Category: columns-outdoors

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Watch for Eagles

By Rebecca Johnson

Some extremely knowledgeable members of the Sioux Falls Bird Club guided me through the prairie pothole regions near Sioux Falls last year. They were more than welcoming towards this newbie who couldn’t tell a sparrow from a starling. I assured my new friends I would practice. Oh, I had great intentions. But the adult bald eagle is still the only bird I can identify with certainty.

That’s why I love January. Sure, a little post-party depression sets in after the holiday hoopla. And the cold days drag on as you wait to turn the calendar to February. But get excited! It’s National Bald Eagle Watch Month!

The bald eagle diet is mostly fish, so the best watching places are below the big dams like Oahe, Big Bend, and Gavins Point, says K.C. Jensen, associate professor in South Dakota State University’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences.”The water is always open there and there are usually fish to be had,” Jensen says.

It’s been reported that last summer’s flooding caused an explosion in Yankton’s fish population and I suspect the bald eagles are benefiting. South Dakota Game Fish and Parks recently completed mid-winter waterfowl surveys along the length of the Missouri. They also record eagle numbers and counted 281 between Sioux City and Big Bend Dam.”The great majority of [the eagles] were sighted immediately below Gavins Point Dam at Yankton,” says Jensen.

Bald eagles like to eat in the morning and there were at least 40 breakfasting at Paddlewheel Point downstream from Riverside Park a few days ago. I was able to sneak out to see them, since it’s just a few blocks from the magazine, and was amazed to see so many converged in one place. The majority were seated on a piece of ice jutting out from the bank while a few majestically roosted in the trees. I checked again this morning. The snow kept a few away, but there were still several feeding. If you’re lucky enough to live along the river like me, bundle up, grab your binoculars and celebrate Bald Eagle Watch Month this weekend.

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Snow Is Coming

By Chad Coppess

So far in 2011-12 South Dakota hasn’t experienced much of a winter. It’s coming though. It just has to be. Those of us with cameras will be out attempting to capture nature’s beauty under a blanket of white soon, I’m sure. So here are some tips for shooting in the snow.

Light meters in cameras tell us what they feel the “proper” exposure should be for whatever situation we point them at. In the case of white snow, the light meter is going to think everything is too bright and want to darken the scene. Sometimes we need to fool that meter so that our pictures will have white snow, not dingy gray snow. Overexpose by one to two stops and I think you’ll like the results better.

If it is snowing while you are shooting or the sky is overcast and white itself, look for subject matter that will stand out from all the whiteness in your scene. A twisted tree trunk, a Custer State Park bison or a bright yellow school bus will make nice contrasty subjects in an otherwise colorless landscape.

Using the rule of thirds — where the picture is divided into thirds horizontally and vertically and the subject placed at one of the intersections of the thirds lines — can make a nice composition.

Look for patterns and textures in snowy scenes. Tree branches, piles of rocks, animal tracks or flocks of geese against the sky all look great with a white background.

On a day when big fluffy flakes are falling experimenting with shutter speeds can be interesting. A high shutter speed will freeze the snowflakes in mid-drop. A slow shutter speed can make long blurry streaks of white against dark evergreen trees or a red barn.

Quite often the best time to shoot a snowy landscape is immediately after a fresh snow. If snow has fallen overnight and the sky clears for sunrise it can be a magical time to be out shooting. As the low angle light sparkles off the flakes that haven’t melted or packed down, truly spectacular photos can be made that won’t be available later in the day. The colder the temperature the better, unfortunately. That way the individual flakes will keep their shape longer before the sun melts them into just a snow pile.

Snow shots at Mount Rushmore can be especially tricky. Even on a cold day if the sun is out at all the snow on top of the heads begins to melt and drip down, leaving dark streaks. I always watch for predicted night time snow and a bright sunny morning, but make sure I get there very early so I don’t see faces with “tears” running down them.

Keeping your camera batteries warm can help them last longer in cold weather. When not shooting, holding your camera or the batteries inside your coat will help. I’ve heard of some photographers attaching chemical heat packets to their cameras in extreme temperatures, but I’ve never felt the need myself.

