extension counterparts are working to address producer issues – this group will focus on the families struggling with the human challenges brought on by Avian Influenza,” Stluka explained. “Whether that is ensuring families are implementing the proper food safety techniques when preparing eggs and poultry, the loss of employment or dealing with seeing their food budget increase, as eggs, which are traditionally an inexpensive protein source, have more than doubled in price.”

PIERRE, S.D. – The South Dakota Department of Transportation will be distributing $12.5 million in state highway funds to local governments by the end of June 2015. The funds will go to counties and cities with populations above 5,000, also known as Class 1 cities.

“This past legislative session, Gov. Daugaard not only led the effort to increase funding for state highways, but to lessen the restrictions on how local governments use highway funds,” Transportation Secretary Darin Bergquist said.

In previous years, the federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds that were allocated to each of the counties and Class 1 cities had many restrictions and could only be used on federal-aid eligible projects let to bid through the DOT. These restrictions resulted in several counties and cities accumulating their allocations for years until they were able to use the money on allowable projects.

The annual allocation is now being given to the local governments in the form of state highway funds that can be used on any road or bridge repair or maintenance.

Starting in September, the department will begin issuing checks to replace the accumulated STP balances with state highway funds.

For more information on the program, contact Doug Kinniburgh at 605-773-4284.

Since 2004, when the merit-based South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship was first awarded, observers have credited the scholarship with keeping students in college and completing a degree. Now there are new data to prove that point.

An analysis by the South Dakota Board of Regents looked at 2,652 students from South Dakota high schools who began a bachelor’s degree program in fall 2008 at one of the six state universities. Six years after initially enrolling, nearly nine in 10 students (88.5 percent) who received a South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship either had graduated or were still enrolled in a postsecondary institution.

For students who did not receive or did not qualify for the scholarship, only six in 10 students had similarly persisted.