Category Archives: News

LaVern Nespor, 81

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nespor obit

LaVern Nespor, age 81, of Winner, passed away on Sunday, March 6, 2016 at the Sanford USD Medical center in Sioux Falls.

Funeral Service were held at 10:30 AM Thursday, March 10 at the United Methodist Church in Winner. Burial followed at the Winner City Cemetery.

Vern was born on December 17, 1934 on the family farm near Hamill, SD to Joe and Agnes (Klima) Nespor. He was the youngest of 11 children.

In April 1957 Vern enlisted in the United States Army serving during peace time and then was honorably discharged in April 1959.

Vern married the love of his life, Beverly (Bev) Long on August 9, 1959 and to this union two children were born, Vicki Jean and Scott Alan.

Vern worked in the family hardware store and also as a farmer. He then worked for Carlson Construction as a mechanic, working on trucks and heavy equipment. He also worked for Bachmann Construction and finished up his working career helping his son Scott with carpentry work.

Vern loved hunting, fishing, and working in his garden and yard.

Robert (Bob) Cecil Johnson, 84

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robert johnson obit

Robert (Bob) Cecil Johnson was born on a farm southeast of Lucas, SD, on December 31, 1931, and passed away on Sunday, March 6, 2016, at the age of 84. Bob had been hospitalized in Mitchell, Sioux Falls and Gregory since July 17, 2015, with serious health issues and underwent many surgeries prior to his death at the Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls, SD.

He was the youngest of nine children born to Charles and Olive (Fish) Johnson. He grew up on the family farm and attended schools in the Lucas area. On November 13, 1952, at the age of 20, he enlisted in the Army at Ft. Campbell, KY. During the next two years, Bob was stationed at several military bases. Pvt. Johnson completed an Airborne course at Fort Benning, Georgia. The course was designed to train personnel from all arms and branches of the service as qualified chutists. Bob was also stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia where he took further training in Airborne tactics. Bob received several medals and badges during this time. He was honorably discharged on November 12, 1954.

After returning from the service, he returned home to work with his father and mother, and when his father passed away on February 11, 1966, he took over the family farm. Bob never married but put his heart into the farm. Bob traveled to many states visiting his extended family. He once took a fishing trip to the Florida Everglades with a childhood friend and travelled to Tennessee many times to visit his brother, Almon. His biggest passion was his Hereford cattle and horses. He enjoyed attending many cattle sales, bull sales and rodeos all around the region.

For many years each fall, Bob hosted cowboys from Minnesota making life-long friends. He loved horses. After retiring from the farm and moving to a home near Gregory, SD with his horses, he started building horse-drawn wagons –a hobby that he enjoyed greatly. He loved entering them in local parades and giving rides. Bob was always willing to help anyone, and was a great neighbor to many. He enjoyed many friends and family over the years and especially enjoyed their visits in the hospital during his last few months.

Mack Cox, 65

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cox obit

Mack Cox, age 65, of Colome, passed away on Tuesday, March 8, 2016 at the Winner Regional Healthcare Facility. Memorial Service was held at 9 a.m. Monday, March 14, 2016 at Mason Funeral Home in Winner. Burial will be held at a later date.

A rosary was held held at 7:00 PM Sunday, March 13, 2016 at St. Isidore Catholic Church in Colome.

Mack was born March 16, 1950 in Richmond, VA to George W. and Myrtle (Stiltner) Cox, Mack was one of the first in his family to be born in a hospital. He attended Powhatan Schools and was an amateur boxer through his teens.
After graduation, Mack enlisted in the US Air Force and proudly served his country overseas completing tours in Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Upon his return, he served in Arizona, Denver and finally, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. During his station, he met his wife of forty-three years, Tonna Pechota. They married February 3, 1973 at St. Benedict’s in Richmond, VA and, in 1978, moved back to South Dakota to start their family.

Mack was a self-starter and took enormous pride in his work. He owned Cox Drywall and worked as a subcontractor on huge projects all over the Midwest, away from his family for months at a time. He endured a long battle with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a degenerative disease that finally forced him to retire in 1995.

An avid sports fan, Mack coached all four of his daughters in AAU and YMCA basketball and presided over the Colome Athletic Boosters in the late 80s. He also played slow-pitch softball while on location during many summers on the reservation. A voracious reader, Mack loved arguing politics, sports and history with his friends and, later, his daughters and various strangers on the internet. He was a brilliant bridge player and was rarely contested in Jeopardy! or Trivial Pursuit.

‘Infinite Variety’ Describes South Dakotans

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Boe walking dog at Capitol 1965

What does a modest governor, mountain rescuers and 2,000-pound athletes have in common? All can be found in the pages of our newest issue of South Dakota Magazine.