Don’t forget to keep yourself warm as you are out shooting, but have fun when the snow does fall!

Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.

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It Doesn’t Look Like South Dakota Out My Window

By Lee Schoenbeck

It’s just not right. January 1st is not supposed to look like October 1st, or like Kansas. Not in South Dakota, and especially not up here on the Coteau Des Prairies. Snow, lots of it, is woven into our identity. It’s what we brag about. Anybody can survive and thrive at 70 degrees, but here in the land of the 5-7 zip codes, it takes more. You have to be tougher, or at least you used to have to be.

Today pheasant season ends, with not a rooster in the whole state flushed from a snow-filled cattail slough. Today a new year begins with no sledding, no snowmobiling and no need for hot chocolate. While the sunshine is nice, it can’t be right.

Every kid in South Dakota grew up being prepared to wear long johns and overcoats under their Halloween costume. Every parent knows to be prepared to make the princess costume fit over mittens and stocking caps. By Halloween we are prepared for snow, by Thanksgiving we expect it. By New Years, we are buried in it. We never think about Santa driving a motorcycle, or a convertible with the top down. It’s just not the way our world is designed.

Last year I finally had an indoor well that provided unlimited access to enough winter water to build an ice skating rink. It looked like this in January:

Today, absent any ability to make ice for my daughter to skate on, my donut-shaped rink (built around the fire pit) looks like this:

Late season pheasant hunting with friends in South Dakota is the outdoor hunter’s ultimate experience. Wind chills get below zero. Birds hunker down in sloughs. Hunters and dogs need to climb through snow drift to get to their prey. The winter hunter’s battle gear changes to water-resistant pants, duct taped legs to keep the snow out, and Mad Bomber hats. Winter hunters look like this:

This year, an end of the season hunt photo — while still capturing a great South Dakota day — is indistinguishable from an opener photo:

Essential South Dakota pickup equipment, jumper cables and tow ropes, sit by idly drawing dust:

Winter fun with snow shoes and cross-country skis just isn’t happening in this tropical winter environment:

South Dakota’s Black Hills include Harney Peak, the highest point between the Rockies and the Alps. At 1100 feet of vertical, Terry Peak provides better skiing opportunities than about any mountain between those same two ranges. But without snow, the annual holiday ski trip to Terry Peak in the Black Hills of years past didn’t happen:


Ok — it’s a new year. It will probably be a great year. In the spirit of our sainted homesteaders, we need to adapt. We need to learn how to survive in weather designed for flip-flops and beachwear instead of 1,000 gram pack boots.


I am an optimist. I’m committed to trying. But after you get past fifty, it takes a while to adjust:


Somehow, I’ll figure out what to do in the outdoors until spring. Have a Happy New Year and a great 2012.

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.

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Varmint or Trickster?

By Ken Blanchard

Driving north on Highway 63, a few miles out of Jonesboro, Arkansas, at about ten in the morning, I saw a coyote on the edge of the road. It was the best look I have yet enjoyed of North America’s ubiquitous wild dog. It was a darker shade of gray and rather more menacing in appearance than most photos I have seen. I fell immediately in love.

If you are a rancher in these Dakotas you may not share my sentiment. When I stopped for a bathroom break at Summit, I noticed an announcement for a coyote hunt. If you think I am about to tell you that hunting coyotes is bad, prepare to be disappointed. Though I do not hunt, I have no objections moral or otherwise to hunting. I am not at all offended by coyote hunting, my affections for the animal notwithstanding. This is just one of the many challenges that comprise the coyote’s environment.

They seem to be meeting the challenges rather well. I first heard a coyote chorus when I was backpacking in Theodore Roosevelt Park in North Dakota. First one howl came, and then dozens of answers from all directions. It came as an utter surprise and I am haunted by it still. I had the eerie thought at that moment that I was listening to ghosts.”Do they not know that the world has changed and they are no longer at home in it?” I asked my companion. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I heard it again not much later while sitting around a campfire in Craighead County Arkansas. If there were any coyote around my home town when I was a boy, I didn’t know about it and I certainly never heard them. They are there now, in force.

