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Last Hunt with John

By Lucas Nogelmeier

Time spent outdoors helped soothe Lucas Nogelmeier’s grieving soul after the death of his father-in-law. Photo by Dean Pearson

When we lose someone dear to us, we yearn for one more conversation, one more Christmas or one more smile. When I lost my father-in-law John Wiles in November of 2019, I wanted one more hunt with the man who took me on so many memorable outdoor excursions in South Dakota. Thankfully, we got it.

On my annual West River deer hunting trip, my phone rang with the news. My father-in-law had been in the hospital for several weeks. After many ups and downs, he ultimately suffered a setback and there was nothing keeping him alive beyond the machines. I loaded my gear and came home. I stayed with the kids, and my wife went to be with her mom and family. I could have gone, and maybe I should have, but I remembered my grandfather in the hospital during his final days and selfishly decided that wasn’t the memory I wanted to have of John. A little after 2 a.m., the call came. My father-in-law was at eternal rest.

I spent most of the following morning feeling sorry for myself, thinking of the times John and I shared. As most South Dakotans know, hunting isn’t about the harvest. It’s about the connection we feel when interacting with the outdoors. My hunting trips with John were no exception. I remembered watching the sunrise with him out at the Pass, our local hunting club near Watertown, where he would recall moments from his childhood, his early adulthood and as a new parent. His life was tethered to that spot and it was a gift to be there with him. My memories weren’t of bag limits or trophy animals. They were simply of being together.

Unable to clear my head, I grabbed my gun and loaded up my dog. It was a magnificent mid-November day, the perfect medicine for my soul. I didn’t care about shooting a pheasant. I just wanted to be outside with my yellow lab Sage, to feel the sunshine on my face and the grasses brushing the backs of my hands as I walked through the prairie.

Using the Game, Fish and Parks map, I picked a spot I’d never hunted before. I arrived to find that cattle had grazed the ground so short it would be hard for a mouse to hide. Sage and I walked around the edge toward a slough to see what we could find. The property extended back into more public ground that had served as pasture but was fenced off and probably hadn’t been grazed in years. It was about 75 acres of overgrown feedlot.

It was a nightmare to walk through. The habitat was thick, layered and tall, but I knew it was prime hunting ground. About 10 yards in, Sage pointed and we dropped our first rooster. Another bird took flight. I kept an eye on where he landed, and Sage and I trudged over to the spot. As excited as we were to get to him, I slowed my pace. Soon my dog’s tail and demeanor indicated we were close. Sage moved north and I followed.

Watertown’s John Wiles (far right) loved hunting, and used the outdoor experiences to impart life lessons to his family, including (from left) son-in-law Lucas Nogelmeier and daughters Amber Nogelmeier and Shannon Bahr.

And then it happened. It was one of those moments that people travel from all over the world to South Dakota to experience. Hens exploded from the ground like popcorn. There were roosters in front of me, behind me, next to me. Cackling and beating wings roared in my ears. I shot once, twice three times, and didn’t touch a feather on any of them. I didn’t have time to reload completely, so I threw a shell in the chamber and shot. And missed again. Pheasants kept flushing, so I threw in another shell and still I missed. No less than 75 birds were piled into an area the size of half a basketball court. My dog looked at me quizzically, and all I could hear was my father-in-law’s boisterous laugh. He had a laugh that rose above the crowd. Amidst my tears, I couldn’t help but laugh as well.

Sage and I headed to a spot where the habitat was a little lighter. I was hoping for easier walking, and maybe some water for my dog. Just before we reached the easier stuff, a rooster flushed. This time, I focused and put him on the ground. We made a beeline out of the nastiness and back to the grazed land.

I walked Sage over to the slough and busted a hole through the ice with my heel so she could drink. Naturally, she ignored the water and acted birdy. I imagined that any one of the horde of birds we flushed could have landed anywhere, even out here in the short grass. I wandered behind her as she worked back and forth into the wind. We were close to the truck, but I didn’t want to go home and I didn’t want to keep pressing for my limit. I simply needed to be outdoors. Just as food and water nourish the body, nature nourishes the soul.

I was deep in thought as Sage and I walked the edge of the slough. The shoreline wound its way back into the thick cover, and soon we came to the spot where we first entered the overgrown feedlot. Rather than jump back in, I walked the grazed outside and let Sage work the edge of the prairie wilds.

I strode slowly north, the ancient, overgrown pasture on my right and the setting sun on my left. Geese honked above and two deer ambled out of the trees while I tried to wrap my head around losing someone who held such an exalted place in my life. Then Sage flushed a rooster about 30 yards into the mess, but I just didn’t feel like shooting. The purples, blues and greens radiated from the bird, and the scene was so idyllic that it seemed better just to admire.

