SCOUTING REPORT | S.D.'s historic brands, Vermillion donor, yielding to terrorists, RIP Sergeant-at-arms

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South Dakota’s rich farming and ranching history includes the countless brands that cattlemen used to mark their animals – in part to identify stolen or loose livestock.

After spending much of his adult life researching and collecting books that documented the state’s cattle brands, longtime Mitchell Technical College agriculture teacher Myron Sonne is donating his collection of more than 70 books to South Dakota State University Archives and Special Collections.

“The earliest editions reflect the open-range practices of the frontier era,” according to SDSU, which announced the donation in a news release this month. “Over time, the books mapped the expansion and movement of livestock and, in more modern times, helped trace the origins of disease outbreaks.”