Coyote are everywhere now. They have taken to following golfers in the Bronx. They have been sighted on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. They are in Manhattan. Despite enormous efforts to eradicate them, they have flourished. We are their environment.

There is a kind of justice in this. It is almost certainly true that all human beings in North America came here from somewhere else. The same is true of wolves, according to Christopher Ketcham’s beautiful essay in Orion. The coyote began here, evolving some eleven million years ago.

No one has been better acquainted with the native canine than Native Americans. The Navajos tell wonderful stories about Coyote, a primordial trickster. Coyote is a deliciously ambiguous spirit, sometimes a hero but often a scoundrel. He causes lots of trouble for himself and everyone else by always pushing his luck and throwing caution to the wind. That, at any rate, is how I read the stories.

Recently I discovered some modern versions of the Coyote tales by Jim Bihyeh. You can listen to readings of these tales at Pseudopod.org, a site that offers readings of spooky stories each week. Look for episodes 159, 167, and 182. You can download them for free and listen to them on your computer or iPod. These stories are incredibly rich in mythic imagery and detail, placing ancient spirit world narratives and magical combat into very contemporary settings. You’ll thank me for the tip.

Meanwhile I will keep my eyes open for the trickster. Our fascination with animals is often a function of familiarity. German tourists will stop to take dozens of photos of a buffalo, while locals just honk them out of the way. Someone who has lived in downtown Saint Louis all his life will be tempted to take a snapshot of his first cow. Coyote may soon become so familiar that we will as surprised by one as by a squirrel. Just now, for most of us, they are on the edge. They have arrived to remind us that, while we live on this world and dominate so much of it, we will never own it or comprehend it. Coyote still has tricks up his sleeve.

Dr. Ken Blanchard is a professor of Political Science at Northern State University and writes for the Aberdeen American News and the blog South Dakota Politics.

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Early Winter Wildlife

By Christian Begeman

Last month I was driving back to Sioux Falls from Bismarck, ND with a friend. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shape moving in the field to the north and quickly blurted out,”That’s a coyote!” in mid-conversation.

My friend looked at me and asked,”What is it with you? How can you see that?”

I didn’t really have an answer for him. We then both agreed it was pretty cool that we lived in an area that still affords the chance to view real and untamed wildlife far away from any zoo.

As far as his original question, I spent some time thinking about it and I started reminiscing about long trips across the Dakotas with my family. This was long before DVD screens and iPods kept the kiddo’s attention. One of our forms of entertainment was to be the first to spot deer and accurately get the right number of the herd before anyone else. My brother and I became very skilled at this talent as it passed the time better than fighting over which radio station to listen to (even though that still inevitably happened.)

Another family tradition of ours is either hiking or driving through, around and over the Moreau River Breaks after the family Christmas dinner. First it was with my cousins but as I got older it evolved to going out with my uncle and/or dad. Recently it has been with my brother and nephews. However it ends up, we almost always see good numbers of deer, and at the very least, tracks and signs of other interesting Dakota wildlife.

This year was a banner year for me for seeing and photographing wildlife over the holiday break. I’m not exactly sure what made this year better than others but I do have a few tips I’ve learned for you to increase your chances of spotting some of South Dakota’s abundant wildlife from your car.

Location. To see wildlife, you have to be where they are. Your best bet is in parks or wildlife production areas. Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park all have top-notch opportunities to see wildlife all from the maintained park roads. Other areas to check out are river breaks and valleys. Wildlife need to drink so can usually be found near sources of water.

Timing. Your best bet to see animals out and about is the hours around dawn and dusk. I’m not a morning person at all, but this year alone I’ve been able to hear the coyotes serenade morning’s first light on three different occasions and it thrilled me every time.

Equipment. I realize not everybody can afford the best long lens or camera body to get close-up wildlife shots, but I highly recommend that you take time to review your own camera and make sure you understand the best setting to shoot in low light situations as well as the best shutter and aperture settings to shoot at maximum zoom. Take the time to dig out that manual or do a search on the internet to see what other users are doing. It may make the difference in turning an average shot into an amazing photo of some of South Dakota’s great wild creatures.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midcontinent Communications he is often on the road photographing our prettiest spots around the state. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Snow Birds

By John Andrews

It’s the last week of December and South Dakotans have just celebrated their first brown Christmas in years. It looks as if a brown New Year’s is on tap. In fact the only white we may see for the next few weeks are the snowy owls that are flying further south than many people can remember.

