The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council will be asked to approve a search for the remains of a Black civil rights activist who disappeared during the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff. He is likely buried on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Perry Ray Robinson Jr. was 35 years old when he left his home in Bogue Chitto, Alabama, in April 1973 to answer a call for help from the American Indian Movement. For 71 days, AIM members and supporters occupied the village and exchanged gunfire with federal agents gathered around its perimeter. Robinson never returned, was later declared dead without his body being found, and no one was ever charged.

His name came to light after two men were indicted in 2003 on charges they killed Canadian Annie Mae Aquash in December 1975 in South Dakota’s badlands.

Arlo Looking Cloud was arrested in Denver. A federal jury in Rapid City convicted him in 2004 of murder. He was sentenced to life in federal prison, but that was later reduced to 20 years because of his cooperation and acceptance of responsibility. He was released in 2019.

The other man, John Graham, fought extradition from his native Canada. A state jury in Rapid City convicted him of murder in 2010 and he is serving a life prison sentence at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Hulu documentary about Aquash

Justin Baker, 40, who lives in Mission on South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian Reservation, started the latest effort to search for Robinson’s body.

He has been following the Aquash and Robinson cases since Looking Cloud and Graham were indicted. That included reading media accounts and documents released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. Baker said he also spent considerable time with Leonard Crow Dog, a Sicangu Lakota medicine man and AIM’s spiritual leader who died in 2021.

Baker said he was prompted to action after watching a recent documentary about Aquash on the streaming service Hulu entitled “Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae.”

Witnesses testified that Aquash, who also responded to AIM’s request for help and rose to prominence in the organization, was killed because she was suspected of being an informant.

“I started thinking, ‘Why can’t they do something for this man, Ray Robinson?'” Baker said.  

He called Paul DeMain of Hayward, Wisconsin, the former editor of the News From Indian Country newspaper who extensively investigated the Aquash and Robinson cases.

Among the people DeMain put Baker in touch with was Robinson’s widow, Cheryl Buswell-Robinson, and their son, Deeter Robinson.

“I asked Deeter, I said, ‘What would you like me to tell people?’ And he said what it was like growing up without a dad, not having somebody at my sporting events, not having a man’s guidance, not having a father to lean on, and it caused a lot of hardships in my life,” Baker said of the conversation.

“This is somebody’s family that was destroyed and is still hurting 52 years later, and there are still people remaining silent.”

Concerns about 1890 massacre site

DeMain had already done extensive work trying to identify Robinson’s likely resting place. Baker took up the cause using tribal channels.

“I wanted to create a grassroots effort because I think everything else has been tried already,” he said.

Baker presented a resolution to and received unanimous support for it in May from the Sicangu Lakota Treaty Council. That group in the Great Sioux Nation advocates for Native treaty rights and inherent sovereignty. The document’s purpose was to start building support for a culturally sensitive search for Robinson’s remains on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Baker then went to the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s land committee on Pine Ridge, which rejected the request for a search, saying it could unearth remains or artifacts from the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre.

Baker said the search would only involve a cadaver dog or ground-penetrating radar that would not disrupt the land. And the area already has been disturbed, he said.

“Wherever Ray is laying was already disturbed through the form of buildings, construction within the downtown Wounded Knee area, or it was disturbed in 1973 from digging bunkers,” Baker said.

Baker has drawn up a resolution he plans to present to the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, which includes the Sicangu Lakota Treaty Council resolution and letters of support from elders, descendants of the 1890 massacre and others.

The document, viewed by South Dakota News Watch, calls for all Lakota tribes, in collaboration with Buswell-Robinson and cultural experts, to create a working group to oversee a non-invasive search for the remains of Robinson. The effort would include historic preservation officers, spiritual leaders and elders, the Robinson family, Indigenous archaeologists and forensic scientists and independent advisers.

“This resolution does not seek the removal or exhumation of any remains but seeks only to locate, document and honor the possible resting place of Perry Ray Robinson Jr.,” it states.

The document also calls for transparency and respect of those who died in 1890 and might have been killed on the site in 1973.

“We’re asking to search the ground that already has been disturbed and is a long way from the burial of the 1890 massacre victims,” Buswell-Robinson said.

Tribal leaders did not respond to a request for comment.

Widow hopes for Robinson’s return

Besides a son, who has children, the Robinsons have two adult daughters in Detroit, Desiree Marks and Tamara Fant, who have their own children and grandchildren.

“I’m 80 and doing fine. I’d like to get Ray back here before I’m dead,” Buswell-Robinson said. “I’m excited about it because Justin (Baker) is so excited.

“He’s been wonderful to follow and has a strategy.”

Buswell-Robinson said that because she’s in Detroit, she doesn’t have the connections or know the local structures or politics like Baker does.

Based on her recollections and letters she wrote in the years after her husband’s disappearance, she believes he probably was killed because he naively thought he could turn an unorganized situation into a focused demonstration.

His nonviolent approach probably was not well received at what was a violent situation, Buswell-Robinson said. And it’s possible AIM members suspected he was a federal informant, which he was not, she said.

FBI documents include references to fresh graves

Two American Indians were confirmed to have died during the 1973 siege, and rumors of other deaths persist. FBI documents that are now public suggest the possibility of other people buried at Wounded Knee during the occupation.

