South Dakota
Sioux Falls Black leaders unimpressed with response to neo-Nazi march
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The fallout continues after multiple incidents of a neo-Nazi group marching in South Dakota cities.
Those activities happened over the weekend at the State Capitol in Pierre and in Deadwood.
State leaders have condemned the marches, but the level of response has been underwhelming for three leaders from the Sioux Falls branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Langston Newton, the president of the NAACP in Sioux Falls, had spent his entire Saturday celebrating the diversity of the city while representing the civil rights group in the Sioux Falls Pride Parade and Festival of Cultures.
Then, while at a Levitt at The Falls music show, he received the news about the neo-Nazi march in Pierre.
”Honestly, it was disbelief. To see neo-Nazis in 2024 go to your state capitol is, like, ‘This has to be fake,’” said Newton, who first spent several minutes making sure to confirm that the event was a reality.
“It’s jarring. It’s absolutely jarring.”
NAACP Sioux Falls treasurer Ashley Knoff used the same word, and added “visceral” and “shocking.”
“Ever since the 2020 election, you see more and more neo-Nazi’s doing more and more things everywhere. You see the Proud Boys. You want to feel safe at home and like it’s not close, and then you see that and you think, ‘Oh, that’s what’s happening today.’ And, it’s a reality. It’s a reality at home. Everyday, people of my complexion face racism and discrimination, but to see just a hateful organization is just jarring.”
Jarring but not surprising to Julian Beaudion, who has lived in Sioux Falls for almost two decades and owns Swamp Daddy’s Cajun Kitchen and recently finished his tenure as executive director of the South Dakota African-American History Museum.
”Hatred has always been in South Dakota. Hatred has always been in America,” Beaudoin said. “Racism is bred within the cloth with what we call America, with what we call home, and it’s something that we fight against every day.”
And according to these leaders, the fight against bigotry isn’t strong enough from Gov. Kristi Noem, who issued a short social media statement that said, in part, that “Nazis are not welcome here” in South Dakota and that the state rejects all hate.
“I think its shocking that she has not made an in-person statement via her own social media,” Knoff said. ”We live in 2024. It does not take very long to flip your camera around and say, ‘I’m just as shocked as you are. I don’t want this happening in my state.’ I want a real, raw response, not something that’s canned.”
Although the neo-Nazi demonstrators were escorted away from the Capitol and sent away by law enforcement in Deadwood, there are concerns about law enforcement training when it comes to these situations.
Beaudion is a certified law enforcement officer who feels police were not prepared well enough to interact with the hate group. He also thinks those police forces in those cities would not be ready to interact with members of the community the hate group stands against.
“I think knowing the climate of our country right now, more should have been done in preparation to ensure that when these things happen, and I’m not saying if. We know that these things are going to happen. They’re happening across the country. They happened on January 6th. We have folks right here in South Dakota that participated in January 6th in Washington, D.C.”
“Knowing these things are going to happen, knowing that we have people living in our community that feel the way they do, we have to be prepared to battle against the hatred,” Beaudoin said. “We can’t just come out with the statement and say, ‘It has no home,’ if we’re not empowering our people to fight against hatred.”
“I think all of those things are so important when it comes to diffusing those situations, and they have not been equipped with any of that, and I think that’s a failure of our governor.
Knoff took it a step further.
“If a group of 15-25 black men in masks came to the city’s capital or city’s hall, the response would not be the same. It wouldn’t be just ‘disperse and have a great time,’” Knoff said.
“My nephews, my dad, my uncles, cousins, brothers would have been forfeiting their lives for doing such a thing.”
Knoff said she has fielded a bevvy of texts and phone calls over the last three days from people in the Black community asking her what is the NAACP and the Black community is going to do about this, and “what is our way of protecting our people and our community so this doesn’t happen and we don’t feel supported or feel seen by law enforcement, and what will happen to us?”
“I can tell you a lot of people don’t feel safe,” Knoff said. “It’s not a matter of if but probably when. We’re the biggest city, but if it happened in Pierre, and they’re already being vocal about it, why not? We’re having Juneteenth here next weekend. It’s not hard to see that, you know, hate crimes are going to be on the rise.”