Jim Lewandowski, the office assistant at Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Aberdeen, says they have seen an abundant number of snowy owls there so far this winter. Terry Jordre, a Brown County birder, told the Aberdeen American News that he’s seen plenty of the owls dotting the back roads of northern South Dakota.

Snowy owls breed on the Arctic tundra and come south during the winter in search of food. The nearly pure white birds can often be found as far south as Nebraska in winter, but this year they are flying into Kansas. Three were seen last week at a lake in Kansas City.

Experts seem to agree that the owls are venturing outside their normal range because of a food shortage. They prefer lemmings, whose populations fluctuate every three to five years. When lemmings are in short supply, owls seek out dietary supplements of rodents, rabbits, birds and fish, all of which are plentiful in South Dakota and other Great Plains states.

Unfortunately the owls have a difficult time adapting to their southern surroundings. They are used to life on the tundra, so their interactions with humans are limited. The owls aren’t used to avoiding cars, and many have been hit. Some owls are curious.”They’ll let you get close enough that they might even swoop down at your vehicle,” Lewandowski says.”They’ve done that up here.”

So if you have travel plans over the New Year’s weekend, keep your eyes peeled. You might spot a snowy owl perched on a fencepost or high in a tree near a lake or slough. The white owls will surely stand out against the browns of our snowless winter.

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Backyard Wildlife

By Chad Coppess

This time of year my thoughts go not only to holidays and family, but to photographing the wildlife in my own backyard.

I live in town, not out in the wilderness where you might expect a lot of critters roaming, but I’ve found with a few bird and squirrel feeders it’s easy to attract animals right to your camera.

With a little research you can learn what kind of feeders and food will bring what kinds of birds and animals. Squirrels tend to like corn, nuts and sunflower seeds. Different varieties of birds like various seeds.

Photographing the wildlife can be done through the windows where it’s easier to hide and not scare them away. Wearing dark colors and keeping the lights off inside the house will help as well. If you’ve got a window that opens toward the feeders your images will be clearer and sharper, but even shooting through the window glass can provide decent photos.

I realize everyone isn’t going to spend the money on the equipment to do it, but I’ve had fairly good luck setting up a remote-controlled camera on a tripod outdoors and then sitting inside to watch and fire the camera with the push of a button.

One of the tricky things is that these smaller animals tend to move quickly and not sit in one spot for too long. This makes photographing them good practice for shooting other action activities like kids’ sports or rodeo. Choosing higher shutter speeds to freeze motion and working on your reaction to interesting poses helps capture fun moments.

Birds in flight almost always make great photos, but tracking them, keeping them in focus and catching just the right position of the wings can be tricky. Practice, practice, practice! Digital photography makes it easy to shoot many photos and simply delete the bad ones. So don’t be afraid to keep trying until it all comes together in that one spectacular shot.

Another fun tip is to make sure your bird feeder is next to a bush or tree with handy branches for perching on. After you’ve watched a while you can begin to guess where the birds tend to land before approaching the feeder. Pre-focusing on that spot will give you a head start on getting a good photo. I have a small branch attached to one of my feeders for that purpose.

Have a great holiday season and if you aren’t traveling far from home for photo opportunities, take a look in the backyard!

Chad Coppess is the senior photographer at the South Dakota Department of Tourism. He lives in Pierre with his wife, Lisa. To view more of his work, visit www.dakotagraph.com.

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Tubing Rocks

By Rebecca Johnson

Looking for a unique activity this holiday season? Rock out on the slopes in Lead at Ski Mystic Deer Mountain‘s Zero Gravity Tube Park. You can tube under the stars on Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Local bands perform in the lodge and the music is pumped outdoors.

“We just wanted to created a venue with a lot of action,” says co-owner, Mark Brockman.”When you combine the thrill of tubing in the park at night with live music, it’s just awesome.” The cost is $25 or $20 with college ID. Tonight (Dec 22nd) features Letta People, the rock/blues band from Rapid City, and on the 29th you can hear Don’t Touch Me from Spearfish.

