Bart Pfankuch

HARRISBURG, S.D. – Jodi Kuipers learned the hard way how much time, work and determination it takes to get safety improvements made at a railroad crossing in South Dakota, even at the site of a tragedy that took the lives of two of her closest family members. Driven first by

South Dakota churches will undoubtedly see attendance jump during Easter services on Sunday as Christians come out in large numbers to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But behind the scenes, many church leaders will worry whether they can maintain the holiday momentum as religious affiliation and church attendance continue

Falling attendance and membership at many South Dakota churches has prompted pastors, leaders and elders to look for creative ways to keep people engaged and pursuing a larger purpose. Constanze Hagmaier, bishop of the South Dakota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said that includes using technology to

One of the biggest mysteries in all of South Dakota — the unknown fate of 9-year-old Serenity Dennard — elicits one singular emotion more than any other for those who loved, cared for or searched for the precocious girl who disappeared from a Black Hills youth home more than four years ago.

South Dakota’s Republican congressional delegation and GOP Gov. Kristi Noem supported funding measures signed by President Donald Trump that provided more than $10 billion in federal funding to the state to battle and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. But they’re not so willing to praise a program approved

Each year, trains carry nearly 11 billion pounds of chemicals through South Dakota’s cities and countryside, much of it on century-old tracks, a South Dakota News Watch analysis has revealed. Finding out which specific compounds are in those potentially toxic payloads is extremely difficult or even impossible for the