Tag: minnehaha county

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Beaver Creek Corn Harvest

Photographer Christian Begeman saw something unusual when he stopped at Beaver Creek Nature Area near Brandon last Saturday — a 1954 SC Case tractor, Co-op corn picker and David Bradley wagon were in the park’s 9 acre corn field.

Allen Severtson of Valley Springs was at the wheel.”His hobby is to farm with equipment from yesteryear and he invited to ride along with him for a couple rounds and take photos,” Begeman said.”The corn is shelled and sold and a local farmer gets the cobs.”

See more of Begeman’s photos at cbegeman.blogspot.com or on our website.

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Wheels for Firefighters

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2012 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

In 35 years, the tiny Minnehaha County town of Lyons morphed from a place with no fire department into perhaps the biggest manufacturer of fire trucks per capita in the country. Its 75 residents can thank Harold and Helen Boer, who started it all from the gas station and vehicle refurbishment shop they owned in the 1970s.

“We were welding, changing tires, selling gas, pop and candy bars, whatever came in the door,” Harold Boer says.

Since Lyons had no fire department, its residents relied on brigades from nearby cities for protection. When town leaders formed a department, they asked Boer for help.”We got a chassis from Civil Defense and I built my first fire truck,” he says.”I had to do a lot of research. I looked at other trucks and got ideas about how they were built. And we used our own experience as fire fighters.”

His work was widely admired, and other departments sought his services. In 1983, he built his first Class A fire truck for the Tea Fire Department. Soon he expanded into Minnesota and Nebraska. In 1998, he partnered with Rosenbauer, a worldwide fire truck manufacturer that began in Linz, Austria in 1868.

Today Boer is the CEO of Rosenbauer’s South Dakota division, which employs 275 people (10 percent of whom are also volunteer fire fighters) who produce about 600 fire trucks and other emergency vehicles every year. Between 20 and 40 percent of that annual inventory is exported, much of it to the Middle East. Early in 2012, Rosenbauer secured its largest contract ever, a $318 million order from Saudi Arabia for 350 full size custom pumper trucks, 50 small rescue trucks and 100 lighting trucks equipped with towers and generators.

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One Stormy Night

Scott Korsten shared these photos of a storm passing through Sioux Falls on August 31st. “We were in the city limits of Sioux Falls that Saturday night,” Korsten says. “Our niece had just moved into her new house. Although there was golf ball and baseball-sized hail in some places, her brand new home was spared any damage.”

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Sioux Quartzite’s Ancient Beauty

By Christian Begeman

Last December I turned 40. I guess I’m supposed to be”old” now (at least to anyone under 40, that is). Other than some achy knees and various aches and pains I don’t feel old — especially now that I’ve done a little research on the landmark that helped shape Sioux Falls and the surrounding area. Sioux quartzite, the hard stone that the Big Sioux tumbles over at Falls Park in Sioux Falls, is ancient. I mean really, really ancient. Those that study rocks say it was formed around 1.5 billion years ago. That is older than old — I mean it is really hard to fathom. The last dinosaurs are supposed to have been around 60 million years ago. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to our Sioux quartzite. This rock formation has been fairly stable and in existence for roughly a quarter of the time Earth has been a planet.

I first visited the falls of the Big Sioux when I was a young teenager. For a West River kid, it was like a whole new world. Back then, the park hadn’t been cleaned up nor was there much for walkways, but nonetheless, I still remember being surprised that such a thing existed in South Dakota. I later learned that Sioux Falls is not the only place to see outcroppings of Sioux quartzite. Palisades State Park just south of Garretson may be small in terms of size, but it packs a large punch in terms of unique and stunning scenery. There, Split Rock Creek cuts through a section of Sioux quartzite, leaving dramatic cliffs and standing stones seemingly in the middle of rolling farm hills.

Just upstream, on the other side of Garretson, is Split Rock Park and Devil’s Gulch. Legend holds that this is where outlaw Jesse James escaped a posse of armed men after fleeing from a botched robbery attempt in Minnesota in 1876. James and his horse supposedly leaped the narrow gorge leaving his pursuers behind. A small walking bridge marks the spot today. Whether the legend is true or not, the area is a great place to hike and see the quartzite formations.

Another place that shows off the beauty of the quartzite is just south of Dell Rapids. Here the Big Sioux divides into two streams with the smaller channel cutting straight through cliffs of Sioux quartzite called the Dells of the Big Sioux. There is a small park and overlook to check out, or if you have a more adventurous spirit, there is a sort of natural staircase to the north of the picnic area to climb down into the gorge. In visiting the area earlier this spring, I also found it to be a great place to bird watch. Insect catchers swoop through the canyon picking off their prey and the cliffs allow for nests for all sorts of swallows as well. The abundance of trees provide nesting and resting areas for many species too.