The Zero Gravity Tube Park is new this season. Tubing was always a popular attraction at Ski Mystic so Brockman and co-owner Alicia Salas decided to expand to what was formerly a beginner’s ski slope. “It’s probably one of the biggest [tube parks] in the country,” says Brockman.”We have a 1,000 foot tube lift with a 250 foot vertical drop.” The park is also open during normal ski hours from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. And it’s family friendly — children ages three and up are welcome.

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The Weapon and the Warrior

By Lee Schoenbeck

Pheasant hunters have an odd relationship with their firearms. How they pick them, what they pay, how many they own are just a few of the perspectives that may not make sense to the un-field-tested eye.

The warrior is looking for beauty, for those sleek curves and fine lines that send strong signals of integrity, dependability and fulfillment. The warrior and his weapon are making a lifetime commitment. There may be a few other firearms that catch his eye for a second, but that one — that perfect fit — is going to be reached for every time when he heads to the field for the big dance.

My first shotgun came by happenstance, and the romance is still there 25 years later. Dad didn’t hunt and we didn’t have a shotgun in the house. When I came home from law school, I saw that Grandpa Tony had an old gun that he brought with him when he moved off the farm. It was a Remington Model 25. Remington only made the Model 25 for 5 years, from 1945 to 1950. Like their big brother, the Model 12, they are durable. The Model 25 I got from Grandpa outlived the store (Jeske’s Hardware) and the town (Lily) where he bought it — and it outlived Grandpa. It’s been reblued twice, and has had cases of 2 æ-inch pheasant loads pass through its chamber. It’s a little worse for the wear at the moment, but I’m confident Cliff the local gunsmith can fix that.

Based upon hunter preference, the Remington Model 12, Winchester 870, Benelli Nova, and Browning A-5 (“the humpback”) are America’s shotguns of choice. There are many fancy and more expensive options out there, but the warrior that shows up with one of these is immediately recognized as a dependable hunter. Winchester doesn’t make the Model 12 any more. Some cynics contend that Winchester quit because you couldn’t sell a hunter two of these super durable weapons in a lifetime. In its 89 years of production, Americans bought 2 million of the shotgun known as”the perfect repeater.” The”Humpback” was produced continuously for almost 100 years, beginning in 1889.

I carry my firearm in the field, one-handed, like a pistol, with the trigger finger leveraged against the front of the trigger guard. I don’t hunt with gentlemen. My buddies are about dropping birds on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you need to fumble for the safety, you get to watch somebody else shoot the bird. So for me, I can only shoot a Benelli or a Winchester, as no other manufacturer puts the safety on the front of the trigger guard. That safety location allows the shooter to swing on a flushing bird, while drawing down the weapon, and hitting the safety as the shooting finger comes off the guard and squeezes for the trigger. The whole motion, of course, takes about a second, which is also the difference between birds on the ground and birds flying away on a windy South Dakota afternoon.

Manufacturers have invented new and improved ways to make and market shotguns — the choke is one such feature. If you don’t hunt, then things like chokes mean nothing to you. If you use a Model 12, which is a full choke, you don’t care either. Chokes are tubes that are screwed in the end of the gun, to affect the spread of the shot pattern as the shot leaves the barrel. The fancy options are called”improved” or”modified,” to give a wider pattern spread. The old-timers, shooting dependable weapons like the Model 12, have only one option — the full choke. It delivers a tight pattern. For a blocker, it’s like poking a fly coming at you, with a pencil. But if you learn to drop birds with a full choke, you’ll bring home the birds every time. As for those other choke options, they are designed for the”choke excuse”:”Dang, missed that one ’cause I had the modified in.” Young hunters from the 5-7 zip codes should be raised on a full choke. They will never be confused with”out-of-staters,” and they won’t need to learn the”choke excuse.”

What the warrior will pay for his weapon is another mystery. Go to an auction and watch the crazed warriors bidding on firearms off the flatbed. Afterwards place a call to Vic Carter at Kones Korner, which is like accessing an internet volume of information on firearms options and prices. You’ll soon find that the same weapon was available for 10 or 20% off, but of course Vic’s sales don’t satisfy the same visceral competitiveness that winning the gun at the auction provides.