A May 1973 memo says the FBI talked to a man who reported grave sites just outside of Wounded Knee. Another, a few days later, states that an Interior Department official “observed several fresh graves” at Wounded Knee. One of the graves belonged to one of the two Native Americans killed, the memo states.

There’s no mention of Ray Robinson in the FBI correspondence, but two documents reveal the presence of two Black people toward the end of the standoff.

A May 5, 1973, transcript of an interview with a man who claimed to be at Wounded Knee the week prior stated “he heard that one black man and one black woman had recently arrived.”

A May 21, 1973, FBI memo reported that a Native woman who left the village a month earlier counted 200 Indians, 11 whites and two Blacks. Buswell-Robinson said those two were most likely Ray Robinson and a woman from Alabama who went with him.

She returned after the standoff. He didn’t.

This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they’re published. Contact Carson Walker at carson.walker@sdnewswatch.org.

The South Dakota Supreme Court will decide the legality of a disputed lease signed by dozens of people who live in former military munitions bunkers located near Edgemont in southwestern South Dakota.

The high court will consider an appeal by the owners of the residential community who lost a recent circuit court case, brought by a former tenant, in which a judge ruled the lease to be legally unenforceable.

The community, known as Vivos xPoint, includes hundreds of above-ground, earth-covered concrete bunkers that were used by the U.S. military from 1942 to 1967 to store conventional and chemical munitions in a town once known as Igloo.

A large portion of the former Black Hills Army Depot munitions facility was purchased and developed in 2016 by California businessman Robert Vicino. The 2,200-square-foot bunkers are now rented as residences, mostly to survivalists or “preppers,” who want to live off the grid and be positioned to survive a global catastrophe.

Legal issues at Igloo bunker community

According to prior reporting by News Watch, the residential community located on windswept prairie land 8 miles south of Edgemont has been beset by conflicts between residents and employees, numerous lawsuits, several complaints to the state attorney general’s office and a near-fatal shooting of a complex employee in 2024.

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News Watch showed that Vivos has failed to follow through on promises to outfit the community with numerous amenities and employs at least one onsite worker with a violent criminal record. In a prior interview, Vicino said those who complain are “bad apples” and that most Vivos tenants are happy with their treatment.

People who live in bunkers or have them ready to occupy do not buy them outright. Instead, they pay an upfront fee of up to $55,000 and sign a 99-year lease that governs the landlord-tenant relationship.

The 14-page lease has become the subject of lawsuits after it was used as the basis to evict several bunker residents, who then lose the right to occupy the bunkers despite paying the upfront fees and a monthly service fee.

J. Scott James, an attorney in Custer who represents several former Vivos residents on a number of separate claims, said the circuit judge’s ruling in late April rejected claims by Vivos that the lease was valid and accepted his client’s claims that the lease was unenforceable by law.

“The judge agreed with our argument that the lease was illegal,” he said.

The attorney for Vivos, Eric Schlimgen of Spearfish, did not return calls from News Watch seeking comment. But Schlimgen has appealed the circuit judge’s ruling, which will bring the matter before the Supreme Court.

Appeal prompted by pulled gun

The high court will review an ongoing case in which former Vivos resident Daniel Sindorf, who signed a lease in 2020, was later evicted by Vivos. The eviction came after a July 2023  incident in which Sindorf pulled out a gun after he said he felt threatened by a Vivos employee’s dogs.

Sindorf said he and his wife had felt threatened by the loose dogs on several occasions and pointed the gun at the ground in the area where the dogs were present.

Vivos argues in court documents that Sindorf had pointed the gun directly at the girlfriend of a Vivos employee and was therefore in violation of the lease and subject to eviction.

The legal case hinges on language within the lease, including changes made after Sindorf signed it.

Vivos states that several months prior to the July 2023 confrontation, the company added an addendum to the lease making it a violation to “brandish” a weapon outside of designated shooting areas within Vivos. The company said Sindorf received a copy of the addendum, which it said was emailed to Vivos leaseholders.

Sindorf’s attorney, however, argued in the lawsuit that the lease and therefore the eviction were both illegal because it is not lawful to make changes to a signed lease without consent of both parties or without recourse by the tenant.

“Our argument essentially was that the lease wasn’t binding on Mr. Sindorf because they could change the rules at anytime they want to,” James told News Watch. “Unlike other legal contracts, there was no cancellation option, no way for him to pull out of that and no recourse.”

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In a three-page ruling, Circuit Judge Scott A. Roetzel agreed, noting that, “the 99-year lease is an illusory contract that plaintiff (Vivos) can unilaterally modify the terms of at any time with no resource for defendant (Sindorf).”

Some claims not addressed in ruling

The initial lawsuit filed by Sindorf demanded that he and his wife be refunded the majority of the $35,000 they paid up front to lease a bunker for 99 years and for the monthly fees that were supposed to go toward amenities and services the lawsuit alleges were never provided.

“Plaintiff (Vivos) accepted the common area fees, but failed to complete its obligations … specifically there was no evidence of potable water, and no trash removal was ever done as described, and no security was provided as described,” Sindorf’s lawsuit states.

The judge’s April ruling did not address those claims or others raised in the initial filing. Sindorf continues to pay monthly fees to Vivos, though that money will now be held in escrow, according to court documents.

James and Vivos are both seeking clarification from the Supreme Court on whether the April ruling negates the entirety of the lease, which also contains controversial elements that include fines or possible eviction if tenants talk to the media and does not allow for return of any funds paid if eviction takes place.

