Elizabeth Ann Hult, 74
October 24, 1950 - August 10, 2025
Elizabeth Ann Hult, age 74, died Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025 in Alcester, South Dakota, surrounded by family. She was born Elizabeth Ann French at St. John’s Hospital in Huron, SD on Oct. 24, 1950, to John and Irene French, a middle child in a group of nine siblings. She attended Huron public schools and graduated high school in 1969.
She gave birth to a daughter, Carrie, in 1970, and spent time with her in Virginia before moving back to Huron. In 1975, as a single mother, she met Dale Hult, a single father to a boy named Jeff. The two would marry in 1977, creating a family of four and the foundation for the full life that followed. Liz gave birth to a son, John, in 1979 and a daughter, Mary, in 1981.
Liz and Dale raised their kids and built their lives in Huron, S.D. As Dale worked at Northwestern Public Service, Liz labored in ways that kept her close to her own children and the children of her community. She ran an in-home daycare in the 1980s, transitioning near the end of the decade to a food service job with the Huron School District. For about a decade, she served hot lunches and kindness at Madison Elementary School, and occasionally Huron Middle School.
All the while, she taught Sunday school at her second home, First Baptist Church. She also helped with Vacation Bible School, served as a counselor at Camp Judson in the Black Hills and chaperoned countless youth group trips in the big, brown GMC van known as “the Gospel Bus.” When her children had grown and departed, she settled into a job at Banner Engineering, working alongside a few of the kids she’d met over the years and often brightening the break room with baked goods for her coworkers. She kept cleaning up, making coffee, handling mail and other secretarial duties, and preparing for Sunday and Wednesday church at First Baptist through 2023.
Liz was a woman of The Word. In heart and deed, her faith in Jesus and His example shone through with grace, love and kindness. No slight was too severe to survive the strength of her forgiveness, no soul too broken to scare off her will to mend it.
Her smiles, particularly for children or anyone she’d known as a child – a group that grew larger with each passing year – were easy and genuine, a reflection of the joy their faces inspired. Her empathy would grow by reflex to meet the challenge of any kid’s skinned knee or disappointment, as their relief would be hers as surely as it would be theirs.
To the adults those children grew into, she’d forever extend the same sweet regard she’d shown them in their youth.
She didn’t forget you, and few could forget her.
For Liz, the human frustrations that so often metastasize into judgment or grudges were speed bumps, cleared easily by prayer and her unfailing trust in the goodness of all God's children.
Her family and community were blessed by her presence. She’ll be sorely missed, but will live on each day we extend the grace she gave us to those around us.
Liz is survived by her husband of 47 years, Dale; children Jeff (Julie) Hult of Huron, John (Janelle Atyeo) Hult of Sioux Falls, and Mary Hult (Nick Sergi) of Jamaica, N.Y.; grandchildren Greta, Penelope and Henrietta Hult of Sioux Falls, Jamie Lorenz of Yankton, S.D., and Ashley and Maurice Erickson of Colorado Springs, Colo.; siblings Rose (Kim Morey) Rangel of Rapid City and Sheri (Jeff) Decker of Huron; and many nieces, nephews, cherished friends and members of her church family.
She was preceded in death by her daughter, Carrie Perillo, in 2024; parents John and Irene French; siblings Leona Phillips, Laverne Voight, Larry, Dale, Gene and Archie French.
A memorial service and celebration of life will take place at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 16, 2025, at First Baptist Church in Huron, S.D., to be followed by a graveside service at Riverside Cemetery in Huron.
Celebrate a life in The Dakota Scout. obits@thedakotascout.com