South Dakota
Contents of memorial to mountain man Hugh Glass revealed at Neihardt event • South Dakota Searchlight
WAYNE, Nebraska — A “reveal” of what a Nebraska poet hid inside a lonely monument a century ago revealed more of what Mother Nature could wreck over the span of 100 years.
On Saturday, descendants of John Neihardt revealed what they’d found inside an “altar to courage” that the poet and members of a fan club from what’s now Wayne State College planted in the rocky soil of northwestern South Dakota in 1923.
The homemade, concrete monument memorialized the courage of mountain man Hugh Glass, who was left for dead in August 1823 after being mauled by a grizzly bear but then crawled and limped 200 miles to get help.
Neihardt challenged students from Wayne State (then Nebraska Normal College) to return in 100 years to rededicate and open a time capsule he buried within the monument, which he said contained an “original manuscript.”
Drilled, chiseled into monument
His family carefully drilled and chiseled into the thigh-high monument last October after removing it from its location near Lemmon, South Dakota, where Glass was mauled.
But on Saturday they revealed that what they could retrieve from inside were still-wet fragments of a special Neihardt edition of a student newspaper, The Goldenrod, as well as pieces of Neihardt’s book containing his epic poem describing the heroic crawl, “The Song of Hugh Glass.”
Coralie Hughes, a granddaughter of Neihardt, said that despite the lack of a new work from Nebraska’s “poet laureate in perpetuity,” the family had accomplished its goal of fulfilling the “challenge” to open up the time capsule and not destroying the monument in the process.
“I was hoping for a personal note to the world from my grandfather,” Hughes said. “Maybe he did (leave one) because a lot of what we found was unintelligible.”
The paper fragments, when found inside a tin box imbedded in the concrete, were still wet, which she said may have been the result of several times when the monument was flooded.
The monument was originally built on dry, private ranch land near the confluence of two forks of the Grand River, but it ended up on the banks of a federal reservoir that flooded at least four times since 1953.
Hughes said the family was told by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which owns the reservoir, that the monument had to be moved if it was to be breached.
She said the family proceeded gingerly in drilling into the monument so as not to destroy it. The first thing to be discovered— using a snake-like video camera — were fragments of a pop bottle that contained a letter from two newlyweds— J.T. and Myrtle Young of Lincoln — who arrived too late to sign a document Neihardt said was signed by those present and placed inside a tin box.
The Neihardt family decided against trying to retrieve the glass fragments or trying to dig out all the paper fragments inside the embedded tin box for fear of destroying the monument, which was relocated to the John Neihardt State Historic Site in Bancroft, Nebraska.
Some papers remain inside the tin box, Hughes said, but they are just “crumbling” pieces.
“We didn’t want to keep going,” said Alexis Petri of Kansas City, who produced a short documentary on the family’s work to retrieve the monument.
Her documentary and the “reveal” were presented Saturday at the annual spring conference of the Neihardt Foundation held at Wayne State College. Neihardt graduated from the school, then called Nebraska Normal College, at age 15.
‘Wonderful to see something tangible’
The event focused on the saga of the almost forgotten monument, the taking up of the challenge by Wayne State professor Joseph Weixelman and his class to rededicate the monument and the eventual decision to relocate the monument to Nebraska.
Mary McDermott, who drove from Holdrege with her daughter to view the final chapter in the mystery of the monument, betrayed no disappointment that some rare manuscript wasn’t found.
“It’s wonderful to see something tangible from 100 years ago,” she said.
“I’m impressed that there was something still there,” said her daughter Alizabeth.
Marianne Reynolds, the executive director of the Neihardt Center, said the fragments retrieved would be sent to the Ford Conservation Center in Omaha for further analysis.
After that, she said, they would be put on display at the center in Bancroft. A kiosk is envisioned so that visitors can play the documentary produced by Petri, Reynolds added.
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 27, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from June 27 drawing
03-16-28-30-59, Powerball: 11, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lotto America numbers from June 27 drawing
03-08-18-22-39, Star Ball: 06, ASB: 02
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Dakota Cash numbers from June 27 drawing
02-21-25-30-32
Check Dakota Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from June 27 drawing
26-32-38-51-52, Bonus: 05
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 is getting another chief elections officer.
Secretary of State Monae Johnson failed to win the Republican nomination for a second term during the South Dakota Republican Party Convention Saturday in Rapid City, where GOP delegates instead favored another Pierre outsider to oversee the state’s elections for the next four years.
“When this office runs well, you don’t notice it. When it doesn’t, you feel it everywhere,” Rep. Heather Baxter told a capacity crowd of delegates and attendees at The Monument events center, where she received nearly 60 percent of votes cast by more than 700 party delegates.
Populist push falls short in South Dakota GOP contest for Public Utilities nod
South Dakota
Work, housing and staffing: How South Dakota’s corrections chief aims to keep inmates from returning
SIOUX FALLS – South Dakota’s repeat offense rate for people who leave prison can return to the low point it saw a a dozen years ago, the state’s corrections secretary said Tuesday.
Nick Lamb, now six months into his role atop the Department of Corrections, laid out the agency’s plan Tuesday at the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force at its meeting in Sioux Falls. The plan includes work release programs, residential housing for inmates and a top-to-bottom restructuring of how the department operates.
