G.E.D. - General Educational Development: Provides an avenue for adults or those who did not finish high school to earn an equivalent credential.”

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Government Economic Development: Provides an avenue for politicians to curry favor with selected private businesses by giving them special tax dodges and taxpayer money.

You may have noticed an abundance of news stories and opinion pieces in South Dakota lately around the suddenly controversial term “Economic Development.” This is a reaction by a group of influential and powerful “business leaders,” politicians and quasi-governmental “development” organizations, a group that some of us have labeled “Development Bros,” as a shorthand tool to help with identification.

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Read The Dakota Scout article that inspired this cartoon:

My father came to America with nothing but the clothes on his back and the memory of what happens when governments decide that some human lives do not matter. He survived the Holocaust. He built a life here from scratch. And he taught me that every single life has dignity — and that we must be wise enough and honest enough to defend that dignity in ways that actually work.

That is why I need to talk to you honestly today about where the movement stands, where a recent bill went dangerously wrong and what we must do now.

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During our decades of service in law enforcement, we’ve seen our fair share of what makes South Dakota a great state to call home — and we’ve seen policies that can hold our state back.

Earlier this month, the Rapid City Police Department and Pennington County Sheriff’s Office arrested seven parolees, in one day, after these parolees committed additional crimes while out on “supervision.” In that same week, about 350 miles to the east, the Sioux Falls Police Department arrested an armed individual who was wanted for a probation violation.

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I ignored the request hundreds of times.

For years, I heard the call for more mentors in our community and nodded along in agreement. Mentoring mattered. Kids needed adults to show up. I believed all of that – but I still didn’t sign up. My calendar was full. My work was demanding. My family kept me busy.

Mentoring was good. “People should do that,” I thought.

Last fall, my mindset changed.

The Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation awarded a grant to support the recruitment of more school-based mentors. At the news conference announcing the program, as we spoke publicly about the need for more mentors, something finally clicked.

Why would I expect others to raise their hand if I kept offering my own excuses?

So, I did the simplest thing I could do: I signed up to mentor through Teammates. Every week now, I spend one of my lunch hours with a 3^rd grade student at Cleveland Elementary School.

Once I started, it was clear that time really wasn’t my problem. Intention was.

If we want an engaged, generous community, we must recognize it isn’t someone else’s job.

It’s ours. And, in that moment, I realized, it’s mine.

That realization didn’t just change how I approached mentoring, it changed how I thought about the role of the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation.

We are already deeply involved in the nonprofit landscape through our grantmaking and the generosity of our donors. We know what our local nonprofits need, and we talk about it every day. Volunteering has always been part of my personal life – through my church and other organizations. It’s how I was raised, and it’s how my wife, Sara, and I are raising our family.

What I hadn’t fully connected was how that sense of service could, and should, show up from me as a leader and from the Community Foundation as an employer. We decided to make volunteering a priority.

We’re a small team, and like many teams, we’re busy. It’s never easy to find the time for one more thing – but we committed to it.

The rules were simple: Staff members can take a few hours a month to volunteer. Because we serve as a fiscal sponsor for the program, we suggested school-based mentoring as an option for those unsure where to begin.

More important than the logistics, though, was the understanding behind them.

If “volunteering” shows up on someone’s calendar, we honor it. Meetings might need to move. Someone might not always be available. And that’s OK. We had to have a cultural understanding, together, of what this would mean, and why we thought it was important.

We didn’t want to just give each other permission – we wanted to give one another grace.

As a Community Foundation, we’re well-versed in giving back financially. Not everyone can do that. And nonprofit organizations need support beyond dollars alone. If we believe that, the question becomes: How can we be part of the solution?

So far, it’s been working.

Four of us are mentoring at elementary schools.

Mary Kolsrud, our chief philanthropy officer, is new to mentoring, but having explicit permission was the encouragement she needed to try. So far, she loves it.

Michelle Erpenbach, our director of community initiatives, mentors. Patrick Gale, our vice president of community investment, has spent more than 20 years working with nonprofits. He regularly serves lunch at The Banquet or helps at Bishop Dudley House, and now he also mentors a student.

Not everyone chose mentoring, and that was intentional.

This wasn’t about pushing people toward a single program or initiative. It was about asking a different question: What do you care about – and would you be willing to give your time to it?

For Jacqueline Palfy, our vice president of communications, the answer was easy: Books. Once a month, you’ll find her stocking shelves at Reach Literacy, where the sale of used books supports literacy outreach.

