South Dakota
More than ever, next legislative session will require courage • South Dakota Searchlight
I’ve never been much good at political predictions. I knew George Mickelson as a tall guy I played volleyball against in the adult league in Brookings. While he was a force at the net, I didn’t think that qualified him to be governor. John Thune was unknown to me when he first ran for Congress. Certainly he didn’t stand a chance of winning a primary against Bill Jankow’s lieutenant governor. No one asked me to wager, but I would never have bet on Mike Rounds to win a three-man primary for governor.
While political races have proven impossible for me to predict, my crystal ball isn’t as foggy when it comes to forecasting what’s going to happen during a legislative session. Even this far out from the start of the 2025 session in January, I can tell that it’s going to be all about courage.
For years, the Legislature has been tip-toeing around the need to do something about the property tax system in South Dakota. A legislative summer study has just wrapped up its work trying to determine ways to make sure tax assessments are being handled in the same way across the state. Like former President Donald Trump, who admitted in a debate to having “concepts of a plan” to improve health care, the summer study offered “concepts” that might make assessments more uniform.
Those concepts are rooted in more cooperation, more education and nothing at all that citizens want to hear about when the topic is property taxes. According to a South Dakota Searchlight story, in the last decade property tax payments have increased nearly 60% for homes, 47% for commercial property and 28% for agricultural property.
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Those property taxes aren’t just a burden for property owners, they’re a lifeline for local governments with 56% going to schools, 27% to counties, 13% to cities and the rest to various local taxing authorities. Consequently, any changes to the system have the potential to mess with local government budgets.
Some legislative candidates are running on a pledge to bring property tax relief. However, the issue needs more than one legislator with a plan. The problem is big enough and complex enough to require a study akin to Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s Blue Ribbon Task Force that studied teacher pay. That study resulted in a 2016 half-cent increase in the state sales tax with a portion of the money dedicated to increasing teacher pay.
That brings us to the other issue that will require legislative courage — how to raise teachers’ salaries. While the sales tax increase proposed by the Blue Ribbon panel dug South Dakota’s teacher pay out of the basement, inattention by the Legislature has allowed the state to fall back to 49th in national rankings.
This month, a South Dakota Searchlight story noted that not only were the state’s teacher salaries ranked near the bottom nationally, but teacher pay in this state has fallen by 7.6% over the past six years when adjusted for inflation. Lawmakers can’t continue to dodge the issue by falling back on the excuse that South Dakota has a low cost of living.
With many new lawmakers likely to be headed to Pierre after the election, the 2025 session may not be the best time to tackle large, complex issues. However, taxpayers are crying for relief. Teachers need more pay.
The mechanisms used to resolve those problems can’t be one-and-done. If Daugaard’s Blue Ribbon Task Force taught us anything, it’s that solutions need to be nurtured. Lawmakers didn’t pay enough attention to teacher pay and now the state ranks close to the bottom again.
The best solutions for property tax relief and higher teacher pay will be ones that keep tabs on those markets so that the Legislature can make the needed adjustments over time. Solutions like that will take study, innovation and plenty of courage.
More commentary from Dana Hess
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A new poll shows Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden overtaking U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson in the race for the Republican nomination for governor of South Dakota, but the gap between the two is within the poll’s margin of error.
The poll commissioned by KELO-TV and conducted by Emerson College Polling in Boston shows Aberdeen businessman Doeden at 26%, Johnson at 23%, Gov. Larry Rhoden at 19% and state House Speaker Jon Hansen at 16%, with 15% of respondents undecided. The poll’s margin of error is 3.2 percentage points.
The poll was conducted May 18-19. Emerson surveyed 452 registered Republicans in the state, including 432 who said they were either very or somewhat likely to vote.
March results from the same source were Johnson 28%, Doeden 18%, Rhoden 17%, Hansen 14% and 23% undecided.