Up ahead, the public land cut off and on the other side was an alfalfa field. Our hunt would soon be over. Fifty yards to go, then 20, then 10. And quiet. Sage and I stop. Tears began to pour down my cheeks again. I knew what was coming. My dog knew it too, and I could feel my father-in-law’s hand on my shoulder. My word for Sage to break point is”okay.” I let it out and Sage pounced. I heard the wingbeats before I saw the pheasant rise above the habitat, colors ablaze. Deliberately, I pulled the gun up and made a good shot. I knelt, sobbing, and Sage returned with the bird in her mouth.

For most of the day, I had been grieving, desperately wishing for one more hunt with my father-in-law. It was on my knees on the South Dakota prairie, my dog by my side and a limit of roosters in the vest that I realized this was that hunt. I didn’t want it to end, so we stayed a moment, together in spirit, in prayer and thanksgiving.

The same warm, November sun shone a bit brighter as we headed back to the truck, and my grief had been replaced with gratitude. A small trickle of water ran amidst the pasture, and Sage found the muddiest place to lie down and cool off. I typically try to keep her out of the mud, but if she’s willing to let me do the easy walking while she busts through the hard stuff to flush pheasants, I think it’s fair to let her wallow in the muck. She stepped out looking two-tone with mud covering every square inch from the middle of her belly and down. And I heard John laugh once more.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2020 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Upland hunting fall 2019 Grouse Pheasant
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Pheasant Tales from South Dakota

By Katie Hunhoff

Redfield recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of South Dakota’s first official pheasant hunt. Hundreds of men and women marched the cornfields of Spink County and then gathered for a prime rib dinner and some wonderful storytelling. The festive event prompted us to remember some of our favorite pheasant tales from the last 35 years of publishing South Dakota Magazine.

Madison wildlife artist John Green once told us the story of when he went afield with some out-of-state sportsmen who had only seen jackalopes in pictures and gift shops. As they neared the end of a corn row, a jackrabbit with tall ears — but, needless to say, no antlers — jumped from the corn and hopped away. One of the hunters yelled out,”Don’t shoot! It’s a doe!”

Lots of famous people have come to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. That makes for some interesting conversations, especially for the Zoss family. Adolf Zoss was hunting near Letcher in 1945 when an old Ford came down a dirt road. It was Lawrence Welk, the famous champagne music man, with members of his band. Welk asked Adolf if he knew where there might be birds, and the South Dakotan gladly guided them to several of his favorite spots.

Zoss couldn’t wait to tell his wife, Amelia, but unfortunately neither she or any of their 11 children believed him because he was known for telling stories.

As Welk gained greater fame and a national TV audience, Zoss told and retold the story to his doubting family until he died in 1957.

Imagine his survivors’ surprise, however, when an issue of Lawrence Welk Magazine was published in 1968 with stories about Welk’s days in the Dakotas and a picture and story about a successful pheasant hunt. There on page 56 was a photo of Welk with a shotgun, and sitting in the old Ford were his band members and a slightly bemused Adolf Zoss. No doubt they all had a”wunnerful” time.

The Brooklyn Dodgers came to Winner to hunt pheasants in the 1930s. After quickly limiting on birds, the players were looking for more to do so the hotel manager suggested they talk to David Busk, who told them about rattlesnake hunting. Busk was known for eradicating more than 3,000 rattlesnakes to protect local children. He took the ballplayers to the White River valley where they caught and killed quite a few snakes. The players came back for several years to help Busk in his mission, giving double meaning to the old Dodger saying,”Wait’til next year!”

Peggy Schiedel of Yankton remembers meeting Cary Grant when he came to their Faulkton farm to hunt. He was a friend of her uncle, who was a Navy captain in California.”My brothers and I slept in the mudroom so our guests could have our bedrooms, but we were still thrilled to have them because they brought boxes of La Fama Candy.” She says Grant taught them how to walk on stilts, and he showed her dad how to build them.

Monte James, a South Dakota farm broadcaster on the Ag Network, once guided some Coca Cola executives from Atlanta on a hunt near Vivian. Despite their enthusiasm, the Southerners couldn’t hit the proverbial barn. But they were determined to get some birds. Finally, James and his dog Ice Cream flushed some pheasants in some very high grass and the hunters emptied their shotguns to no avail. But James hollered,”You knocked a couple down!”

Then he and Ice Cream disappeared into the brush to look for the birds. He stealthily pulled a few birds from his own pouch. He sent one with Ice Cream and he carried the other himself. The hunters were giddy with excitement and left James a big tip, which he used in part to buy Ice Cream a buffalo ribeye.

Out-of-state hunters do, unfortunately, become the inspiration for some of our pheasant humor but they probably don’t mind — at least not any more than we mind the joke about the South Dakota cowboy who traveled to Kansas to see the Statue of Liberty.

These past 100 pheasant hunting seasons have been all about having a fun time and turning strangers into friends. Here’s to another 100 years, humor and all.

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A Pheasantless Huron?

By Michael Zimny

The World’s Largest Pheasant has been a mainstay in Huron for 60 years. Now its future may be in doubt.

Pheasants Forever is the name of one pheasant-concerned conservation group, but can any pheasant — even the World’s Largest Pheasant — truly live forever?