From 2010 to 2019, the number of hate crime incidents recorded by law enforcement increased by 10%, from 6,628 reported incidents to 7,314 incidents. New statistics from the FBI for 2022 showed decrease in violent offenses and rise in hate crime incidents, a majority of which targeted Black people. The number of hate crimes reported to police in the nation’s 10 largest cities rose again in 2023, according to preliminary data released on Jan. 5 from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University.
The neo-Nazi marching in two of South Dakota’s higher-profile cities comes ahead of this weekend’s Juneteenth celebration in Sioux Falls. The federal holiday recognizes June 19th, 1865, when the last slaves in America were set free. Knoff said the NAACP is grateful local law enforcement will be on hand.
In a city of over 202,000, just over 13,000 are African-American, almost 7 percent.
Newton says that if you’re white, and stand against hate, and want minorities in the state to feel safe and welcome — go to the Juneteeth festivities and show your support. And, whether you can or can’t do that, to try and get to know your minority neighbors and co-workers. Have conversations.
“South Dakota is a welcoming place,” Newton said. “I do understand, though, that it is often in my experiences that (white people) haven’t met a ‘me’ before, or they haven’t gotten a chance to actually have a conversation, or a good-faith conversation with a person of color or a minority in this state. It’s one of those pieces where it’s easy to stereotype and dehumanize somebody if you don’t know who they are or don’t know them.
”The fact of the matter is, South Dakotans, people of color here, raise their families. They go to work. They pay their taxes. They go to church. They do all these things just like you. If you actually take the time to humanize us and people of color in the state, that might lead to a better understanding and a little less hate.”
Beaudion said neo-Nazi appearances are nothing new to South Dakota, and wouldn’t be in sioux Falls. He brought up a swastika being emblazoned in the cement of a public park. Of KKK fliers passed out to kids “with candy on them.”
“We’ve dealt with all these issues, and typically it’s every two years and it’s no coincidence that they happen right around election time,” Beaudoin said. “My fear is that intimidation will work around the community, and people will not vote. People will not register to vote. People will stop running for office.”
“My encouragement, my hope, is that people will do the opposite. People will start to register in droves, in record numbers, so, when some of these policies do come up, such as House Bill 1076 (a 2024 antisemitism bill/law the NAACP opposed because it did not protect all religions and races), we are better prepared and better equipped to fight against it by making our own policies that actually protect our community.”
Copyright 2024 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
South Dakota
SD Lottery Millionaire for Life winning numbers for June 25, 2026
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 25, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from June 25 drawing
03-13-14-34-45, Bonus: 01
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes of $100 or less: Can be claimed at any South Dakota Lottery retailer.
- Prizes of $101 or more: Must be claimed from the Lottery. By mail, send a claim form and a signed winning ticket to the Lottery at 711 E. Wells Avenue, Pierre, SD 57501.
- Any jackpot-winning ticket for Dakota Cash or Lotto America, top prize-winning ticket for Lucky for Life, or for the second prizes for Powerball and Mega Millions must be presented in person at a Lottery office. A jackpot-winning Powerball or Mega Millions ticket must be presented in person at the Lottery office in Pierre.
When are the South Dakota Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. CT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 9:38 p.m. CT daily.
- Lotto America: 9:15 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Dakota Cash: 9 p.m. CT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 10:15 p.m. CT daily.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a South Dakota editor. You can send feedback using this form.
South Dakota
South Dakota Supreme Court upholds Box Elder burglary, assault convictions
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – The South Dakota Supreme Court has upheld the convictions of a Pennington County man sentenced for threatening a Box Elder resident with a handgun during a 2025 home invasion.
In a unanimous decision, the court affirmed the convictions of Chris David Kujawa, who was found guilty of first-degree burglary and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. A Pennington County jury convicted Kujawa in May 2025, and he was sentenced to concurrent 12-year prison terms.
According to trial testimony, Kujawa forced his way into a Box Elder home, accused the homeowner of stealing property and pointed a handgun at the victim’s head while threatening to kill him. The victim testified Kujawa also threatened his wife.