Nate Dally, on our philanthropy team, has donned a Santa hat for years, wrapping and delivering gifts for Sioux Falls Cares.

Others are still figuring out what fits them best, and that’s OK, too. There’s no timeline, no pressure, just a shared understanding that if you want to volunteer, you can.

It’s brought our staff closer together – we talk about what we’re doing and the why behind it.

It’s also brought us closer to the work itself. Sending a check out to a nonprofit matters, but sitting across the table from someone and being present changes you.

For me, I feel more authentic, connected and, frankly, useful.

I know we’re privileged to be able to do this. We’re a small team with a flexible workload. Nobody’s leaving a store unsupervised, an assembly line position vacant or a patient open on the table.

Not every business or every team can give their time in the same way. That’s OK. My ask is to figure out what you can do. Last fall, we shared needs from local nonprofits through The Giving Depot. The community response was amazing. People held food drives at work. They volunteered. They gave money. When they knew how to help, they helped.

We pride ourselves on being a responsive, problem-solving community.

What kind of culture could we create if we valued compassion alongside productivity? What could we do, together, if we gave each other grace to step up in this way?

It can start with something as simple as a lunch break.

Andy Patterson is the CEO of the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation.

Not very long ago I saw a piece in an internet news source, where some, so called, moderate Republicans were interviewed. I found this to be somewhat comical, since they claimed that this was a return to the original Republican Party norm. It still makes me chuckle just a bit when I think about that.

My paternal grandfather was born in 1861 and was a lifelong Republican. My father was a Republican, and I am a Republican. From childhood I knew that Republicans were not moderate in what they believed and practiced.

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Read The Dakota Scout article that inspired this cartoon:

Last week marked a monumental achievement unparalleled in over five decades: a successful human mission around the moon, venturing into previously unexplored territories and expanding the horizons of knowledge for all humankind.

Global unity made this mission possible. The Space Launch System (SLS) that carried the crew around the moon was built through the contributions of nearly every nation on Earth. This mission would not have been possible without that international cooperation. It stands as a testament that when humanity works together across borders, we can achieve the extraordinary.

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As rehabilitation becomes a central topic at a state level, I feel it necessary to address the larger issue, a correctional system that falls short of its most basic focus, incarceration.

Recent reports show South Dakota ranks amongst the highest in the nation for recidivism — No. 9 to be exact. That number alone concerns me, but what’s even more concerning isn’t just the number of repeat offenders, but the number of violent offenders cycling back through a broken system.

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With the legislative session concluded, I would like to offer an update on the work of the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force. I am excited about the reforms so far and the work that is to come.

First, a little background.

Last year, I chaired the prison task force, which led to the approval in September 2025 of a new prison, to be built in northeast Sioux Falls. That task force showed how a deliberate, transparent process can bring people together to solve difficult issues.

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So the first Republican debates for governor are in the books.

The first one always feels a little like a preseason scrimmage. Everybody’s in uniform, but nobody’s quite in midseason form yet. The timing is off, the execution is a little sloppy, and you can tell some folks are still thinking instead of reacting. Fortunately, April brings a couple more chances to clean it up and see who’s actually ready when it counts.

But even with that in mind, a few things stood out.

There is clearly an appetite to run against Pierre. The only problem is they are Pierre. Or have been closely tied to it and now want voters to trust them to fix what their own team built over the last 45-plus years.

That does not mean there are not real issues. Property taxes are real. Affordability is real. Growth is putting pressure on communities in ways we have not seen before.

But it does make the campaign messaging feel a little like someone lighting a fire and then campaigning as the guy who can put it out.

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I don’t know too many people who look forward to Tax Day, but thanks to Republicans’ landmark Working Families Tax Cuts legislation more Americans received good news when they filed their taxes this year.

Without action from Congress, the average South Dakota family would have seen a $2,500 tax hike this year. Republicans were determined to not let that happen, and our landmark legislation not only prevented that tax hike but provided additional tax relief. And as a result, the American people are seeing lower tax bills, and the average tax refund is significantly higher than last year.

The centerpiece of the Working Families Tax Cuts is permanent tax relief for middle-income Americans. In 2017, Republicans lowered tax rates across the board. Last year, we made those lower rates permanent.

We also increased the standard deduction, and we made it permanent too. And on top of that, seniors can now claim an extra $6,000 deduction to further reduce their tax burden.

