Bart Pfankuch
Total 299 Posts
Easter Sunday offers break in church attendance decline
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
How some South Dakota churches are adapting to attendance declines
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
Serenity Dennard disappearance: 2019 mystery still causing misery
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 Republicans criticize program that provided $3.8B to state
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
11 billion-pound mystery: The chemicals South Dakota trains carry
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
Civil civics: Observers note more positive pulse in South Dakota politics
As it winds to a close, the 2023 legislative session in South Dakota will likely be remembered as the year of the great tax cut debate and for the somewhat surprising willingness of the GOP-led Legislature to reject several proposals from a popular Republican governor.
But many observers and participants
Exclusive: How South Dakota spent $14 billion of pandemic relief funds
South Dakota received nearly $14 billion in federal COVID-19 funding from March 2020 through January, according to an internal state fiscal report obtained exclusively by South Dakota News Watch.
The document tallies the $13.84 billion intended to help governments, businesses, organizations and individuals survive and recover from a pandemic