Notice of an appeal has been filed with the Supreme Court, and Vivos xPoint must file the formal appeal by June 16, according to an employee in the Supreme Court clerk’s office. Sindorf’s legal team will then have 45 days to respond. After that, the court could decide to hear oral arguments or just review the entirety of court filings made so far before making a ruling, the employee said.

James said Judge Roetzel has placed a stay on several other pending eviction lawsuits filed by former tenants as the current case moves forward. Several other claims and counter claims involving Vivos are still pending in the courts.

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James previously told News Watch that Vivos finds ways to evict tenants and then re-leases their bunkers with a requirement that new tenants pay the upfront and monthly fees.

“A lot of these people paid between $35,000 to $50,000 for what Vivos calls a 99-year lease on these bunkers. And if it’s truly a 99-year lease, and you’re evicting my client in year three or four, and they’ve prepaid 95 years of lease money, then you should have to give it back, at least a prorated amount,” James said in 2024. “They (Vivos) get to say, ‘OK, we just get to keep reselling these things over and over to people,’ and that seems like it’s an inequitable relationship.”

James said a high court ruling in his client’s favor could affect not only the ongoing lawsuits by former Vivos tenants but could set a precedent that it would be illegal for one party to alter contracts signed in South Dakota without the other party’s consent.

This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they’re published. Contact Bart Pfankuch at bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.

The boards that oversee South Dakota’s 10 public colleges are drafting policies in accordance with a new state law that will allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus.

Starting July 1, the four-year and technical institutions will no longer be able to restrict the lawful concealed carry of firearms and weapons on campuses.

Senate Bill 100 (SB 100), which Gov. Larry Rhoden signed into law on March 31, makes South Dakota the 12th state to allow concealed carry on college campuses. It applies to students 18 and older and staff members who have an enhanced permit that requires the person to take a handgun safety course and abide by other requirements.

South Dakota is a constitutional carry state as of 2019, meaning anyone over 18 who can legally possess a firearm does not need a permit to lawfully conceal carry. Prior to SB 100’s passage, individual schools set their own policy regarding concealed carry on campus. No regental or technical institution permitted weapons or firearms on campus.

“The safety and well-being of students, employees and guests will always be our top priority,” Shuree Mortenson, director of communications for the Board of Regents, said in an email to News Watch. “We have been in communication with all our universities to navigate this change.”

Campus-specific restrictions to comply with the new law are not yet in place, and a draft policy will be available at the Board of Regents meeting July 16-17.

Regental campuses are currently working on identifying spaces where guns will be restricted and developing the proper notifications, Mortenson said.

Those campuses are Black Hills State University in Spearfish, Dakota State University in Madison, Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota State University in Brookings and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

How technical colleges are responding to the law

The new law also applies to the states’ four technical colleges: Lake Area Technical College in Watertown, Mitchell Technical College in Mitchell, Southeast Technical College in Sioux Falls and Western Dakota Technical College in Rapid City.

Prior to this bill, all four institutions banned firearms and weapons on campus.

The South Dakota Board of Technical Education, which oversees the four campuses, will implement a new system-wide policy to comply with the law. Executive Director Nick Wendell said the goal is to have a policy affirmed by July 1.

While the policy will be system-wide, Wendell said institutions will individually determine whether there are certain environments where they will provide secured storage.

Wendell doesn’t envision dramatic changes to the campus environment with this bill.

“I think we have lots of folks in our communities and already on our campuses that maybe had an interest in concealed carrying,” Wendell said. “This just ensures that everybody is aware of what the parameters are on concealed carry.”

Bill does not apply to private institutions

SB 100 does not apply to private institutions. All private schools in South Dakota have policies against allowing concealed carry on campus, and none plans to change in response to the new law.

Firearms and weapons of any kind are not permitted at Augustana University, located in Sioux Falls. The school provides secure storage for hunting weapons in the department of campus safety.

At Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, firearms and weapons are prohibited on campus. Students can have an unloaded hunting rifle or shotgun locked inside the trunk of their vehicle or in the school’s locked gun safe. Ammunition cannot be stored with the firearm.

Mount Marty University in Yankton also has a policy against firearms and weapons on campus.

No weapons or firearms are allowed at the University of Sioux Falls. Students are encouraged to find safe storage off campus.

Student perspectives on the law 

Blake Gibney, a recent South Dakota State University graduate, supports SB 100. Gibney served as a senator on SDSU’s Students’ Association. He voted no on a Students’ Association resolution in February that opposed SB 100.

Gibney enjoys South Dakota’s constitutional carry law. He currently owns a gun and conceal carries without an enhanced permit. If he wasn’t moving out-of-state, he would have gotten his enhanced permit to carry on campus, he said.

Gibney thinks requiring an enhanced permit for on-campus carrying was important to include in the bill.

“I do enjoy constitutional carry,” Gibney said. “But the 18- to 21-year-old component of having that at a university, an educational-based institution, I think (the enhanced permit requirement was) appropriate.”

Hannah Meland, who was a junior at the University of South Dakota last school year, told USD student newspaper The Volante that she opposes the law.

“Statistically, college is one of the hardest times on mental health and by allowing guns on campus, I feel we are allowing more opportunities for unsafe situations involving a firearm to occur,” Meland said.