This summer I was introduced to a couple of Sioux quartzite areas that were brand new to me and very worth visiting. Arrowhead Park on the east side of Sioux Falls is a great place to take a short hike with family members in around some quarry pools. The waterfowl are used to people and many folks like to take some bread along to feed them on the edges of the pools. Along the South Dakota-Iowa border is another pool in the Gitchie Manitou preserve that is a little more off the beaten track but well worth the visit as well. I went there on a hot July afternoon and basically had the place to myself. My task was to take a portrait or two of ancient beauty over a billion years in the making. Makes me feel young and spry just telling you about it.

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. To view Christian’s columns featuring other unique spots in South Dakota’s landscape, visit his landmarks page.


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A Pioneer of Flight

By Dorene Weinstein

Nellie Willhite posed with her bi-plane Pard at a Wagner air show in 1930.


Nellie repeatedly circled the Renner landing field in her open cockpit plane. She gazed down at the people gathered on the soggy grass. They were frantically waving at her to land, certain she’d lost her nerve. She circled again, then eased the bi-plane into position.

Spraying a fountain of icy water, she made a perfect landing in a puddle. With dark curls peeking from under her aviator’s cap, Nellie climbed from the plane. The instructor and student pilots, all men, surrounded her, shouting and pounding her on the back. She’d done it! Nellie Willhite was the first female pilot in South Dakota.

When I visited with her in 1989, 96-year-old Nellie was sitting on her bed in a Sioux Falls nursing home. Deaf since childhood, she astounded me with her ability to read lips. White hair frothing across her cheeks, she pulled old photos out of neatly stacked albums to show me. She loved to tell her story.

When Willhite was 34, a pilot friend asked, “Nellie, why don’t you take lessons? If you learned to fly, you’d be the first woman pilot in South Dakota.” Willhite was stunned and intrigued by the idea. But lessons cost $200, and she didn’t have the money. She called her dad to tell him. “Before I knew it there was a check for $200 waiting for me,” she said.

She started lessons in November 1927. Although she was excited about learning to fly, she kept it to herself. “I was afraid I might fail,” she said. “I didn’t even tell my landlady.”

Nellie Willhite made a striking picture in her aviator’s cap.

Willhite was the 13th student to sign up for a class taught by Harold Tennant. The weather was so bad that winter it took her two months to complete the instruction. After 13 hours of training, she flew solo on Friday the 13th in January of 1928. Nellie scoffed at superstitions associated with the number 13. “Superstitious? Gracious no!” she laughed.

News of her flight spread quickly. While her dad, brother and most of her friends were proud of her profession, others were shocked. Some criticized her, wondering how she had the audacity to go into such an impossible thing as flying. “I think the women were a little envious, and the men, too, especially after I got so much attention.”

Nellie’s flying career was marked with several unusual incidents. She and Amelia Earhart were instrumental in forming the “99 Club,” an organization for women flyers. Willhite also flew in airshows and goodwill tours across the country, thrilling audiences with her acrobatics and loop the loops.

Willhite recalled one hair-raising flight in Nebraska. She had been flying a good-will tour for businessmen and was en route to the next stop. “I had gotten a late start,” Willhite said. “The others had gone ahead. I could see a storm coming and it looked bad. That part of Nebraska is so hilly. I couldn’t find a place to land, so I figured the best thing to do was to keep flying.”

“An updraft tossed me 8,000 feet higher, and the engine stalled for lack of air. I knew I had to keep the propeller turning,” she said. “I aimed the plane nose down and kept in a tight spiral. It was up to me to save myself.” Willhite found her way back using an automobile map. “In those days we didn’t have charts or anything,” she said.

Another frightening incident occurred in Chicago when a friend talked her into flying a glider. The take-off went fine, but “I couldn’t land the darned thing! I bet I was circling Chicago for an hour and a half before I gradually coaxed it down. I swore I’d never do that again!”

Willhite obtained a transport license and also worked as a flight instructor during her aviation career. After four years, she was forced to sell her plane due to the high cost of maintaining it and the scarcity of jobs during the depression.

Nellie Willhite participated in many unusual activities during her life. She refused to be hindered by her deafness or by the fact she was living in an era before women’s liberation.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 1989 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Spring Journal for 2013

By Christian Begeman

It is amazing how different things can be in just one year’s time. Last spring came about as early as any I can remember. I found and photographed my first pasque flower of the season on March 14 on the edge of Lake Vermillion Recreation Area. This time around, cold weather didn’t want to leave the area. I didn’t find my first pasque until May 5, nearly two months later than last year. Here’s a journal showing some of the photos I took while impatiently waiting for spring to arrive.

April 11

An ice storm that started on the 9th plunged Sioux Falls and the surrounding area into a cold mess. Thousands of people had no electricity due to downed tree branches. I guess the local wildlife had it pretty tough, too. After work, I saw a somewhat bewildered and cold rooster pheasant wandering in ice-covered corn stubble on the northwest edge of town.