The World’s Largest, a prominent piece of Huron’s skyline since 1959, has sustained serious damage to its structural integrity in its 60 years, and that damage — paired with the fact that the ringneck’s perch is not on city-owned property — presents Huron with the possibility of a pheasant-free future.

The city has a lease agreement — which requires some light pheasant maintenance — with the owners of the structure built around the bird. That lease, negotiated 20 years ago with prior owners of the property, expires in 2020. Meanwhile, current ownership wants to sell the property.

Laurie Shelton is President of the Huron Chamber and Visitor’s Bureau. She says the phesant’s future is subject to the whims of any potential new owner. “If that owner did not want it there, then we have looked at what the cost would be to build a new pheasant, and then to put that on city-owned property,” Shelton says.

However, a move might not be an option. “We have had engineers look at it,” Shelton says, “and they do not feel, because of the integrity of the fiberglass, that it would be able to be moved soundly.”

Schaun Schnathorst is an engineering technician for the city of Huron. He has repaired and repainted the bird twice in the last eight years. (The last touch-up was just a few weeks ago). He agrees that moving the bird would be a risky endeavor. “When you can lean up against that bird and you push it in — in almost any given area because that’s how thin the fiberglass is — it’s definitely going to be a challenge to move it,” Schnathorst says.

Over the course of 60 years, the fiberglass pheasant has been nested in by hundreds of pigeons, bombarded with UV rays and hailstorms, infiltrated with water, and even taken a lightning strike to the head. “If you look up inside that pheasant you can see daylight,” says Schnathorst, adding that some of the original steel mesh frame inside the fiberglass is nonexistent. “So how are you going to strap on to a pheasant and lift it, and not have it cave in with its own weight?”

The Chamber conducted a local survey and found broad support for preserving the pheasant as long as possible. “We like the old pheasant,” Shelton says. “If we could work something out as far as the lease, that would probably be the least expensive [option]. It’s really kind of a dilemma, and it’s not one that’s been easy to deal with. We wish that it was on city-owned property because then we wouldn’t be having these discussions at all.”

“I really think, through social media and how many likes and comments it got after I did a little touch up to it, that the people of Huron want to try to keep it, and keep it in good shape for as long as they possibly can,” Schnathorst says.”Unfortunately, there will probably come a day when it’s just run its course. It’s not Mount Rushmore. It’s not made out of stone.”

Huron commissioned sculptor Robert Jacobs of Idaho to create the city’s massive fiberglass pheasant in 1959. The ringneck stands 28 feet tall, and measures about 40 feet from beak to tail.

The dedication ceremony, held on the pheasant season opener, starred former governor and pheasant hunting enthusiast Joe Foss, who reportedly fired several blanks from his shotgun at the bird as he departed in his helicopter. Sen. Francis Case and Congressman George McGovern were also on hand.

The initial funding for the project was provided by the local Jaycees, but the owner of the Plains Motel, in front of which the bird stood, had to cough up an outstanding $5,000 at the last minute to keep the disgruntled sculptor from torching his bird.

The World’s Largest Pheasant still makes headlines, and for that reason, you can’t count it out. The bird weathered adversity as new owners took over its roost. One such scare in the late 1990s even had other towns giving him the poacher’s eye.

He stands for now, barrel-breasted, proud-beaked, with a fresh coat of paint, unfazed by the uncertainty in the ground beneath his feet.

Michael Zimny is the social media engagement specialist for South Dakota Public Broadcasting in Vermillion. He blogs for SDPB and contributes arts columns to the South Dakota Magazine website.

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Our 100th Pheasant Party

By Katie Hunhoff

Families gather every autumn to walk the fields in search of ringneck pheasants. But the season has become as much about fellowship as bagging birds. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

Just imagine that we all dress alike for one autumn weekend in South Dakota. We cook big pots of chili and make ham sandwiches and taverns (or sloppy joes, if you prefer). We invite family and friends and retired baseball stars to go for long walks with us through the fields and weeds.

We bring our dogs and we take rides in the back of grandpa’s old pickup truck. We tell stories and enjoy the sunshine and blue skies of October in South Dakota.

Wouldn’t that be the perfect weekend?

Of course, I am describing the opening weekend of pheasant season. It would be a special occasion with or without 6 million pheasants. This year, there actually may be even more. Our wildlife experts predict there’s a 47 percent increase. But few of us are counting. This is the 100th consecutive”opening day” in South Dakota, and the hunt is no longer all about the birds. It’s a festival of our grand outdoors.

To commemorate the centennial hunt, we devoted much of our September/October issue to stories. We didn’t have to do much hunting. Just about everybody has a pheasant tale.

Sen. John Thune told us of the day he was hunting with a group that included Twins slugger Kent Hrbek. They knocked on a farmer’s door to ask permission to hunt, and as it turned out the man happened to be watching a replay of Hrbek’s dramatic home run in Game Six of the’87 World Series.