Recidivism measures how many inmates return to prison within three years of their release. The figure for South Dakota stood at
50%
in the most recent data, which was based on the performance of inmates released in 2021.
South Dakota’s lowest recidivism rate in the last two decades was 39% in 2014.
“We’ll get back there,” Lamb said Tuesday.
Lamb told reporters after the meeting he wants “to start getting in the business of closing prisons” during his tenure.
“Our population is too high for our state,” Lamb said. “We need to get our population down, but we’ve got to give the offenders the tools they need that they haven’t always had.”
Several recommendations presented on Tuesday, by Lamb and other criminal justice experts, will require more staff and funding.
State Rep. John Hughes, R-Sioux Falls, worries that the Legislature’s budget-setting committee will balk at new spending.
“My concern is that we put all these elaborate proposals together, then when we get to appropriations we’re going to hit the wall,” Hughes said.
Inmates return to work release
Under Lamb’s predecessor, Kellie Wasko, pay for inmate work performed outside the prison walls
was increased to minimum wage
. After that policy change, fewer communities and organizations contracted inmate workers for community service jobs.
Rep. Tim Reisch, R-Howard, said most of the roughly 250 minimum-security prisoners he oversaw during his tenure as corrections secretary participated in work release.
“They got up and they all had jobs. They were used to getting out of bed, going to work, getting in a habit of that,” Reisch said.
When he toured the prison last year, fewer than 20 were working, he said.
Lamb has cut inmate wages below minimum wage since he started.
“We reached out to a lot of these communities, basically asking if they need help,” Lamb said. “We lowered the wage, which upset some people, but we need them out working.”
This summer, inmates will work at Sioux Falls parks and at its regional landfill, and they’ll prepare the fairgrounds in Huron for the State Fairgrounds in August. They’ll also help out during Riverboat Days in Yankton, and pitch in on tournament preparation for the National Field Archery Association.
Statewide residential facilities planned
Lamb also wants to establish a residential corrections program. He shared a presentation showing how such a program
operated in Iowa
, where he served as deputy director of institutional operations for the Iowa Department of Corrections before his move to South Dakota.
In Iowa, most residential facilities were filled with people on probation, parole or work release. He envisions a similar program in South Dakota, with housing outside of traditional prison settings designed to help transition back into the community, but he hasn’t finalized details or a timeline.
“We’re going to try it,” Lamb said. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t talked to the lieutenant governor or anybody else about it, but we need to try it. It works.”
The program has been in Iowa for decades. Iowa’s three-year recidivism rate peaked at 38.9% in 2019 and has since fallen to 32.8%, based on the
latest data available
.
“I’m not trying to throw you a sales pitch,” Lamb said, but residential programming is “a good idea.”
Lamb said he doesn’t want to replace programs like the one run by the Sioux Falls-based nonprofit St. Francis House, but to add to it.
St. Francis House doesn’t cap how long residents can stay and limits rent to $250 a month. Lamb said a state-run program would include a time limit and higher rent.
A lack of “felon-friendly housing” is a major driver of recidivism, said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, who’s leaving his position soon after two terms in office. The problem won’t improve without government involvement, he added.
“If the state ever chooses to invest in St. Francis House programming, it’s money well spent,” TenHaken said.
Justice Center recommendations
The percentage of inmates who got rehabilitative programming increased from 27%to 44% between 2023 and 2025, according to a report presented Tuesday by the Council for State Governments Justice Center.
The national nonprofit was contracted to analyze the state’s prison system and help guide the task force’s work.
Despite the gains in programming, the group reported, 46% of inmates released in 2025 received none. Access was also limited by where inmates were held, due to space and staffing restrictions.
The justice center recommended several changes, including:
- Creating a rehabilitation and reentry division and hiring several new positions.
- Creating a centralized waitlist for programs.
- Streamlining the program catalog to reduce overlap and fill gaps.
- Sequencing programming to cover an inmate’s entire stay, rather than stacking programs in the last few months of their sentence.
- Creating a dedicated parole violation program track.
Many of those recommendations hinge on hiring and retaining adequate staff — one of the department’s most significant challenges, according to the group.
Sara Friedman, program director with the Justice Center, said her team consistently heard in interviews that the department tends to shift employees around when attempting new initiatives, rather than hiring. That creates gaps for inmates seeking programming.
Sometimes, for example, shifting staffing patterns will leave facilities without enough security staff to transport inmates to classrooms.
“Technically, you’re fully staffed, but you’re fully staffed so thinly that the moment one thing goes wrong, the waterfall effect is people are not getting their rehabilitative services,” Friedman said.
Lamb told South Dakota Searchlight after the presentation that he wasn’t surprised by the staffing recommendations. The department lacks adequate staff to backfill for sick or vacationing employees, he said, though he didn’t say how many more employees would need to be hired to address the issue.
The department is already working to create the new rehabilitation and reentry division and centralize its scheduling.
The task force plans to meet two more times before it’ll finalize its recommendations for the Legislature ahead of the next session, which starts in January.
— This story was originally published on southdakotasearchlight.com.
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