What the law allows

Under the new law, students and staff may only conceal carry with the required restricted enhanced permit or enhanced permit. Open carry is not authorized. When an individual is not concealed carrying a firearm or in possession of a self-defense item and remains on campus, the item must be stored in a locked case or safe.

Institutions may impose restrictions in specific high-risk areas, including: 

• Hazardous material areas, such as locations with large amounts of flammable liquids, toxic chemicals or gas cylinders.
• Research and manufacturing rooms, where airborne particles must be controlled.
• Secure areas, including facilities requiring federal security clearance.
• Special events, if security measures like metal detectors and armed personnel are in place.

Expert concerned about increased suicides

College campuses have been relatively safe compared to other settings when it comes to gun violence, said Jaclyn Schildkraut, a national expert on school and mass shootings and executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium.

“We know that they (colleges) are not immune to gun violence, whether that’s random incidents of gun violence or a mass shooting or things of that nature,” Schildkraut said. “Those things can happen anywhere. They happen in red states, blue states, they happen in big cities, they happen in rural areas, they happen all over the place. But by and large, our campuses are incredibly safe.”

The big question then, according to Schildkraut, is, “What is the benefit of allowing people to carry on campus versus what are the potential risks?”

One risk is the potential loss of open expression of ideas, Schildkraut said. What happens to the academic environment when students are worried about who is carrying a gun, rather than what is being discussed in class?

Another risk with increased firearms, particularly in dorms, is suicide. The part of the brain that handles impulse control is not fully developed until age 25.

Individuals are at a much greater likelihood to be the victim of suicide than the victim of homicide, Schildkraut said.

“When you’re feeling very suicidal, you’re not thinking about, ‘How do I take a pause and get through this?’ It’s, ‘Oh my God, I need to deal with it right now,'” Schildkraut said.

Recap of legislative journey

SB 100 was introduced into the Senate State Affairs Committee on Jan 27. The bill’s prime sponsor was Sen. Mykala Voita, a Republican from Bonesteel.

Proponents argued that no South Dakota law prohibits law-abiding residents from carrying onto a campus with a firearm because of constitutional carry. Voita said school policy is limiting students and staff from potentially defending themselves.

Sheila Gestring, president of the University of South Dakota, spoke in opposition to the bill on behalf of all six Board of Regents presidents. Gestring advocated for institutions to be able to place some restrictions on where concealed carry is allowed on campuses.

The bill passed through the committee to the Senate floor with a 7-2 vote.

On the Senate floor, Amendment 100E was adopted Feb. 12. The amendment provided institutions with some jurisdiction on where concealed carry can happen on campus. It also required firearms to be locked securely when not in use and made an enhanced permit necessary to carry on campus.

With the amendment, the bill passed 33-2 and moved onto the House State Affairs committee. Nathan Lukkes, executive director of the Board of Regents, spoke in opposition. Lukkes was appreciative that senators and the Board of Regents came to a compromise to adopt Amendment 100E.

However, Lukkes said the BOR had hoped to keep 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying on campus because “the potential consequences of an increased presence of firearms in the dorms” was a big safety concern for the regents.

Jenna Severyn, lobbyist for the South Dakota Police Chiefs’ Association, also spoke in opposition to the bill as amended. Severyn said individuals should not be expected or relied on to step in for law enforcement in the chance of a serious event. Another concern was that local law enforcement and campus police will not know who is carrying and who is not, should an altercation break out.

SB 100 passed the committee with a vote of 10-3 and moved onto the House floor.

On the House floor, Republican Rep. Marty Overweg, a New Holland resident, spoke in favor of the bill. He said 18-20 year olds that can drive, vote and go to war should be able to carry a gun.

“I don’t think taking a person’s God-given right as an American citizen, because I’m worried some accident might happen … that’s not up to me,” Overweg said. “That’s not my job here as a legislator.”

“Our rights were given to us by our forefathers,” Overweg added. “Think back how many people in the history of the United States have died protecting every one of those rights. They didn’t die so we could sit here as a legislature and take rights away from law abiding citizens … The fact of the matter is, we’re a concealed carry state.”

The South Dakota House of Representatives passed SB 100 with a vote of 55-17 on March 6. Rep. Gov. Rhoden signed the measure on March 31 and will go into effect July 1.

This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they’re published. Emily DeCock is a student at South Dakota State University in Brookings. She received the 2025 Jeffrey B. Nelson Investigative Journalism Endowed Internship and Chuck Raasch and Sandy Johnson Scholarship from the SDSU Foundation. Contact Emily: emily.decock@sdnewswatch.org.

MITCHELL, S.D. – The snow’s blowing sideways, the heavy stuff. It’s one of the few winter storms this year and it happens to fall on the first days of March, calving season.

I arrive at Steve Easton’s farm in Hanson County in southeastern South Dakota, prepared, wearing long underwear, snow pants, ski mask. What I was not prepared for was finding Steve, in a T-shirt and jeans sitting at his kitchen table.

“You look like you’re dressed for bad weather,” Steve smiles.

He has no plans to go outside today. And he doesn’t need to. From where he sits, he has a crystal-clear view of those cows that are close to labor on a TV divided into eight smaller screens, one for each camera.

One screen shows a cow standing, sometimes slightly swaying looking uncomfortable. Is she due soon? Steve pulls out his smartphone and opens an app connected to the cameras. “On the phone, you can actually enlarge it.” He zooms in on the ear tag. The number confirms she’s the one that’s due any day now.