“He wasn’t that pleased to meet me,” laughs Thune.”But Hrbek got it done for us.”

We learned that the Dunse family of Beadle County has been gathering on the family farm for decades, and it’s really special when all 10 grandsons arrive. They usually dine at the Presbyterian Church supper in nearby Bonilla.

Madison artist John Green remembered hunting with some out-of-staters who had seen horned rabbits at a gift shop before they went afield. Once they reached the corn, a jackrabbit jumped up. It had big ears but no horns so one of the novice hunters yelled,”Don’t shoot, it’s a doe!”

Watertown attorney Lee Schoenbeck wondered if it’s sacrilegious to secretly help the bishop bag a bird. Peggy Schiedel remembered when actor Cary Grant visited her family’s Faulkton farm. Yankton broadcaster Monte James told of guiding a group of Coca Cola executives from Atlanta who hardly knew how to hold a gun.

Rapid City journalist and sage Kevin Woster penned a story about his family’s tradition of meeting at cousin Donnie’s farm. Kevin noted that his brother Jim called everyone last year to warn that the bird numbers were down and to ask who might still be coming.

“Well, is there still going to be some sloppy joes in the tool shed before the hunt?” Kevin asked.

Jim thought so.

“And are at least some of the Irish cousins and neighbors going to gather there in the shed and hang out for awhile and swap a few lies?”

Jim was sure they would gather.

“That’s all I need to know,” Kevin said.

One hundred years of South Dakota socialization will be celebrated in October. Toss in a few million pheasants and we’ve got a real party.

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Opening Day

By Bernie Hunhoff

Teenagers who help at Louise’s Cafe in Fairfax, population 115, are about to get a lesson in communications. That’s one of several side benefits to the hunting season for Gregory County, in the heart of pheasant country.

“I keep telling the kids that they’ll get better tips if they just learn to talk to the hunters a little bit,” says Louise Truax, who has been frying eggs on Fairfax’s Main Street for 30 years.”They joke with you and you joke back.'”

Louise’s Cafe, with its $6.50 breakfast special (eggs, bacon, potatoes, toast and coffee) spices the Gregory County ambiance, along with dozens of other small town restaurants, shops and lodges.

Marge LaFave has run the tiny and impeccably clean Hertz Motel in Bonesteel, population 100, for nearly 40 years. Even though most of the pheasants have migrated west of her little town, hunters still sleep there. Across the street is the historic TeePee Cafe, managed by Tami Jons who features Friday night steak specials, prime rib on Saturdays and Sunday breakfast buffets. The motel and cafe were built in the 1950s in anticipation of the lake traffic everybody thought would flood Highway 18 once Fort Randall Dam filled Lake Francis Case.

Walleye and anglers have taken to the lake, but ring-necked roosters take precedence in October when the sorghum heads turn red and the sumac even redder. Pheasants are a $250 million industry statewide. More than 170,000 hunters will be gunning for the birds this fall. That creates 4,500 jobs for guides, taxidermists, waiters, bartenders and lodge-keepers in the four very small towns (Fairfax, Herrick, Bonesteel and Dallas) and two small cities (Burke and Gregory) that comprise Gregory County. Churches hold bake sales to capitalize on the hunters, and the city of Gregory celebrates with a soup-tasting contest.

Opening Day has a fresh aura, especially in Gregory County where an autumn blue sky is beautifully framed by the muted, earthy colors of cornfields, grasslands and tree belts. Hunters regularly remark that they wouldn’t care if they never saw a pheasant, so lovely are the landscapes.

“It’s more about the relationships and the camaraderie,” says Mike Karbo, who bought the funeral home in Burke 20 years ago and moved from Sioux Falls because he loved the outdoors. He says deer, turkey and walleye are also big draws.

And did we mention pancakes?”I’ve been using the same mix forever,” says Louise, the Fairfax restaurateur.”It’s just milk and butter and the mix and you add water, but they sure like them.”

Then add syrup.”I always tell the kids that when the customer gets ready to pay, all you have to say is ‘have a good day,'” she says.”Some of them do and some don’t. But that’s ok, too.”

Who wouldn’t want to hunt in a place like this?

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

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Of Birds and Baseball

By John Andrews

What comes to mind when you’re asked to think about South Dakota? Two images rise to the top of my list: the iconic ring-necked pheasant and amateur baseball on a summer night, and it seems that no where in South Dakota are these more ingrained in the local culture than in Spink County.

Many other cities in South Dakota call themselves”The Pheasant Capitol of the World,” but Redfield has claimed the title since June of 1908. That’s when a group of city leaders acquired three pairs of pheasants from Grants Pass, Oregon, and released them in Hagmann’s Grove, just north of Redfield. The newcomers seemed to do well in Spink County, and in 1919 the first one-day open season on roosters was held. Pheasants have since become the state bird and have transformed the state’s outdoor tourism industry. Thousands of resident and non-resident hunters will roam the fields when pheasant season opens on the third Saturday of October.

