The Scout, Juna honor Canistota mom as South Dakota’s ‘unsung hero’

Youth leader, nurse, student earns statewide salute from for dedication to children, families and her community as companies team up to give back

Editor’s note: This article is part of a promotional partnership between TheDakotaScout.com and Juna Sleep Systems.

It’s always something. But now it’s a good night’s sleep that’s elusive for a Canistota community leader who juggles full-time parenting with graduate school, youth church leadership and mentorship.

Six years ago, the expense of moving swallowed up Tami Bertelson’s family’s disposable income. A new bed would have to wait.

Then came Bertelson’s entry into a graduate program — part of her effort to someday serve her rural community as a healthcare professional at a time when much of South Dakota and the Upper Midwest faces provider shortages. Again, the mattress stayed on the back burner.

Most recently, the Bertelsons’ furnace quit.

Through it all, she kept at the work she felt called to do. The Canistota nurse, who changed careers in midlife to care for children and now balances full-time parenting, graduate school and church youth leadership, has been selected as the winner of a statewide search for South Dakota’s “unsung heroes.”

Bertelson, a pediatric nurse, mother of three and longtime volunteer, was chosen from dozens of nominations submitted to a joint giveaway sponsored this fall by The Dakota Scout and Juna Sleep Systems. The Sioux Falls companies launched the effort to spotlight quiet community servants — and to award one of them a brand-new Juna mattress valued at more than $5,000.

“There are people all across South Dakota doing quiet, meaningful work to make their neighborhoods and towns better,” said Dakota Scout co-founder Joe Sneve in announcing the initiative earlier this year. “We want to give those folks a little recognition — and maybe help them get the best sleep of their lives.”

Bertelson’s path to nursing wasn’t direct. A former art teacher, she chose a new calling in her late 30s after watching nurses care for her mother-in-law, who had multiple sclerosis.

The inspiration stuck. Deep into her 30s and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she enrolled in nursing school while raising three daughters and managing a household in turmoil like so many others during that period. She graduated with honors, became a pediatric nurse, and has already earned the Daisy Award for exceptional patient care.

But she didn’t stop there.

Bertelson is now on a Doctorate of Nursing Practice track to become a pediatric nurse practitioner — a rigorous four-year program she’s balancing alongside full-time nursing with Sanford Health and full-time parenting.

Outside the hospital, Bertelson leads youth ministry at her church, coordinating volunteers and overseeing weekly middle- and high-school gatherings that now draw more than 80 teens — four times the number from just a few years ago. She also leads a youth praise band and teaches guitar.

Tami said she wants to open a practice in Canistota.

“It’ll prevent people from driving in so many times. Sometimes they drive into Sioux Falls for more than an hour just to see a provider. They just feel more comfortable,” she said. “There’s definitely a need for rural health.”

For the Bertelsons’ husband Jerry, his wife’s recognition has been a long time coming.

“Her motivation isn’t prestige. It’s the faces of children and families who need compassionate care close to home,” he said.

The couple says a new mattress was overdue as well — still sleeping on a long-lumpy one that was no longer delivering restful sleep.

Coincidentally, the need for a new bed revealed itself earlier that morning.

“It was overdue but there was other priorities,” she said. “I actually slept on the couch last night.

“I couldn’t sleep. I tried the couch, and then I went downstairs, and then I came back up. Then I scheduled myself to see the chiropractor tomorrow,” Tami told The Dakota Scout after learning she’d been selected to receive a Juna Sleep Systems bed and mattress.

It could be the last bed they ever sleep on. Juna offers a lifetime guarantee that includes adjustments to firmness as clients’ preferences and needs change with time.

The giveaway was designed with people like her in mind, said Juna sales associate Nate Potratz.

“At Juna, we believe great sleep is the foundation for living your best life,” Potratz said. “But just as important are the people who make our communities stronger, often without recognition. This initiative is our way of saying thank you, of giving back to the unsung heroes who give so much of themselves.”