I was shocked: “That is insane.”

The last brush I had with calving was in the early ‘90s at a friend’s ranch, where every two hours they rode a four-wheeler through the pasture to check on cows.

Record low cattle numbers

I had intended to write about hard-working, down-to-earth South Dakotans. Lately, any national news about our state dealt with politics. South Dakota’s more than that. It’s calving season, so I searched for a rancher.

But Steve’s calving cameras blew me away — and led me on another journey to understand how science and technology have made calving more efficient. Read: saving money.

The number of cattle in the U.S. today is at a record low, numbers not seen since 1951, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over the years, historic drought conditions left little food for cows in the pasture and forced producers to sell their herds.

In 2024, Americans ate around 59 pounds of beef on average, up from the year before, according to the USDA. Short supply and strong demand mean a higher price. Add a recent temporary ban on importing beef from Mexico due to a parasite and USDA estimates that beef prices will hit new highs in 2026.

Ranchers are looking for efficiency: How to consistently produce the best beef that consumers want. In South Dakota, it’s big business with four times as many cattle as humans.

The cost of raising cattle for beef is an investment. Depending on feed costs and operation size, producers can spend hundreds to thousands raising a single animal before it goes to slaughter, confirms Erin DeHaan, South Dakota State University professor and extension beef specialist.

Too expensive to just cross their fingers and pray that it all works out.

A family affair

Easton calves part-time. In search of a larger, full-time calving operation, I traveled just 10 miles from the North Dakota border near Leola to a fourth-generation ranch with around 1,000 head of cattle. Turning off the gravel road, I pass under a 16-foot tall wooden archway with a large sign “Erdmann Ranch” hanging from the top.

A red tractor-trailer is backed up to the cattle corral. A handful of Erdmann family members are loading up their Black Angus heifers — each weighing around 1,100 pounds. These are year-old cows that have yet to get pregnant.

“Hupt! Here we go girls,” commands the matriarch, Anne Jo Erdmann. Anne pronounced Annie, or just call her AJ. “One of my boys gives me crap. He goes, ‘Mom, you’re a 56-year-old grandma. You don’t need to use initials anymore.’” 

But AJ is easier than people repeatedly misspelling Anne Jo. “It pisses me off.”

She’s easy to spot with her purple snow pants and hot pink hoodie poking through her winter coat.

She’s joined by her son, husband, his brother, nephew and his wife. They use various commands to get the heifers to move. “Haaww!” “Let’s go ladies.” There’s a lot of whistling and counting. They need to fit 58 on this load.

The heifers stomp and moo in protest. The Erdmanns use a cattle prod and paddle to get them moving as they funnel through, single file, up the ramp and into the back of the two-story trailer.

In the corral, Anne Jo endearingly calls out “Hey, Lovey.” Does she call all heifers by that name? No – Lovey, or No. 463, is special.

She looks the same as the others with her jet-black hide. But Lovey’s calm demeanor makes her stand out as they are loaded onto the tractor-trailer. Lovey came from a very planned pregnancy, an investment aided by technology that started before she was even a twinkle in a bull’s eye.

The other AI

Whether Lovey’s life will be a success has been tested for generations by trial and error.

“We’re kind of rigorous. We’re kind of picky,” says Anne Jo.

The Erdmanns prefer cows with structurally correct feet and legs, features that indicate a long lifespan. Angus can live up to 10-15 years. They want cows with nice round udders and good teeth and temperament, indicators of being a nurturing mama.

All those features are held by another cow, Queen of Wetonka, named after the tiny town of 16, south of Leola. When a cow has a name, she’s a prize, a nice pet deserving of special treatment.

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Queen of Wetonka has been with the Erdmanns for years and already had birthed three calves by 2023 when they were ready to breed her again. They will use the other AI — artificial insemination.

But first they have to choose a bull.

The bull: By the numbers

It’s a family research effort. Anne Jo, her husband, Dan, their son, Royce, and his Uncle Joe all flip through glossy magazines with high-quality profile photos of bulls, complete with bios and stats. Like a dating profile but with more accurate information.

They search online profiles and talk to other ranchers about their favorite bulls.

Anne Jo is also a sperm dealer. She sells and delivers straws of bull semen to customers. She got an alert about a young bull out of Montana named Spectrum. “We liked his numbers. We liked his pedigree,” Anne Jo says.

One look at his profile page and you can see why. His photo, taken by a professional photographer, shows a side profile of pure black Spectrum standing in fresh hay. This literal stud was born on Valentine’s Day in 2020.

His bio speaks for itself: “He is the perfect combination of Cow Sense & Science and will raise the bar for nearly every measurable trait.”

Below Spectrum’s auspicious birthday is his scrotal circumference: 40 cm, or about 16 inches. The science behind the size shows positive correlation with his daughters maturing early and allowing them to become pregnant sooner. And typically, the bigger the size, the greater the sperm count, which increases the likelihood of pregnancy.

But there is such a thing as too big. It’s a sign of an injury or a growth, both red flags for fertility.

If you click on Spectrum’s extended online profile, more than 100 different numbers pop up. The stats show everything from his offsprings’ average birth weight to how his daughters perform as first-time moms to the marbling score of his offsprings’ beef.