Kujawa appealed the convictions, arguing the trial court improperly limited questions about the victim’s prior convictions and incorrectly responded to a question from jurors during deliberations.
The Supreme Court rejected those arguments, finding that any error related to the victim’s prior conviction did not affect the outcome of the case and that the judge properly directed jurors to review instructions that accurately stated the law.
“The Supreme Court’s decision affirms the jury’s verdict and recognizes the strength of the evidence presented at trial,” Attorney General Marty Jackley said in a statement.
The Attorney General’s Office represented the state during the appeal.
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Copyright 2026 KOTA. All rights reserved.
South Dakota
US Rep. Dusty Johnson looks ahead after primary defeat
See video of Devil’s Gulch, chosen as a day trip for USA’s 250th
See a video of Devil’s Gulch Park, a great day trip with a storied past in South Dakota to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday this year.
Republican U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson said he does not know what’s next for him after his failed bid for South Dakota governor, and while he’s helping one of the remaining Republican candidates, he does not plan to make a public endorsement unless he’s asked.
South Dakota Searchlight sat down with Johnson for an interview in Sioux Falls. He did not say which of the remaining candidates he’s assisting.
Johnson said his campaign was affected by a political environment hostile to candidates with experience in Congress.
“It’s not a good time to be connected to Washington, D.C.,” Johnson said.
He finished third in the four-way June 2 Republican primary behind Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden and Gov. Larry Rhoden, who will face each other in a July 28 runoff election. Johnson finished ahead of state House Speaker Jon Hansen. The spread between first and last place was 10 percentage points.
Johnson will remain a U.S. representative until January. He has no specific plan for his future after that, other than remaining in Mitchell, where his wife has a business and one of their three sons is still in high school.
He did not rule out a return to politics, but said his “heart isn’t set on that,” adding that his motivation has always been “to do something” rather than “to be something.”
“It’s about the impact,” he said.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What happened with the SD governor’s race?
Well, it’s not a good time to be connected to Washington, D.C. Nine of my congressional colleagues have lost in the last year. When running for higher office, that’s an unusual number.
It used to be thought that being in the U.S. House was a good place to run for the Senate or for governor from. That’s really not the case anymore. Clearly, there’s a lot of dysfunction in D.C., and particularly if you are a more Reagan-minded Republican, a more establishment-viewed Republican, that can be hard to overcome in a primary.
And I’d note, we were ahead the whole race — three weeks out, four weeks out, we were 16 points up.
It was really the negative ads calling me a “RINO” [Republican in Name Only] or a liberal that, in those last two weeks, just cratered our numbers. And we saw that in our polling. People were increasingly saying, when we were asking them why they were voting for somebody else, “Well, you know, Dusty’s a liberal. Dusty’s a RINO.” And we probably did not do a good enough job of combating those negative ads. They really, really worked.
Why didn’t you target Doeden for criticism during the campaign?
Early on, particularly, it showed that there wasn’t a lot of overlap between Doeden voters and Johnson voters. If people were thinking about voting for me, they were also thinking about voting for Larry.
Now, that changed as the campaign went on. And indeed, as the negative ads against me in the last two weeks worked and took 10 points off our number, overwhelmingly, those people moved to Doeden. And that would have been fine if we would have made the runoff, but we fell just a couple thousand votes short of making the runoff.
I would have felt great about our chances against Toby in the runoff. But in the end, that’s not what happened.
Do you regret the votes you took in Congress that your opponents alleged were out of step with President Trump?
Number one, to the extent that they were principled votes, I don’t think you can ever regret your principles, right?
I mean, voting to certify the 2020 election was what the Constitution, the plain and clear reading of the Constitution, demanded of me. And so my political life might have been a little easier if I would have ignored the Constitution, but I’m just not capable of doing that.
The interesting thing is the attacks that had the most negative effect on me weren’t even the votes where I deviated from the party norms.
I mean, one attack that was really effective was saying Dusty Johnson voted with Ilhan Omar — that’s a liberal congresswoman from Minnesota — to defund ICE. It took us the longest time to figure out what they even meant by that. And that was an attack that Larry and Toby were making.