The national pastime has also been an important part of life in Spink County, and affects those who are only tangentially connected to the area. ESPN.com writer David Schoenfield wrote a tribute to baseball in Redfield that appeared in our May/June issue. Schoenfield’s father grew up in Redfield, and later brought his wife and children back to his hometown. Among the memories that still stand out for Schoenfield are baseball games on Redfield’s emerald green diamond.

Pheasants were introduced near Redfield in 1908. Now they come in fiberglass.

His article prompted a reader to share the memories he has of watching Redfield win the state amateur baseball championship on its home turf in 1954. Redfield had amassed an early 10-0 lead, but Aberdeen slowly chipped away until it was 10-9 in the ninth inning. Aberdeen had the bases loaded with their most feared hitter, Blackie Engelhart, coming to bat. With one out, Engelhart crushed a ball that seemed destined to be a grand slam, but Redfield’s center fielder leaped and caught it before it sailed over the fence. Then he wheeled around and fired the ball to the second baseman for a double play (the runners had been certain Engelhart would at least have a base hit, and took off running as the ball soared into the outfield).

Redfield is the hub of activity in Spink County.

Spink County was also the site of a unique baseball battle in 1920. Redfield had secured a professional team, but because the Congregational church owned the field and grandstand, no games were allowed on Sundays. Ten miles south in Tulare, Mike Anderson, editor of the town newspaper and manager of the Tulare baseball team, invited the Redfield squad to play its games there, provided Redfield would finance the cost of a new grandstand.

Both towns agreed, the grandstand was constructed in record time and games began. That’s when the Methodists of Tulare began to suspect something might be amiss. They thought the charging of admission on Sunday might violate one of South Dakota’s”blue laws.”

Six Methodist church members agreed to attend a Sunday game. Once they had purchased tickets, they filed a statement at the courthouse in Redfield. The judge ultimately ruled that Sunday baseball could continue, and admission could be charged, provided a separate area was maintained for those who wished to watch the games for free.

Chief Drifting Goose was a thorn in the side to Spink County’s early settlers.

Spink County has even produced a Major League Baseball player. Deacon Phillippe grew up learning to play baseball in the small town of Athol. As a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Phillippe defeated Cy Young in the first World Series game ever played in 1903. He won 189 games in a 13-year career that began when he was 27.

Long before the days of pheasants and baseball, the settlers who trickled into Spink County as early as the 1850s had to contend with the notorious Chief Drifting Goose. His Hunkpati band of Yanktonai was headquartered at Armadale, an island in the James River four miles northeast of Mellette. He’s remembered as a peace-loving leader who preferred pranking homesteaders to violence. Legend says he once stole the clothes from a settler and then made him run back to his sod shanty naked. When railroad surveyors marked a line through his encampment, he moved the stakes. Eventually the rail was routed through Northville, a more respectful 10 miles west of Drifting Goose’s camp.

Locals tell Drifting Goose stories with a chuckle, but they also respect the leader who never signed a treaty and, in his mind, never ceded any land. Historians have named a bridge that spans the James River on Highway 20 after Drifting Goose.

Redfield’s Carnegie Library is the oldest of its kind in South Dakota that has been continually used as a library.

Of course, the colorful leader’s tricks couldn’t stop the eventual settlement and organization of Spink County, created by the territorial legislature in 1873. The area was named for Solomon Lewis Spink, a New York native who worked in law and journalism before President Abraham Lincoln appointed him secretary of Dakota Territory in 1864. He also served in Congress and practiced law in Yankton until his death in 1881.

Several towns emerged along rail lines that passed through Spink County. The largest is Redfield (pop. 2,385), where the state legislature placed the Northern Hospital for the Insane in 1902. Called the South Dakota Developmental Center, the facility still cares for roughly 145 people with disabilities. Redfield is also home to the state’s oldest continually used Carnegie Library. Built in 1902, the red brick building with a sandstone foundation and domed cupola stands at 5 E. Fifth Ave.

Hubert Humphrey as a boy in Doland.

Fisher Grove State Park, east of Redfield near Frankfort, straddles the James River. It’s where the old Watertown-Pierre stage line crossed for the first time using a traditional rock crossing used by Native Americans. Further east on Highway 212 you’ll find Doland, the hometown of Hubert Humphrey, vice president of the United States under Lyndon Johnson from 1965 to 1969.

Follow Highway 37 north of Doland to Turton, (pop. 49) home of the Frogs. The tiny town still holds a Frogtown Festival every June, even though the Jim River is 15 miles away and the closest stream is called Dry Run. The pillar of Turton is the St. Joseph Catholic Church, where St. John the Baptist’s birthday is celebrated in June. The tradition dates to 1899, making it one of the nation’s oldest birthday parties for a saint (besides St. Patrick and St. Nick).

Five generations of Glenn Overby’s family have grown wheat in Spink County.