It also shows the accuracy of those stats: The more offspring, the greater likelihood a future calf will follow Spectrum results. He’s fathered more than a thousand.

While those stats configure into Erdmann’s decision, what matters most is temperament. “We don’t want anything that’s got any kind of a wonky, snarky temperament,” says Anne Jo.

And there’s a stat for that. Spectrum’s docile score shows his offspring are more calm compared to others.

Diversify to increase success

But numbers aren’t everything. Both Anne Jo and Steve Easton tell me some producers have been known to fudge their stats, hiking up the value of their bulls.

“That’s why we don’t hop in, hog wild, and breed all of our heifers to just one brand new bull. We’ve seen the next ‘Wonder Bull’ umpteen times,” Anne Jo says.

The Erdmanns diversify, choosing multiple bulls’ semen. Beyond the numbers, they also do their own social networking: asking around and finding out how offspring behaved for other ranchers.  

Spectrum fit the bull bill, so the Erdmanns purchased several straws of his semen and inseminated around 20 cows, including Queen of Wetonka in 2023.

To check for a viable pregnancy, they hire a traveling veterinarian from Missouri. With a portable ultrasound machine, he takes just seconds to check if a cow is expecting. The ultrasound image projects on special eye glasses he wears, saving time and effort lugging around a screen.

Spectrum’s semen took and the Queen is indeed pregnant and will be for nine months.

When Queen is close to giving birth, she’s moved into one of the barns with cameras to watch over her labor.

Cameras were a game-changer

This technology was a turning point on the Erdmann ranch. Royce, representing the fourth and youngest generation, tried for years to persuade his dad to add cameras to the farming operation.

“Nope. We don’t need it,” Royce remembers Dan’s repeated reply.

Royce, a board member on the South Dakota Angus Association, heard from other ranchers loving their cameras, wishing they’d installed them sooner. So Royce called the company himself and ordered a camera system at his own expense.

“They installed it. And he said it was stupid,” Royce says.

It didn’t take long for his dad to jump on board.

The cameras mean freedom. Now they can run into town and still check the status of calving on their smartphones, which they can also do from the comfort of bed. It also allows pregnant cows to labor in peace, without disruption.

The technology also saves lives, Steve Easton attests. The eight cameras, which cost him around $2,500, enables him to quickly spot a calf in trouble, such as having its cord wrapped around the neck, being born in the gestational sac or rejected by its mama.

“So if you save one calf, it pays for itself in a year,” Steve says.

But there’s something worth even more than money.

“Our time is so valuable, and I don’t think many of us put a dollar value to our time or even to our health, to tell you the truth,” says Robin Salverson, a cow/calf field specialist with South Dakota State University Extension.

No. 463

Queen of Wetonka, a veteran mama, had an uneventful labor and gave birth to a healthy female calf, No. 463, on March 6, 2024. Anne Jo rattles off the calf’s numbers like it’s her own Social Security number. A true heir of her parents, this calf appears to be calm.

In every herd, the Erdmanns take two heifers with nice temperaments they can easily break. The nice ones tend to lead the herd and make it easier to corral them.

The chosen ones are brought to fairs to be shown. Calf No. 463 shows promise. “She’s just so appreciative of being scratched and brushed and washed and loved. And so we just named her Lovey,” Anne Jo says.

Lovey’s a pet, a sweetheart, who loves to lick. “She licks your jeans. She’ll lick your arm.”

And she shows well, placing second in her class, reserve calf champ at the South Dakota State Fair in Huron.

But any rancher’s goal is to turn a heifer into a cow that successfully carries a healthy calf. And once they reach a year old, heifers are ready to be bred.

Helping nature along

The weather is starting to turn on the Erdmann ranch, the April winds picking up and it’s starting to spit. The Erdmanns are on their last load and have a herd in the cattle corral.

Lovey’s easy for Anne Jo to spot. While they all look alike, completely black, Anne Jo knows her prized pet. Lovey’s the one with kind, hazel eyes that wiggles her way up to the front of the herd.

With Lovey and the other heifers loaded, the tractor-trailer heads 25 miles south to her mother’s namesake, Wetonka, the south ranch. There Lovey shares 80 acres of pasture with 39 other heifers.

Renewable energy industry powers new job growth in SD

With new wind farms leading the way, South Dakota and its strong technical college system have put the state on the forefront of training needed energy workers.

South Dakota News WatchBart Pfankuch

By mid-May, Lovey and the other heifers in the herd are ovulating. On a Friday, the Erdmanns remove their intrauterine device, or IUD, birth control and give each one a hormone shot to get their cycles in sync.

Just days later, on a rainy and cold Monday, the Erdmann family gathers to insert straws of semen into the heifers one by one. Anne Jo also discovers her purple snow pants aren’t waterproof. “I got wet all the way down to the skin. Man, we were so cold on Monday.”

Lovey is inseminated with a new bull Erdmanns want to test out. A young guy named Grindstone from North Platte, Nebraska.

Three weeks later, they’ll release the cleanup bulls into the pasture to impregnate any heifer whose AI didn’t take.

When the veterinarian does ultrasounds in August, he can usually spot the typical 2-pound difference between an AI calf and a cleanup calf conceived three weeks later, which helps identify the father.

Cows must carry their weight

If Lovey’s pregnant and all goes well, with her easy temperament and natural maternal instincts, she can reasonably stay on the Erdmann ranch for years as a breeder.