I own a $5,000 shotgun. It’s obviously not the Model 12 or 25, which go for about $300. It isn’t even one of those fancy Belgium Brownings like my FBI brother-in-law shoots. It’s not an automatic, has no fancy tubes, and it doesn’t make pizzas. No. I got mine at the Webster Museum of Science and Industry benefit auction. For twenty years I have been buying raffle tickets at $20 a pop for guns at banquets to benefit habitat for about everything except ground squirrels — and I have NEVER won the gun. Didn’t win one at DU, Pheasants Forever, Pro Pheasant, Rocky Mountain Elk, or even the greased pig foundation. This spring though, at a museum banquet of all things, I finally won the gun. I figure I’ve got at least $5,000 into that shotgun I finally won, even if Vic said I could buy one new from him for under $300.

The warrior’s weapons case inevitably includes firearms with special significance — real South Dakota family heirlooms — the kind kids fight over when the warrior is gone. We have one such shotgun. When the feds made us give up lead shot for waterfowl, and before the days of 3-inch shells in 12 gauges, there was the 10 gauge. The 10 gauge has about the same amount of iron in it as the cavalry cannon pieces at Fort Sisseton, but without the carriage and wheels. It was a goose hunter’s signature weapon. Today there are fancier and more mobile firearms to bring down the now common Giant Canadian, but in 1987, when the feds took away our lead, the 10 gauge was king.

At our wedding rehearsal dinner in Kranzburg that year, the gift my bride gave this warrior was a Zabala double barrel side-by-side 10 gauge. The thing shoots shells the size of small mortars. I think Arnold Schwarzenegger was carrying one of them in one of his army movies. But the treasure of this weapon came in the presentation. In front of all of my family and all of my soon-to-be family, my wife presents this broken (as in not put together) shotgun. The unique feature of my only shotgun, the Model 25, was that it couldn’t be broken down. I had no idea how to connect the pieces standing there at the head table — looked like a Rubik’s Cube to me. My soon-to-be-wife, from a serious pheasant hunting lineage, reached over, took the parts and made them into a gun in about 45 seconds.

I’ve been working to catch up in the warrior category ever since.

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.

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There’s Gold in Spearfish Canyon: Leave It There!

By Cory Heidelberger

Last month, the state Board of Minerals and Environment approved Wharf Resources’ proposal to mine more gold near Terry Peak. Our state officials are now talking with Valentine Mining about gouging out another chunk of the Black Hills. Gold miners would like to make the Ragged Top Mountain area, just over the rim of Spearfish Canyon near Savoy, a little more ragged.

Ragged Top was first mined back in 1886. Gold mining there petered out after 1914, since which time Spearfish Canyon has become known as one of the most scenic drives in South Dakota. Tourists flocking to the canyon for the fine fall colors make September one of Spearfish’s best months for sales tax revenue.

The Ragged Top site is on a list of what the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources calls”Special, Exceptional, Critical or Unique lands.” State statute defines such lands as territory of great ecological sensitivity and influence and/or”scenic, historic, archaeologic, topographic, geologic, ethnologic, scientific, cultural, or recreational significance.”

Spearfish Canyon region is clearly special, exceptional, critical, and unique. Frank Lloyd Wright recognized this fact during a trip through the canyon in 1935:

“But how is it that I’ve heard so little of this miracle and we, toward the Atlantic, have heard so much of the Grand Canyon when this is even more miraculous. All the better eventually … that the Dakota are not on the through line to the Coast … My hat is off to South Dakota treasures.”

Expanding the non-sustainable gold industry makes little sense. We could rev up another gold mine in the Northern Hills, drive more industrial traffic up Highway 14A, and hack up some more trees and mountaintops, just for the sake of increasing the supply of a metal used mostly for non-essential purposes. But we can only mine gold once, and such industry threatens the other natural assets of the region. The autumn rush for golden leaves enriches Spearfish Canyon and its visitors time after time, for as long as we preserve the area’s natural beauty.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.