Near as I can tell, I voted against a Joe Biden spending package. I thought the Joe Biden spending package was too liberal. I voted against it. They’re, as a result, alleging that I voted to defund ICE. Ilhan Omar voted against that package because it wasn’t liberal enough for her.
I voted with the overwhelming majority of Republicans and all conservatives, but that clearly conservative vote was still distorted, and I’m not complaining about it. I mean, I think we all know that goes on in politics. I have no bitterness. I don’t have any regret.
I mean, at some point, we know that these primaries are going to be hard-fought. I’m not a sore loser. Toby and Larry won, and I didn’t.
And I think one of the reasons that I can handle the loss so well is that my motivator has never been to be something. It’s always been to do something. And we still have an opportunity to work together to improve South Dakota education, improve South Dakota public safety.
I don’t have to be governor for our state to make great things happen. And we deserve a great state. We deserve a great governor. And I’m committed to those things even if I’m not going to be the guy.
Rhoden and Hansen supported new laws that fund homeowner property tax reductions with higher sales taxes. Your campaign messaging criticized them for the sales tax increases. Was that not effective? What was the feedback?
That messaging was fantastically effective.
I mean, the campaign started with Larry and Dusty in a statistical tie at 29%. And once people understood more about the three sales tax increases, Larry went down to 23. We went up to 33. And Larry never fully recovered from that. Rather, I think he finished at 25.
And so the idea that the sales tax increases weren’t an effective differentiator isn’t supported by the data.
And indeed, I think that was part of what caused Toby’s run-up — the outside advertising, particularly. It was far harsher on Larry and Jon than anything we had designed or approved.
[The sales tax messaging] put a lid on Larry and Jon’s support. They just couldn’t get above 23 or 25 points. And when the negative ads calling me a liberal took 10 points off me, those voters couldn’t really go to Larry and Jon because they didn’t trust them on taxes. And so they were willing to go to Toby, who they viewed as a guy talking about big vision in the same way that our campaign was talking about big vision.
I don’t think that necessarily means that Toby Doeden’s going to be a great governor. I just think the voters in a multi-candidate field were having to figure out who they could vote for, as they were learning things about the other candidates they didn’t like.
Who will you vote for in the runoff?
Well, there has been a bit of a controversy this campaign season about people being endorsed by folks they didn’t want to be endorsed by. And so no candidate has asked me to publicly endorse them.
I’ve had multiple conversations with both Toby and Larry. When they’ve asked, I provided them my honest feedback.
One of the campaigns has asked me to help in some other ways, and I’m doing that. But I’m not going to announce that publicly unless they ask. I think it would be unfair to them.
Again, I called and reached out to both Toby and Larry and congratulated them because, again, they’re winners and I don’t have any intention of being a sore loser.
Listen, this is politics. We’ve all won in life, and we’ve all lost. Winning beats the heck out of losing, but I still know South Dakota has got great opportunities in the future.
You and your team worked hard, including using money from your political action committees, to get legislators elected that align with your agenda. That happened, but you lost. Isn’t that ironic? How does that happen?
Because the Republican primary electorate is hardwired to view attacks like “career politician” and “RINO” as radioactive. And although we certainly talked a lot about, I think, the unfortunate tax increases that Jon and Larry put into place, we were trying to make an argument about policy, right?
My differences with them were policy. Those were very different than the insults that the other candidates leveled at me, and just honestly, their negative ads were more effective than anything the outside groups were running on my behalf.
But no, I don’t think there’s any irony that Larry and Toby will have a more functional Legislature because of my hard work. I want South Dakota to have a good Legislature, regardless of who was governor.
I’m not interested in a functional South Dakota only if Dusty Johnson’s governor — I love the state, regardless.
Is there room for bipartisan “workhorses,” rather than “show horses,” in today’s Republican Party?
Certainly, election results from the last year have shown that it is really hard to get elected if you focus on common ground building.
Again, nine of my colleagues in the House have lost their runs for higher office just in the last year. And that’s much higher than has historically been normal.