“So hopefully, she’s able to level up and accept the challenge that we set in front of her,” Anne Jo says.

They are picky. You have to be when your livelihood is on the line. If Lovey isn’t pregnant, “she goes to town,” sold for slaughter.

They’ve done it before. There was Barbara. “Barbara was the nicest heifer. Just loved her,” Anne Jo says. You can hear a little sadness in her voice. 

But ranching is a business. “And that’s where tough love comes into play,” she says.

“Why would you keep a heifer that’s not paying her way? Do you want those kind of genetics kept in your herd?”

Lovey alive is more valuable to the Erdmanns. She helps lead the herd and could possibly produce several calm offspring like herself. But if this pregnancy doesn’t take, prices are high for beef this year and are expected to continue to climb in 2026. But just like any market, there’s uncertainty.

“We don’t have crystal balls. We pray a lot,” Anne Jo says.

And that’s something technology just can’t do.

This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they’re published. Contact Megan Luther at megan.luther@sdnewswatch.org.

The Brookings eighth grader who represented South Dakota at this week’s Scripps National Spelling Bee made it to the third round of the contest that was won by a 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, who was runner-up last year.

Amanuel Gemechis, a 14-year-old student at George S. Mickelson Middle School in Brookings, earned the trip by out-spelling 27 other elementary and middle schoolers in March at the state spelling bee in Mitchell.

South Dakota News Watch, Dakota Wesleyan University and the South Dakota Humanities Council sponsored the state bee for the first time that sent Amanuel and his family to the Washington area.

It was his third trip to the state bee and the first time he won it. His older brother was also a competitor, which influenced him. He practiced every day after school.

At the national bee, Amanuel correctly spelled “Menaia” in the first round and in the second round for vocabulary correctly defined a cavalcade as “a procession.” But his score in the third round test fell just one point short, so he did not advance.

The winner, Faizan Zaki, was the favorite entering the bee after his runner-up finish last year.

The bee celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. After last year’s bee had little drama before an abrupt move to the spell-off, Scripps tweaked the competition rules, giving judges more leeway to let the competition play out before going to the tiebreaker. The nine finalists delivered.

During one stretch, six spellers got 28 consecutive words right, and there were three perfect rounds during the finals. The last time there was a single perfect round was the infamous 2019 bee, which ended in an eight-way tie.

With the winner’s haul of $52,500 added to his second-place prize of $25,000, Faizan increased his bee earnings to $77,500. His big splurge with his winnings last year? A $1,500 Rubik’s cube with 21 squares on each side. This time, he said he’d donate a large portion of his winnings to charity.

The bee began in 1925 when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. For the past 14 years, Scripps has hosted the competition at a convention center just outside the nation’s capital, but the bee returns downtown next year to Constitution Hall, a nearly century-old concert venue near the White House.

The Associated Press contributed to this story produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they’re published. Contact: info@sdnewswatch.org.

MITCHELL, S.D. — Matthew Pearson found a successful career in the wind energy industry purely by chance.

After graduating from high school in Vermillion, Pearson knew he didn’t want to pursue a four-year degree and instead scrolled through the list of majors offered at Mitchell Tech, one of the state’s four technical colleges.

“When I came to the wind energy program, I thought, ‘Well, that sounds kind of cool,’” Pearson, 28, recalled during a recent interview at Mitchell Tech, the only South Dakota college with a designated wind energy major.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Pearson had stumbled into one of the fastest-growing, highest-paying trade fields in the state and nation.

While workforce shortages plague many industries and employers in the Rushmore State, great opportunities abound for skilled workers to build, operate and maintain renewable energy facilities, including at wind farms. Meanwhile, strong partnerships between technical colleges, employers and the Build Dakota Scholarship program have forged a ready pathway to quickly and effectively fill the need for energy workers.

Pearson obtained a Build Dakota Scholarship that paid all tuition for a two-year wind technology degree, then spent about $15,000 to complete another two-year major in electrical construction. 

After graduation, he quickly landed a job wiring wind towers at locations around the country. He was initially paid about $80,000 a year, and after six years was making $127,000 plus a daily living fee of $140.

But now, with a fiancee and two children, Pearson is completing a circle by leaving field work and returning to Mitchell Tech to become its only wind energy program instructor. 

Pearson said that in addition to teaching the skills needed to thrive in the renewable energy field, he’ll also share the good news about their job prospects.

“There’s been a steady uptick in the need for workforce,” he said. “When I would get to a jobsite, there would be three or four companies there, and they’d always come over and ask, ‘Hey, you want to come work for us instead?’”

77% of state’s power from renewable energy

South Dakota is among the top three states nationally in percentage of energy generated from renewable sources, leaving it well positioned to provide both jobs in the field and trainers like Pearson who will help meet demand for workers.

About 77% of the power used in the state comes from non-fossil fuel sources, largely from water and wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The state has three solar farms but no plans filed for more.

Since the mid-1950s, South Dakota has generated significant energy from its four hydroelectric power plants on the Missouri River. 

And over roughly the past 15 years, the state has seen a tenfold increase in wind energy production, according to the state Public Utilities Commission. That growth has created a healthy number of construction and maintenance jobs.