Separately, South Dakota News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy commissioned polls by Mason-Dixon Polling. Those results in April showed Johnson with 34% support, Hansen at 18%, and Rhoden and Doeden each at 17%, with 14% undecided.
In October, those same groups released results of Johnson 28%, Rhoden 27%, Doeden 15%, and Hanson 10%, with 21% undecided.
The winner of the race needs 35% support in the June 2 primary election to advance to a Nov. 3 general election contest against presumptive Democratic nominee Dan Ahlers. If no Republican receives 35% support in the primary, the top two will advance to a runoff eight weeks later on July 28.
South Dakota
70-year-old woman dead after being struck by bison in South Dakota – National | Globalnews.ca
A 70-year-old woman has died after being struck by a bison while on a hiking trail in South Dakota’s Custer State Park.
The woman, who has not been identified, was hiking with her husband on the Grace Coolidge Trail in Custer State Park last week when they encountered a herd of about five bull bison, according to People, CBS affiliate KELO and the Pierre Capital Journal.
The Custer County Sheriff’s Office told the Capital Journal that the couple had paused about 450 metres from the animals and waited for them to continue up the trail. Once the couple reportedly continued hiking and came around a corner, they encountered the bison at a distance of around 45 metres, the outlet reports.
The couple stopped again and then continued trailing the bison, but a bull eventually broke from the group and charged the woman, the Capital Journal reports.
A spokesperson for the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department (GFP) told KELO that the woman was struck by the bison in the back and died from her injuries.
Global News has reached out to South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department and Custer County Sheriff’s Office for further comment, but has not received a response.
GFP communications manager Nick Harrington told KELO that staff have moved the bison from the area and “are actively monitoring the animal’s behavior to ensure public safety and prevent future incidents.”
Harrington said that dry conditions have caused the bison to spread out throughout the park, which means visitors should remain aware of their surroundings while on the trails.
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“Hikers are encouraged to make noise as they are on the trails, be mindful when rounding corners or coming across a ridge, and to keep pets on a leash,” Harrington told the outlet.
“It’s important to remember that bison are wild animals and need to be treated as such. Visitors are reminded to keep their distance from all wild animals and safely enjoy both the trails and wildlife within the park,” he added.
Park officials around the U.S. share frequent warnings not to get too close to wildlife while visiting national parks ahead of the busy summer season.
Last May, a Florida man was injured after he was charged and gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park.
The 47-year-old, who had approached the bison, escaped with only minor injuries and was treated by emergency medical personnel, according to the National Park Service (NPS).
The National Park Service mandates that visitors stay at least 23 metres away from large animals like bison.
Bison are the largest mammals in North America, can reach speeds of up to 55 km/h when charging and are able to jump several feet.
Bison can be aggressive when people don’t give them enough space, park officials said in their statement, and have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other wild animal.
At least two people were gored by bison in 2024, including an 83-year-old South Carolina woman who was seriously injured.
The woman was near the Storm Point Trail at Yellowstone Lake in June 2024 when the bison lifted her about a foot off the ground with its horns, park officials said, adding that the bison was defending its space.
In April 2024, an Idaho man was arrested on alcohol and wildlife-related charges after he was accused of kicking a bison at Yellowstone National Park, sustaining minor injuries.
The man was arrested by park rangers, who transported him to a nearby medical facility before dropping him at a county detention centre.
Authorities were notified of the incident after a parkgoer reported seeing an individual “who harassed a herd of bison and kicked a bison in the leg” near Yellowstone’s west entrance, park officials wrote in a press release.
In July 2023, a Phoenix woman was gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park, according to the National Park Service, leaving her with “significant injuries to her chest and abdomen.”
The woman was visiting Yellowstone and was walking with another person in a field near the Lake Lodge Cabins on the north shore of Lake Yellowstone when they came across two bison.
“Upon seeing them, the visitors turned to walk away from the bison,” the National Park Service stated, but one of the bison charged at them and gored the woman.
The woman was seriously injured and had to be transported by helicopter to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.
—with files from The Associated Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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