Our Managing Editor John Andrews writes about Nils Boe, a former governor, federal judge and founder of Augustana University’s Boe Forum on Public Affairs. The story was difficult to research because Boe was a private man with few confidants. He has no surviving family members, was a bachelor and never married. Most of what we learned came from boxes of photos, papers, postcards and report cards archived at Augustana University’s fine Center for Western Studies.

Boe was noted for his quiet ways. When he was elderly and seriously ill, a close friend went to Arizona to help him pack and move to Sioux Falls, where he wanted to live his remaining days. While packing boxes, his friend met a neighbor who told him that Boe had lived next to him for two years before acknowledging that he was once South Dakota’s governor.

Boe died shortly after coming home in 1992 at the age of 79. He is remembered as a champion of education. In 1965, his first year as governor, he proposed a 50 percent increase in education funding. By the time he left office four years later, education funding had increased 90 percent over the previous biennium. Boe also left a legacy by instituting the Boe Forum on Public Affairs at Augustana University. His goal was to bring topics of worldwide concern to South Dakota. He established an endowment to make it happen, stipulating that he wanted the forum to be free. The first event was held in 1995 with General Colin Powell speaking on the Gulf War. Other speakers have included George H.W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Madeleine Albright.

The modest Norwegian governor’s commitment to South Dakota is equaled by volunteers of the Custer Search and Rescue Team who spend thousands of hours training and are on-call 24-7 should someone become lost or injured in the Hills. They’ve had to carry a 200-pound man with a broken ankle from the Cathedral Spires to an ambulance far below. That rescue took 18 people, rotating turns, to accomplish. On another occasion they received a call about a girl missing for four hours in the woods near her home. They found her within 7 minutes by using a trained border collie’s help.

Our March/April issue also features some of the world’s biggest and toughest athletes. “They weigh a ton, can twist and turn like a limber NFL running back and have more tricks than baseball’s best knuckleballers,” writes Bernie Hunhoff in our cover story about South Dakota’s famous bucking bulls. Rodeo now ranks above golf and tennis as a spectator sport, thanks in no small part to the big bulls who entertain the crowds. Some of America’s best and meanest live their off-seasons on a small cluster of ranches east of Pierre.

If you find the bulls interesting then wait until you meet the ranchers who raise them and love them like over-sized pets. When we say South Dakota truly is the land of infinite variety, we’re referring to the people, not the landscapes — and those four-legged champion athletes with horns and tails.

Katie Hunhoff is the editor and co-publisher of South Dakota Magazine, a bi-monthly print publication featuring the people and places of our great state. For more information visit www.SouthDakotaMagazine.com or email Katie at editor@southdakotamagazine.com.

Play has Audience Rolling in the Aisle

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play cast

By Dan Bechtold, Editor

Need some time to laugh, just sit back and relax. Well, you have to see the Winner Community Playhouse production of “Rex’s Exes.”
The opening weekend was this past Friday and Saturday with the cast getting a standing ovation on Friday night.

It is a funny Southern fried farce that will have you rolling in the aisle.

Whether you have had a bad day at work or a challenging week, there is no way to be sad while watching this show.

This play finds the Verdeen cousins of Sweetgum, Texas, on the brink of disaster again. Gaynelle, Peaches and Jimmie Wyvette are the hilarious cousins. Gaynelle, frustrated and frazzled from working too many two-bit jobs, stubbornly refuses to face the fact she turning the big 50. In a misguided effort to lift her cousin’s spirits Peaches, a sassy, mortuarial cosmetologist, is determined to throw Gaynelle a surprise birthday party.

Jimmie Wyvette, riding high on the success of her new wedding gown boutique for big gals—Wide Bride, reluctantly agrees to help Peaches surprise Gaynelle. There are a lot of twists and turns in this play.

Tami Comp as Gaynelle, Sarah Gustafson as Jimmie Wyvette and Barb DeSersa as Peaches are all excellent.

Michele Hagenlock does a good job as LaMerle Verdeen, the matriarch of the Verdeen clan. She is determined to have her good name restored.

There were fine performances by Donna Howland as Bitsy Hargis, a neighbor; Dan Patmore as the thought to be dead husband who has a dark secret; Doug Nelson, as a bounty hunter chasing Rex.

The play features three Winner High School students, Kenzie Irick, Meredith Calhoon and Kallie Foudray. Kenzie plays Cee Cee Windham, a TV show hosts and Kallie plays Marlissa Cruthfield, the third lady of Texas who comes to visit the Verdeen cousins.

