South Dakota
McCook Central student’s artwork to inspire voters across South Dakota
SALEM, S.D. — Voters across South Dakota will receive more than just a sticker at the polls in November — they’ll carry a design created by a McCook Central High School student.
Ashtyn DeKnikker was named a winner in her age category in the Civics in the 605: Statewide Sticker Showcase, a contest hosted by the Secretary of State’s Office to create the next “I Voted” sticker. Her artwork will be printed and distributed statewide during the 2026 general election.
The contest, rebranded this year, invited students from kindergarten through high school to submit original, nonpartisan designs featuring the phrase “I Voted.” Entries were judged in four grade-level categories by a panel that included the governor, constitutional officers and other state leaders. Hundreds of submissions were received from classrooms across South Dakota.
DeKnikker said she entered the contest as part of a government class assignment taught by Nathan Vetch.
“If it weren’t for the class, I probably would’ve never even known this contest existed,” she said. “I just did it to finish the assignment, and honestly, I didn’t expect anything to come of it. So finding out I won was a total surprise”
Her winning design features a patriotic theme centered around South Dakota imagery. The hand-drawn artwork includes an American flag in the background, an outline of the state and the words “I Voted” placed prominently in the center. At the bottom, she incorporated rolling hills inspired by the Badlands.
“I wanted my design to feel patriotic, so I put an American flag in the background,” DeKnikker said. “I also wanted to highlight South Dakota, so I included the state’s outline and hills that look like the Badlands. My goal is to remind people how important it is to vote, stay involved, and pay attention to what’s happening in our government.”
DeKnikker created the design using traditional materials, starting with a pencil sketch before adding colored pencil and finishing with marker outlines. In total, she spent just over an hour on the project, working both in class and at home.
“The stars on the flag were the hardest part,” she admitted. “It had to be original work so I drew every single one by hand. It was tedious.”
Although her design earned statewide recognition, DeKnikker said art is more of a casual hobby than a serious pursuit. She has only taken one formal art class and enjoys doodling in her free time. Outside the classroom, she is involved in volleyball, basketball, softball, National Honor Society, and coaching a younger volleyball team.
Vetch said the assignment was the first time he incorporated the contest into his class after learning about it from McCook Central High School Principal Tracy Chase. He said it provided an opportunity for students to connect creativity with civic engagement.
“I thought it would be a fun way for students to combine their creativity with something that matters in the real world,” Vetch said. “Ashtyn’s design really stood out because it captures South Dakota in a unique way — not with the usual bison or Mount Rushmore, but with the landscape that I think of immediately.”
The broader goal of the contest is to encourage civic awareness among students and connect them to the voting process. Secretary of State Monae L. Johnson said the stickers serve as small but meaningful symbols of participation.
“These stickers travel with every voter. They’re small but powerful symbols of civic duty and South Dakota pride,” Johnson said in a statement.
Photo courtesy of Ashtyn DeKnikker
The Civics in the 605 contest is part of a wider effort by Johnson’s office to engage young South Dakotans in government. Initiatives include student voter registration campaigns and the Gladys Pyle Award, which recognizes schools and universities that register a high percentage of eligible students. Last year, Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell was recognized for its successful voter registration drive. Johnson said contests like the sticker showcase give students a hands-on connection to civic duty and a tangible way to see the impact of participating in government.
Winners were recognized during the Statewide Sticker Showcase Award Ceremony held Feb. 24 at the Capitol Rotunda in Pierre. Finalist artwork was displayed during the legislative session, and students and their families had the opportunity to tour the Capitol.
After high school, DeKnikker plans to attend Dakota State University and to major in physical education and minor in history.
DeKnikker said her class completed a unit before the sticker project that emphasized the importance of voting and how getting involved really matters. She said the experience has given her a new appreciation for civic engagement.
“Now that I’m 18, I’m definitely going to register and vote,” she said. “It’s exciting to think that something I created will be in the hands of thousands of voters.”
Jennifer Leither joined the Mitchell Republic in April 2024. She was raised in Sioux Falls, S.D. where she attended Lincoln High School. She continued her education at South Dakota State University, graduating in December 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. During her time in college, Leither worked as a reporter for the campus newpaper, The Collegian. She also interned for Anderson Publications in Canistota, SD the summer of 2000. Upon graduation, Leither continued to reside in the Sioux Falls area and worked as a freelance writer for the Argus Leader for a number of years.
/jennifer-leither
South Dakota
SD Lottery Millionaire for Life winning numbers for May 10, 2026
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 10, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 10 drawing
01-03-20-35-46, 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
After Standing Rock, could a canceled mine project offer a roadmap for opponents of a new oil pipeline in South Dakota?
Almost exactly a decade since the start of the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access pipeline gained national and international attention, new disputes are simmering over tribal rights in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Earlier this month, an environmental organization and a Native American advocacy group sued the US Forest Service, claiming that an exploratory graphite drilling project on national forest land threatened a recognized ceremonial site on mountain meadows known as Pe’ Sla, or Reynolds Prairie.
But on Friday, Pete Lien and Sons, the company behind the project, abruptly withdrew, saying it would perform reclamation on the site and would not seek to file another plan. The decision came as a striking victory for Native American tribes and environmental groups that had opposed it – but other projects in the works may not meet the same conclusion.
The project, claimed nine groups within the Sioux Nation, including the Standing Rock Sioux, would “directly and significantly” affect the use of Pe’ Sla, which sits within Ȟe Sápa, the Lakota name for the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota, itself the locus of Lakota creation myths.
A second exploratory project by a Canadian company looking to mine uranium on state-owned land could affect Craven Canyon, an area that contains 7,000-year-old sites of importance to Indigenous tribes, historians and archaeologists.