Spink County covers 1,500 square miles, and much of it is ideal wheat growing country. Farms are plentiful and elevators dot the horizon, especially along Highway 20 through Conde, Brentford, Mellette and Northville in the northern third of the county. The South Dakota Wheatgrowers’ Co-op at Mellette can store 5.5 million bushels, but chances are good you’ll see the overflow of this year’s harvest piled outdoors.

Several years ago we visited the Glenn Overby farm near Mellette. Glenn’s father, John, was a self-taught agronomist who developed his own varieties of wheat: Marvel Wheat and Spinkcota. You can see an exhibit about John Overby and his other inventions at the South Dakota Agricultural Heritage Museum in Brookings.

Wheat farming requires long hours, but we noticed this summer while attending the state amateur baseball tournament in Mitchell that the Northville team’s roster included A.J. Overby, the fifth generation of Overbys to work the Spink County land. That means there’s still time for baseball, and probably pheasants in October, too.

Editor’s Note: This is the 10th installment in an ongoing series featuring South Dakota’s 66 counties. Click here for previous articles.

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The Ringneck Ritual

Before South Dakota was blanketed with winter’s first snowfall, Scott Korsten snapped these pheasant hunting photos at Hunters Pointe near Humboldt. “While growing up in southeast Minnesota my dad and I spent a fair amount of time pheasant hunting. In those days and in that part of the country, we didn’t find many pheasants — and the activity didn’t involve much actual hunting — but it was a great opportunity to spend time together,” Korsten says. “This time of year people gather in South Dakota for world-class pheasant hunting, an annual ritual that brings people together while providing an economic boost to the state’s economy.” See more of Korsten’s work at inspiredbynatureimages.com.
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Big Shots

South Dakota’s ring-necked pheasant population has lured out-of-state hunters for years. You may even know the names of some of them — Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Kirby Puckett, and Dick Cheney have all taken aim here. These celebrity hunting trips were short, but the South Dakotans who hosted and guided them will never forget the experience.

E. Boyen Beckel remembered Ward Bond, the star of 1950s television show Wagon Train, visiting Madison in the 1940s.”I had the privilege of guiding Bond on one of his trips, and despite my young age, partied with Bond and his group at the hotel by the depot on Egan Avenue. Bond knew how to hunt, but even more, how to party.”

We checked the South Dakota Magazine archives and found the following tales of fame and pheasants.

Oh Sure — And I’m Babe Ruth

By Merland Howe


The thirties were a decade of dust, blizzards and poverty. But there was relief from grim times at the Center Store, located in northern McCook County, especially during pheasant season. Locals and out-of-staters gathered for gas, soda, ice cream and shotgun shells.

Everybody knew Bob Feller, who pitched for the Cleveland Indians. He hunted every fall between Center and Howard with his uncle, who delivered gas and oil to the store. But nobody recognized the stocky, middle-aged hunter who strolled in one day.

Kenny Knutson was there when the stranger appeared. He’d stopped on his way home from a baseball game in Salem, still wearing his uniform.”I see you’re a ball player,” the visitor said.”I used to play a little ball myself.”

“Yeah, when?” Kenny asked, looking at the old hunter with doubtful eyes.

“It was a few years back. Maybe you’ve heard of me. I’m Ty Cobb.”

“Oh, sure,” Kenny replied,”and I’m Babe Ruth.”

Cobb, who had retired in 1928 after 24 seasons with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Athletics, and who in 1936 came in first in the first ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, didn’t say another word. He just pulled out his hunting license and presented it to the gape-mouthed Kenny.


Hemingway’s Lake County Hunt

Adapted from the Sept/Oct 2006 story by Ardyce Habeger Samp, Eugene W. Larsen, Sr. and Roger Holtzmann

For author Ernest Hemingway, hunting was a celebration — of life and death and his own manhood. But he didn’t want to let everyone in on the party when he came to the Girton Lodge near Wentworth to hunt pheasants in 1936.

Lodge owner Bill Girton and Ole Hagen, the Lake County game warden, had hoped to promote hunting in Lake County by inviting celebrities to visit during pheasant season. Hemingway accepted,”but the plan to use his visit as a tourism promotion fell flat,” said Eugene W. Larsen, Sr., author of Hemingway in South Dakota.”Hemingway insisted on complete privacy, with absolutely no press coverage.” The Wentworth residents Hemingway met complied with his wishes.”It was a real hush-hush situation at the time,” recalled Helen Pringle, the widow of Warden Hagen.

A few locals got to know the famous author on his ten-day visit. Eugene Larson was nine when he and his father, farmer and Girton Lodge guide Alfred Peter Larson, met Hemingway’s entourage at the Wentworth depot. Hemingway’s baggage included a box of bear meat that he promised to share with the party, though no one really appreciated the gesture. He loved it; the rest thought it was stringy and greasy. Hemingway also brought along a supply of Havana cigars, which he handed to Larsen with instructions to take care of them.”A black man put the luggage into our car, and Hemingway told Dad the man was his chauffeur,” said Larsen.”I didn’t know what that meant, but I found out the man intended to drive our car.”