April 13

Overnight, another snowfall covered eastern South Dakota. The sun finally broke through for the first time in days as I drove up to Moody County to find something interesting to photograph. On the Minnesota border, I found Salem United Methodist Church surrounded by untouched snow under a gorgeous sky. In a small creek nearby, a blue heron waded along the snowy banks.

April 20

Another weather system brought low overcast skies to the area. The area lakes were now pretty much ice free even though snow still lingered on the ground. North of Humboldt, I watched hundreds of waterfowl including many white pelicans happily fishing at a small lake. Later in the day I drove down to Union County and photographed St. Paul Lutheran Church against the low clouds. This historic church will celebrate 150 years of existence later this year.

April 22

I don’t remember seeing as many gulls in the area as I have this year. At dusk, south of Clear Lake in northwest Minnehaha County, I took a quick shot of a pulsating mass of black-headed gulls flocking as I slowly drove by.

April 24

Flurries mixed with rain and sleet moved through the area all day. The cold, wet wind smelled like spring, but still felt like winter. This lone deer watched me on a hill near Hartford, South Dakota.

May 4

The back edge of a large rain system settled in over the area. I drove north and west at sunset to an abandoned barn in northwest Minnehaha County I discovered on an earlier trip. The setting sun painted the clouds in fantastic colors just after sunset.

May 5

The weather warmed a bit, but low clouds continued to linger over the area. After church on Sunday, I caught a bit of cabin fever and drove out to check a known pasque patch in McCook County. I couldn’t find any. To the west, it looked like clear sky under low clouds at the horizon line so I decided to check a place I know in Hanson County. I wasn’t disappointed. The flowers were pretty new and not fully grown, but they were the first pasque find of the season and I couldn’t resist getting the camera out to snap their portraits.

May 7

Spring must finally be here. The smell of rain is again on the noticeably warmer air. The sound of red-winged black birds mixed with meadowlarks floated along with me as I drove the country roads, and another perfect South Dakota sunset settled in behind a prairie windmill and small, leaning outbuilding just east of Hartford, South Dakota.

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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The Mood of Deep Winter

By Christian Begeman

One of my favorite songwriters, Patty Griffin, penned a line in her song Cold As It Gets that could easily describe the mood of deep winter in South Dakota:

“I know a cold, as cold as it gets, I know a darkness that’s darker than cold. A wind that blows as cold as it gets, blew out the light of my soul.”

The long nights, howling wind and frigid temperatures can easily get a man down this time of year — especially when cold and flu season attacks your body on top of the tough weather. I know, because I just spent the weekend in bed suffering through a really nasty cold. By Sunday evening, I was finally feeling strong enough to go out and do a little photo hunting. It was Super Bowl Sunday, though, and if I went I’d miss at least the first half of the game. Crazy as it sounds, I didn’t hesitate. I hit the road and was shooting a particularly nice sunset scene east of Centerville about the time Baltimore scored their first touchdown.

As I look back over the photos of winter scenes that accompany this column, I’m reminded of a little of that same craziness for”getting the shot” in almost every photo. Take the photo at Palisades State Park, for example. If anybody was watching that evening, they’d have had a good laugh. Here was this clumsy, full-grown man slipping and sliding amongst the rocks at the bottom of Split Rock Creek only to end up lying spread eagle with his nose up against a camera on the edge of the ice for ten minutes straight. Yep, that was me.

Or how about the photo of Zion Lutheran Church with the cows in the foreground? That evening as I left work I could tell it was going to be a nice sunset. The problem was a bone-chilling wind was blowing from the northwest. So there I am standing on top of a hardened snow drift on the far side of the ditch of a county road, teeth chattering, eyes watering, all while framing up a shot of the church with cows in the foreground. I think it took a good hour to finally get warmed back up.

The rest of the photos have similar stories. I spent more time on my belly below Fort Randall Dam as well, and worked to get the sunlight to hit just right on the white, round heads of some roadside weeds up near Montrose. I dirtied the ice of Grass Lake during a January thaw to get some brilliant sunset colors over ice formations. The guy tracking ankle-deep mud all over the ice? Yeah, that was me.

So why do I keep chasing the photos? Good question. Part of it is the challenge. It’s not easy to find beauty in our harshest of seasons, but then again, you’d be surprised. The sunlight is lower in the sky so the golden hour seems to last longer. The snow and ice has a cooling effect on a scene and if you can capture the warmth of the sunset against that cool blue, you can stumble across photographic magic. I think the other part of why I keep going out is that I get to see such amazing sights when the conditions are right. To be honest, there aren’t a lot of things I’d rather do at this point in my life than chase a South Dakota sunset. Yep, that’s pretty much me.

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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Media One Funski

The 24th annual Media One Funski was held last weekend at Great Bear Ski Resort in Sioux Falls. The event is closing in on a half million dollars in total fundraising for The Children’s Inn, a domestic abuse shelter for women and children. It began in 1989 as a cross country ski race. Today Funski has expanded to include skiing, snowboarding, team snow tubing, kickball, and snow sculpture.