Opposition to the twin projects – backed by Pete Lien, of Rapid City, and by Clean Nuclear Energy Corp – comes as a proposed Alberta-to-Wyoming pipeline for carrying Canadian crude oil to the US is close to securing commitments from oil companies after Donald Trump granted permitting through an executive order.
All the projects have at their heart issues of extraction, water safety and sacred sites, much as the Standing Rock dispute of 2016 that saw “water protesters” gather in a standoff with law enforcement over concerns regarding water safety and sacred sites.
That case began when the Standing Rock Sioux passed a resolution stating that “the Dakota Access Pipeline poses a serious risk to the very survival of our Tribe and … would destroy valuable cultural resources” and was a violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty guaranteeing the “undisturbed use and occupation” of reservation lands surrounding the pipeline.
In the aftermath, the environmental group Greenpeace was ordered to pay damages of $345m by a North Dakota judge to pipeline company Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access in connection with the protests, an order that is set to go to appeal. Greenpeace claims the legal action is designed to silence activists.
Most of the current disputes relate to energy, reflecting the Trump administration’s drive toward US energy independence and away from dependence on foreign sources, particularly China. Graphite, used in electric vehicle batteries, is almost exclusively imported. Roughly 95%–99% of uranium is purchased from foreign sources, including Russia and Kazakhstan.
The pipeline deal, meanwhile, is expected to help increase oil output from Canada, the world’s fourth-largest producer, to around 6.1m barrels a day, up from 5.5m now. Bridger, the company behind the Alberta-to-Wyoming pipeline, has said the project was being developed in response to identified market interest.
Wizipan “Little Elk” Garriott, a member of NDN Collective, an Indigenous rights group opposing the mining at Pe’ Sla, says the entire process of approval for the planned mine “happened in the dark”.
“There was no notice that they were proceeding provided to us, nor to the sovereign tribal nations,” he says, in violation of environmental and cultural impact study requirements and consultations with the tribes.
Lilias Jarding, director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, one of the parties in the victorious Pe’ Sla action, says the decade since Standing Rock has seen a huge growth in projects attempting to mine tribal lands and areas of ceremonial significance.
Since the start of the second Trump administration, the push for both minerals extraction and energy has dramatically increased. “They’re being more aggressive,” Jarding says. In the case of Pe’ Sla, he adds, the company didn’t stop drilling when the lawsuits was filed: “They started drilling 24 hours a day.”
The alliance, along with tribes, claim the graphite project violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and that the US Forest Service improperly used a process known as a “categorical exclusion” to bypass reviews.
Oglala Sioux president Frank Star Comes Out said in a statement that the Sioux tribes never ceded to the US the lands in the Black Hills, which, he said, “remain the spiritual center of the Great Sioux Nation and they are not for sale, lease or exploitation” and that the lawsuit is a “united tribal response to protect a sacred site from those who continue to desecrate our ancestral lands”.
Oglala activist Taylor Gunhammer said that drilling at Pe’ Sla was akin to “drilling under the Vatican or at a sacred site in Jerusalem”.
A representative of Clean Nuclear Energy Corp, Mike Blady, said the company was “aware of the cultural significance and are doing everything in our power to ensure that there is no collateral damage”.
Will this amount to a populist action similar to Standing Rock?
The Pe’ Sla dispute did not provoke the kind of Indigenous-led, grassroots resistance to fossil-fuel infrastructure projects that accompanied the Dakota Access pipeline, which in some ways became a template for contemporary protests, powered by social media, celebrities and politicians.
The tribes were not in favor of following in that direction, Jarding says: “It’s a deeply sacred spiritual and ceremonial site, and elders have made it clear that it’s not a good place for another Standing Rock with thousands of people. They say this is not the place.”
Under the Biden administration, the tribal groups felt they were entering into a period of co-management policy over federal lands that in many cases lie within treaty agreements. But under the Trump administration, that sense of co-operation has diminished.
“We’ve seen a ramp-up of opening up federal lands for mineral and gas exploration, but as a planet we need to be moving away from fossil fuels and toward policies that are sustainable into the future,” says NDN’s Garriott.
What was planned for Pe’ Sla now, or was happening at Standing Rock a decade ago, or has indeed happened over a long history of disputes between sovereign tribal groups and the US government, he says, is “protecting our land and protecting our water, not only for ourselves but for the planet. We’re not random protesters out there – we’re protecting our own land”.
South Dakota
SD Lottery Powerball, Lotto America winning numbers for May 9, 2026
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 9, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from May 9 drawing
15-41-46-47-56, Powerball: 22, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lotto America numbers from May 9 drawing
08-12-13-27-42, Star Ball: 04, ASB: 04
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Dakota Cash numbers from May 9 drawing
01-02-04-08-18
Check Dakota Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 9 drawing
08-11-17-29-49, Bonus: 02
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.
-
West Virginia5 minutes agoWest Virginia delegate candidates in Wood County split on top issues, from manufacturing to health care rules
-
Wyoming10 minutes ago(LETTER) ‘Wyoming Advantage’ is disappearing for Gillette residents
-
Crypto17 minutes agoBitcoin Holds Above $81,500 as $135M in Leveraged Crypto Positions Get Liquidated
-
Finance23 minutes agoMorgan Stanley sees writing on wall for Citi before major change
-
Fitness29 minutes agoThis simple strength training trick builds more muscle and better technique—here’s how to try tempo training in your next home workout
-
Movie Reviews41 minutes ago‘Given Names’ is a Fascinating Exploration of Who We Are (Berlinale 2026 Film Review)
-
News59 minutes agoVideo: Americans Exposed to Hantavirus on Cruise Ship Arrive in United States
-
Politics1 hour agoTrump Proposes Suspending Federal Gas Tax Until Prices Fall