Hemingway’s personal chef was also present, but he wasn’t ready to cook for such a large party, so Larsen’s mother was pressed into service for the first evening’s meal. With 13 children of her own, Mary Larsen was used a crowd around the table. She provided fried chicken and apple pie, and Hemingway provided the entertainment: he regaled his fellow diners with the tale of how he killed two grizzly bears before coming to South Dakota.

“Hemingway was always the center of attention,” remembered Gene’s older brother, Carl.”He loved it.”

The hunting was good in 1936 — an estimated 1.75 million ring-necked pheasants were taken that year. Lake County was abundantly favored with birds, with the Girton property’s drainage ditch being an especially promising hunting spot. This ditch and the adjoining farm lands were reserved for Hemingway’s group during his stay, though not everyone got the message.”One day the lodge hunters, including my father, were stalking a corn field,” says Gene Larsen.”Unbeknownst to them, a group of hunters was trespassing the field, walking crosswise to them. One of these illegal hunters heard rustling and shot toward the Hemingway group. Pellets came flying through the air! My dad had his gun up and at least a dozen pellets hit his gun and stuck in the wooden stock. Some of the shot hit Hemingway’s hunting vest. He let out a string of expletives. After hearing the screaming and swearing, the unseen violators quickly disappeared. I still have Dad’s gun and the pellet marks are quite visible.”

Hemingway’s trip looked like a vacation, but looks can be deceiving.”He said he had just ‘put his Morgan novel to bed’ in Wyoming, and that he’d handwritten 50,000 words…working like a bastard,” said Larsen. (The novel was later published as To Have and To Have Not.) Even though he wasn’t busy with any particular project in South Dakota, Hemingway never stopped accumulating the images and ideas that were his stock in trade. He took an interest in every detail of the prairie environment,”land contour, flowers, plants…things most people take for granted,” said Larsen. After evening meals he would sit in a corner and scribble notes on this he wanted to remember.”

But all vacations must end, and Hemingway’s prairie idyll was no exception. One evening the Larsen boys came home from school, and Hemingway was gone. He left Alfred Larsen $19, a small fortune in those days, and a hunting jacket that became a treasured family keepsake.

Editor’s Note: These stories are revised from the July/August 2003 and Sept/Oct 2006 issues of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


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South Dakotans Will Survive

The statewide concern for South Dakota’s West River stockgrowers warms the heart. Despite that big river, we are one state and that is especially obvious in times like this.

Most of us who live in East River have friends, relatives, customers or associates of some sort out West. As Lt. Governor Matt Michels often jokes, South Dakota is big enough to qualify as America’s 15th largest city — if we were all crowded into one big city from Buffalo to Dakota Dunes.

You might think that we would lose the camaraderie of a city, with our 820,000 people spread out over 77,000 square miles. But attend a Jackrabbit or Coyote football game (or better yet a Jackrabbit vs. Coyote game) and you’ll soon know that we have a lot in common. You can get the same lesson during deer season, or the legislative session, or countless other occasions.

We learned it again last week when cold rains doused the sheep and cattle on the West River rangeland, followed by a blizzard now called Atlas that buried the already-freezing and weakened livestock in as much as three feet of wind-driven snow.

Nothing tightens the chest of a rancher more than the sight of an animal lying dead, and it’s far less about money than the simple fact that he or she feels like the guardian of the herd. When adversity hits — even something as impossible to fight as a blizzard called Atlas — the cattleman or sheepherder feels responsible and wonders what might have been done differently.

Catastrophes are always that way.

The October 2013 blizzard was exceptional in its fury, and because it arrived when calves are usually still warming themselves in the autumn sun. But South Dakotans are blizzard survivors.

Exactly 100 years ago, a horrible blizzard blanketed all of South Dakota. The Perry family, new homesteaders, were traveling to their ranch about 10 miles east of Rapid City when the storm hit.

Mr. and Mrs. Perry and four of their nine children were in a wagon. The older children went ahead on horseback. They became separated in the blinding snow.

The bodies of the parents and the four younger chldren were found by the wagon the next day, a quarter-mile from the farmhouse. The other children survived and they made burial plans for a funeral that attracted much attention.

One visiting journalist attended and upon seeing the six coffins in the snow he wrote,”In a little cemetery out on the edge of the Black Hills, where men hunt gold, they have just dug the longest, widest, deepest grave in the great West. In that one grave lie a father, mother and four children — the most touching sacrifice offered up to the great blizzard which has just swept this bleak waste of the Middle West.”

The journalist meant well but he hardly understood this land, and its appeal. We are one community, tied together by pheasants and deer, by a 35-day legislature, a web of wild rivers, mountains and flatlands and hills in between — and by cows and sheep. And tied together mostly by a people who like the freedom of space under a big sky.

For 124 years, the citizens before us have come together to overcome floods, droughts, tornadoes, fires, depressions and blizzards.