In 2009, the state had 190 turbines capable of producing about 350 megawatts (MW) of electricity. At the end of 2024, South Dakota was home to 1,417 turbines able to generate about 3,600 MW of energy. The PUC also approved a 68-turbine project with a capacity of 260 MW and a $621 million price tag near Clear Lake in March.

“We’ve had just a tremendous expansion of wind energy in South Dakota,” said Chris Nelson, a PUC commissioner. “Today, though, we’re in a little bit of a lull.”

The expected slowdown is due to a lack of transmission lines capable of carrying more power, most of which heads east out of the state, Nelson said. 

Despite the infrastructure challenges, renewable energy still has a bright future, he said. Two nonprofit energy consortiums that manage the power grid in the upper Midwest plan to spend a combined $37 billion to expand transmission capacity, including in South Dakota, over roughly the next decade.

Two majors, 100% job placement

At Lake Area Technical College in Watertown, students are offered two energy-related degree tracks, said president Tiffany Sanderson.

The energy technology major provides training in development and maintenance of energy systems, and the energy operations degree is aimed at managing an energy facility.

“In our energy programs, those are students interested in working with their hands and solving engineering or process-oriented problems,” she said. “They’re very mechanically minded and can figure out how to make sure power is produced reliably so people don’t have delays in service.”

During a recent tour of the technology labs, students used 3D printers, developed and analyzed system efficiency and worked on unique projects like a solar-powered ice fishing shanty.

The two programs have about two dozen students combined, Sanderson said. In the 2023 graduating class, 100% of all graduates were employed within six months, with average salaries of $65,000 a year in the technology major and $69,000 a year in operations.

“That is for their first jobs in the industry, so those are tremendous opportunities for a brand new graduate with two years of college education,” she said.

‘Crazy’ number of jobs available

In May, Nathaniel Bekaert will become one of those new graduates from Lake Area Tech.

Bekaert, 28, grew up on a farm and came to the college after six years in the U.S. Army, which paid for almost all of his tuition, fees and equipment costs. 

After touring the Gavins Point Dam hydroelectric plant in Yankton on the Nebraska border and interning at the Big Stone Power Plant near the Minnesota border, Bekaert was sold on the idea of working as a mechanic in the energy field.

“The more you learn, the more you want to dive into it,” he said.

With his anticipated degree and work experience, Bekaert said he was recruited extensively by energy companies.

“The amount of energy companies coming in looking for workers is crazy, and you can’t really grasp how many companies are looking for energy students,” he said. “There are a dozen or more companies within 45 minutes from here that are actively looking for technicians and operators or people with some type of energy degree.”

As a native of the Watertown area, Bekaert has accepted a job close to home as a wind technician at the Crowned Ridge wind farm northeast of the city, where he will make $29 an hour plus a $5,000 signing bonus and a $200 annual stipend for work boots.

Crowned Ridge is operated by NextEra Energy, a Florida-based company that runs wind farms across the country. A recent check of NextEra’s website revealed 396 job openings, with 185 related specifically to wind energy.

“No matter what happens with fossil fuels, we can keep going (with renewable energy) and live off that, and it will benefit everybody in the world. And we won’t have to rely on another country,” Bekaert said of his career choice.

A systematic approach to workforce development

The South Dakota technical school system, which also includes campuses in Sioux Falls and Rapid City, has developed a close working relationship with the energy industry to ensure students learn the right skills and employers can tap into a pipeline of well-trained workers.

Lake Area Tech officials go into local public schools to promote energy and other trade jobs starting in elementary grades, Sanderson said. 

At Mitchell Tech, vice president for enrollment services Clayton Deuter said the college now offers a one-year wind energy degree instead of a two-year program, a change made after energy companies said some skills taught in the longer program could be obtained on the job instead. 

Deuter said the energy programs at Mitchell Tech are an easy sell to students and their parents due to the low cost compared to a four-year college and the availability of Build Dakota scholarships in which students get tuition paid if they work in South Dakota for three years after graduation. 

Mitchell Tech also offers a dual-enrollment program to high school students so they can have a wind energy degree from the college in hand by the time they graduate.

“You think about return on investment, and here you can take one year in the wind turbine program and you can graduate and make $80,000 to $100,000 a year,” Deuter said. “With student loan debt being so crazy, you don’t have to bankrupt yourself financially and be tethered to a student loan payment when you’re trying to buy a house and start a family.”

One of the state’s biggest renewable energy employers is Marmen Energy in Brandon. The Canadian-owned company has 285 employees who build wind towers up to 300-feet tall that are shipped to wind farms nationwide. 

Aimee Miritello, human resources manager, said the company’s relationships with high schools and technical colleges form a pillar of its worker recruitment strategy to overcome a nagging lack of workers in the trade fields.

“Historically for us that has been one of our best ways of getting qualified employees,” she said.

Marmen has expanded its South Dakota plant to accommodate what Miritello said has been a steady increase in demand for wind towers across the country. 

Marmen workers, who include welders, painters and other construction tradespeople, make a good wage, are offered one of the best benefit packages in the region and have strong opportunities for internal advancement, she said.

“Plus, they’re a part of making huge wind towers, so their pride in that is pretty big,” she said.

This reporting is part of a collaboration between the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Rural News Network and Canary Media, South Dakota News Watch, Cardinal News, The Mendocino Voice and The Maine Monitor. Support from Ascendium Education Group made the project possible.

South Dakota News Watch is an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they’re published. Contact Bart Pfankuch at bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.