Calhoon plays Gentle Harmony, a psychic who is called in to help Peaches.

But the real show stoppers are Linda Watson and Maurice Gustafson as Mamma Doll Hargis and Aubrey Verdeen. The two of them appeared as the same characters in the play “The Red Velvet Cake Wars” which was presented by the playhouse a couple of years ago.

A wonderful job of directing by Sandra York. Dan Patmore did not forego his technical director job to be in this play. He has created a wonderful set in this comedy.

The play will again be presented this weekend March 11 and 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the playhouse. For reservations call the playhouse at 842-1958.
I assure you, you will not be disappointed.

Wrestlers Place in District

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youth dual keiser

Winner youth wrestlers competed in the district tournament March 5 in Kimball. The top 8 placers make it the regional March 12 in Mitchell.

Results from the district include:

6 and under—Gus Tobin and Appolo Willuweit, 1st; Roukyn Robbins, 2nd; Cooper Craven and Teegan Shelbourn, 3rd; Avery Antelope, Logan Calhoon and Hunter Vrbka, all 4th.

7-8—Coy Shelbourn, Rylan Robbins, 1st; Hudson Peters, Brody Calhoon, 2nd; Ash Kaiser and Peydin Peterson, 4th; Robinson LaDeaux, 5th and Carter Craven, 7th

9-10—Ryken Orel, Kylah Biggins, Karson Keiser, Konner Osborn, Landon Calhoon, all 1st; Payton Fisher, Kellen Brozik, both 2nd; Keygan Biggins, 3rd; Kash Peterson, 4th; Kayden Fryer and August Bartels, 5th and Jack Ohlson, 6th

11-12—Maxton Brozik, Riley Shippy, both 1st; Kiersten Fryer, Riley Orel, Jack Peters, all 2nd; Stetson Shelbourn, 4th and Coy Assman, 5th

13-14—Kaden Keiser, Kaleb Osborn, Adam Cole, all 1st; Joey Cole, Achilles Willuweit and Aaron Gilchrist, 2nd and Owen Duffy, 3rd

Galbraith Scores 31 Points

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111015-Galbraith

Dakota State University senior Sharee Galbraith of Winner recently recorded a career high 31 point performance on Feb. 24 against Mayville State University.

The Winner graduate had a 27 point performance on Feb. 6 against Presentation College.

Galbraith, a 6-1 center, averaged 13 points per game and ranks No. 2 in the NAIA in total blocks with 84, also ranking her No. 2 in blocks per game with 2.8.

Wild Wins Two Games

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winner wild team

Winner Wild girls basketball team won two games in the White River jamboree.

The Wild defeated Bennett County 41-3. Leading scorers were Bella Swedlund, 23; Kelsey Sachtjen, 9; Emma Jorgensen, 5; Sidda Schuyler, 2; Hattie Hespe and Kelbi Meiners, all 1.

In the second game, Winner defeated Swoosh 29-18. Swedlund scored 20 points, Hespe, 5 and Sachtjen. 4.

The Wild ended the season with a 20-1 record.

Wilder Wins Games

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winner wilder team

The Winner Wilder competed in the White River jamboree in the 3rd and 4th grade division.

In the first game, Winner defeated Lyman 8-2. Keely Kuil had 6 points and Ava Craven, 2.

In the second game, Winner won 28-2. Kuil scored 10 points, Craven, 8; Kylie Sachtjen, 6 and Lilly Barfuss and Gracie Root, 2 each.

Youths Qualify for State

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tripp co shooting sports wth national PE youth board

Several Tripp County Shooting Sports 4-Hers have qualified for the next level of competition and will advance to the state meet.
Winner Seed is sponsoring the youths who go to state.

The qualifiers in archery are: Megan Brozik, CWS-R 126.03; Browdy Kocer, CWS-R 121.02; Wade McClanahan, compound open 150.24; Ryder Mortenson, CWS-R 110.03; Tane Pravecek, CWS-R 144.08; Rylee Schroeder, CWOS 75; Madison Weidner, CWS-R 123.05.

BB gun—Derek Fenenga, 320; Ellison Kaiser, 335; Ashlynn McPhee, 282; Rylee Schroeder, 315; Clay Sell, 317; Ryan Sell, 337.01; Alex Week, 277

22 rifle—Parker Baker, 214; Spencer Calhoon, 238.02

22 pistol—Wade McClananahan, 246.905; Tane Pravecek, 231.01

air pistol—Parker Baker, 126; George Clark, 102; Emmarie Kaiser, 141; Hunter Osborn, 140 and Wade McClanahan, 156.