But I still think honest people, principled people, are still going to do the right thing, even if maybe the political marketplace doesn’t reward them for it.
Did you seek President Trump’s endorsement? Would it have made a difference?
I think we’ve seen, like in Iowa with Randy Feenstra — also a very hard-working, policy-focused member of the House, a close ally of mine — he received the Trump endorsement and lost his governor’s race.
And I think it just goes to show that even with the Trump endorsement, if you’re viewed as somebody who’s more interested in working together than fighting, the race is going to be a little different. And we knew that going in.
Within the “America First” movement, we’re now seeing more influential figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens break with President Trump. What do you think is going to come of the Republican Party?
It does seem like both parties are being led by ever angrier and louder voices. That is not going to make for good outcomes in this country. But the fever will break.
I mean, we have been here before.
You look at the turn of the last century where you couldn’t find a newspaper that wasn’t a party organ.
I mean, it was the Mitchell Daily Republican — that was the name of the paper, literally. Hundreds of papers had partisan names and thousands of them were party organs, even if not by title.
And frankly, Americans had segregated themselves into ethnic and ideological ghettos — very, very tribal. And then something happened, the fever broke, and Americans decided to have more of a common identity. And they sought out platforms that were more interested in facts than in spin.
And I think the yellow journalism of the early 1900s was every bit as dangerous as the yellow journalism of today’s cable news. I think they’re both toxic to the healthy functioning of a free society.
But the fever broke then, and the fever will break now.
The good book says that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. And I don’t know when that happens, but I’m a believer in American exceptionalism. I don’t think these things happen by accident. I don’t think this is just another country.
I think if good people continue to stay engaged, the fever will break, and we’re going to get back to the kind of country that my kids deserve.
Do you regret any of your positioning in regard to President Trump, either being too aligned or not enough?
Well, I supported President Trump when I thought he was right.
There were certainly disagreements he and I had on things like invading Greenland, the Qatari jet, and certifying the 2020 election. But, I mean, at some point, if you’re not going to be authentic to your views, then why run, why serve?
Certainly, the president and I agreed far more than we disagreed. And we never had any particular problem. I mean, he knew that I had different views on trade, that we have different views on NATO and on the role of free trade agreements and security agreements. That never bothered him.
This was a guy who invited me to Mar-a-Lago. He had me over to the Oval Office. We had lots of productive meetings because we were both focused on getting things done. And no two people agree on everything.
I think that’s one reason that he was reluctant to endorse an incumbent governor in this race. And it is unusual that he did not endorse an incumbent governor, and I think part of that is because he and I had such a good working relationship.
What do you plan to do next?
I don’t have any idea. I love this state. My wife’s business is in Mitchell. We’ve got a 14-year-old in Mitchell schools, and our oldest is at South Dakota State University. Our middle child’s at the University of South Dakota. And so South Dakota’s home.
Votes that cost Johnson in the primary will stand up well to the scrutiny of history
I want to lead a life of consequence. I want to have an impact. I want to do things to improve this state.
Of course, you can do that in the private sector. You can do that in business. You can do that in nonprofit. You can do that in government.
I don’t have any idea what’s next, but I know leaders eat last, and we’ve got a lot of really talented professionals who are on the campaign, who love this state, and they want to find a job here, and I’m working hard to make sure that they can find a job.
And then we’ve got an incredibly talented and committed team on the official side, who work for the United States House, our office. They’ll have jobs through the end of the year, but they are so talented that, I mean, I’ll feel duty-bound to try to make sure that some great enterprise is able to hire them so that they can keep making the state great.
Does Dusty Johnson have a political future?
Oh, it’s so hard to say.
I think two weeks after an election is the wrong time for me to decide. We don’t even have all our highway signs down yet. And so I don’t know what the future holds.
Certainly, there are many examples of successful elected officials, such as John Thune and Bill Janklow, coming back after a loss. But my heart isn’t set on that.
Again, I’m more focused on doing things rather than being things. It’s about the impact. And so I don’t know.
If you told me that in my 70s, I was on the school board or in the state Legislature, I wouldn’t be shocked at all.
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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