As its name implies, the Working Families Tax Cuts is also about providing much-needed tax relief to Americans raising a family. After Republicans doubled the child tax credit in 2017, this bill raised it even further and permanently linked it to inflation so that its value will keep pace with the actual cost of raising kids.

This bill also created new investment accounts for parents to invest in their children’s futures and expanded 529 education savings accounts to allow them to be used for a wider variety of education expenses like tutoring, homeschool materials, and vocational training.

The Working Families Tax Cuts is also a game-changer for certain Americans who earn tips and work overtime shifts. Republicans’ landmark bill allows these hardworking people to deduct overtime and tip income and realize significant tax savings as a result. And they are already planning to put that money into their education, savings, toward groceries and rent, or to help raise their families.

In addition to the tax relief this bill provided for families, small businesses and family farms and ranches are seeing tax relief too. They benefit from lower tax rates, as well as the 20 percent 199A small business tax deduction, which is also now a permanent feature of the tax code.

Then there are the investment incentives – like 100 percent bonus depreciation and the research and development tax credit – which are permanent and already helping South Dakota businesses invest in their employees. And this bill also protects a lot more family businesses, farms, and ranches from the death tax and the costly estate planning expenses that come along with it, ensuring those enterprises can stay strong and family-run for generations to come.

Thanks to Republicans’ tax relief, Americans are keeping more of their hard-earned money, and because the Working Families Tax Cuts provides permanent tax relief to hardworking South Dakotans, you don’t have to worry about a tax hike next year or in the years to come.

John Thune is the Republican Senate leader.

Last Sunday, I was surprised to learn the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce was sponsoring a “Good Morning Sioux Falls Mayoral Forum.”

Certain that the Chamber forgot to invite me, a mayoral candidate, I promptly contacted them to check. The man I spoke with on Monday said the forum was a private gathering for members and the Chamber was free to exclude me for supposedly being a distraction at previous Chamber forums.

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With war brewing abroad and a crowded list of spending priorities in Washington, Congress is once again deciding what matters most. While there are countless ticket items, the American family must not be sidelined.

A recent report from the Institute for Family Studies and Center for Christian Virtue tracking marriage rates, family stability, and fertility shows a troubling trend: belief in the American Dream is slipping away.

Just over a decade ago, more than half of Americans believed in this long-standing dream that our Founding Fathers made possible. Today, only one in three do. Congress has a narrowing window to help restore that dream with the upcoming budget reconciliation – a fast-moving process to push through major tax and spending decisions – and it must start with families.

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Read The Dakota Scout article that inspired this cartoon:

South Dakota’s identity is inseparable from its public lands. From the granite faces of Mount Rushmore to the rugged beauty of the Black Hills and the wide-open grasslands, these places define who we are. They power a tourism economy that supports communities across our state.

But the experience visitors expect, and our communities depend on, doesn’t happen by accident. It depends on well-maintained trails, safe roads, reliable water systems and preserved historic structures. And for too long, those essentials have been strained by a growing backlog of deferred maintenance.

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Check out all cartoonist Ryan Stoick’s illustrations done for The Dakota Scout in our DIGITAL ARCHIVES.

After listening to the Mayor’s State of the City, I walked away feeling genuinely optimistic about the future of Sioux Falls — but also reflecting more critically on what lies ahead. The address highlighted many successes, and those achievements speak to the strong momentum our city continues to build.

What stood out most was the report that Sioux Falls is experiencing its lowest violent and property crime rates in nearly a decade, even amid continued population growth. That is both impressive and reassuring, and it reflects the dedication of the public servants who help keep our community safe.

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Lately, it feels like the country skipped Plan A and went straight to Plan B.

Let’s start with this: has there ever been a better named product than Plan B? I mean, whoever came up with that deserves a lifetime achievement award in marketing. No confusion. No ambiguity. Just a simple, clear message: things didn’t go as planned, here’s Plan B. You don’t even need instructions. The name is the instructions.

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In a March 1, 2026, opinion column written by Mr. Fred Deutsch regarding House Bill 1212 – a piece of legislation that was defeated during this winter’s legislative session – the Florence Republican stated it was “a proposal to criminalize women,” and suggested that HB 1212 was rhetoric.

Let’s take a closer look at HB 1212 and see if this bill aligns with what Mr. Deutsch describes.

The first line of the bill reads, in part, “If the death of an individual, including an unborn child, is caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default.”

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