Fortunately, in this latest challenge, we didn’t lose any human life to the storm. But some of our friends from the western side might very well lose their livelihoods.

A number of organizations are raising funds to help the ranchers hardest hit. If you have a few dollars, one of the best places to send a check would be the Black Hills Community Foundation, Box 231, Rapid City, S.D. 57701. Make it out to the Ranchers’ Relief Fund.

Updated 10/17: We’ve now learned that four South Dakotans did lose their lives in accidents or misfortunes related to the storm in western South Dakota. The four families have our heartfelt sympathy for their losses.

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No Limit to the Fun

By Lee Schoenbeck

The Benedictine sisters of Mother of God Monastery have been embracing life on the prairie in South Dakota for over 100 years — a little longer than South Dakota’s most popular game bird, the Chinese Ringneck Pheasant. Being that steeped in South Dakota history, it should come as no surprise that their activities include hosting an annual pheasant hunt. This year’s September hunt, the sisters’ eleventh foray into the charity ringneck hunting world, was again held at Oak Tree Lodge near Clark, South Dakota. That the local business community and faithful would support the sisters and the good works they do by participating in the event should also come as no surprise.

MOTHER OF GOD

The Benedictine sisters have a rich history, reaching back to Italy in 529 A.D., with a focus on life organized about the Rule of Saint Benedict. The Rule, a guide for organizing a Christian community around the precepts of work and prayer, continues to direct the Benedictines to this day. The sisters made their way to South Dakota, near Zell, in 1874 — a full forty-five years before the first ringneck season. In 1967 the sisters established a convent in Watertown, on a hill overlooking the Sioux River. Today, Mother of God is home to 54 sisters.

Through the years their mission has changed. In the early years their focus was on education and health care. Several of the participants in the Nun Hunt were the beneficiaries of Benedictine religious education. (Full disclosure: this writer was educated by these nuns at St. Otto’s in Webster.) A major focus of the sisters today is the Benedictine Multicultural Center, a facility aimed at encouraging understanding of our area’s many cultures, and providing assistance to those newer South Dakotans that may be in need and find navigating South Dakota a little challenging.

OAK TREE LODGE

The Makens’ family roots at Oak Tree only reach back to 1901, making them the younger South Dakota members of this nun-pheasant-landowner partnership. While the family makeup there has changed through the decades, Bill Makens is the current patriarch. He started making the move back to South Dakota, and Oak Tree Lodge, in 1998. The Makens family are dedicated and faithful Catholics, who host this hunt as one way to participate in their faith. The patriarch, Bill, had a long history of fundraising for Catholic schools in the Twin Cities, so the Nun Hunt was a natural fit.

THE HUNT

The Nun Hunt takes place at the Oak Tree hunting preserve northeast of Clark. Over thirty hunters and a pack of trained hunting dogs partake in the hunt. Oak Tree’s hunting ground is in close proximity to its lodge, and the layout shows a love and attention to hunting and the husbandry potential of the land. Oak Tree’s 8,000 acres are dotted with food plots, sloughs and standing bean and corn fields. It is a hunter’s dream land, because it has been designed to be a pheasant’s dream land.

While challenged this year with winds of over twenty miles per hour, the hardy crew harvested 62 pheasants — and all the fun that was legal to have. While the wind makes the hunting more challenging, no South Dakotan ringneck chaser would allow limits on the fun at a Nun Hunt.

THE SOCIAL

The hunters that come to the Nun Hunt enjoy the hunt, the outdoors and the camaraderie — but they also understand that the event is about raising funds to help the sisters continue their ministries, and the hunters are fully invested in that cause. Like all good charity events, there is an auction. Auctioneers Randy and Chris Owen donate their services, bringing both a humorous and ecumenical flair to the hunt. For example, while raising one’s own bid is frowned upon at most auctions, it may be the norm at the Nun Hunt!

On one occasion, local OB/GYN hunter, Dr. Flaherty, raised his bid after winning in exchange for a hug from the sister assisting with the auction. A successful hunter, at this auction, is likely to come home with a basket of nun-baked bread and sister-pickled preserves. The only rain that falls on this event is the inevitable ability of the Vikings to lose on the Sunday of the Nun Hunt, but there are some things even the Sisters’ good cheer and preserves can’t remedy.

GOOD THINGS HAPPEN FOR A GOOD CAUSE

Outside of South Dakota, it probably seems a little odd for a pacifist group of prayerful ladies to raise money with Mr. Remington’s finest, but here it makes perfect sense. The sisters, the ringnecks, and the landowning Makens have deep roots in our state. A day in the field hunting pheasants is among the finest blessings to bestow upon a South Dakota hunter — well, a hunter from anywhere, for that matter. The sisters caring for our people, birds that inspire our state, and the landowners that create the habitat for those birds all nurture parts of what is best about life in South Dakota. When all these come together for a good cause, many good things happen — and, well, that’s why there’s no limit on a Nun Hunt: because the nuns have never put a limit on the good they would do for those they have touched along their journey here at home in South Dakota.

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