RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – Thousands arrived at Recreational Springs Resort Saturday to celebrate the fourth annual Black Hills Renaissance Festival.

This is the festival’s first year at the resort, and Lead Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jami Grangaard said the relocation was necessary due to the festival’s popularity.

“As much as we wanted to keep this event in the city of Lead, we basically outgrew the locations that we were able to have it,” Grangaard said. She also mentioned ticket sales on Eventbrite doubled last year’s totals.

Most attendees were dressed in medieval clothing and moved from attraction to attraction. The festival was originally supposed to debut in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic made Shareece Tatum, the festival’s executive director, need to change plans. When the Lead Area Chamber of Commerce members reached out to her the following year about creating an event, Tatum took her chance.

“I was like, ‘Well, I have a half-baked ren fair that was supposed to happen in 2020, you want me to give it a shot?’ And they’re like, ‘Let’s do it,’” Tatum said.

While Grangaard had received lots of positive feedback about the festival, she said some attendees had been frustrated by limited parking space. Grangaard explained attendees can ride a free shuttle bus to the festival from Lead, and they should not park alongside U.S. Highway 85, where they risk parking tickets and their cars being towed.

More information and a link to purchase tickets can be found on the Black Hills Renaissance Festival’s website.

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MITCHELL – The Mitchell City Council will consider approving a special event permit on Monday for a future disc golf tournament.

The council is expected to consider the event at its next meeting Monday, June 17 at Mitchell City Hall. The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m.

The tournament is planned to be held on July 20 at Dry Run Creek Disc Golf Course. Event organizers estimate between 30 to 90 disc golfers will compete.

According to the details in the special event permit application, the one-day tournament would begin at 8 a.m. and wrap up by 4 p.m.

Local disc golfer, Cary Muilenburg, is the applicant for the permit. Muilenburg has organized multiple successful disc golf tournaments at the Dry Run Creek course. Last year, the course played host to South Dakota’s State Disc Golf Tournament.

The July 20 tournament would require the course to be reserved from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The one-day tournament would mark this summer’s first major event held at the course.

Parks and Recreation Director Kevin Nelson noted in his memo to the council that the Dry Run Creek trail, which stretches around the 18-hole disc golf course, would remain open throughout the tournament. Signs warning trail-users of flying discs would be posted along the trail.

Vendors are also expected to be set up throughout the course during the tournament.

The Dry Run Creek Disc Golf Course is Mitchell’s lone 18-hole course. The course has undergone major improvements over the past few years, which have helped attract more major disc golf events.

Sam Fosness joined the Mitchell Republic in May 2018. He was raised in Mitchell, S.D., and graduated from Mitchell High School. He continued his education at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, where he graduated in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in English. During his time in college, Fosness worked as a news and sports reporter for The Volante newspaper.

Chislic — skewered cubes of deep-fried lamb or beef — is a rugged regional culinary tradition tracing its roots to South Dakota’s pioneer days.

“For decades a mainstay at cafés, bars, fairs and celebrations, it historically has been enhanced only by salt or garlic salt and served with saltines and, if you are so inclined, washed down with a cold beer,” South Dakota Magazine wrote in a classic treatise on chislic, first in 2005 and updated since then.

The popular bar snack, often served on wooden skewers or stabbed by toothpicks, enjoys a modern revival today at places like Urban Chislic in Sioux Falls. 

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Co-owner Hong Phrommany was born in Laos but raised in Sioux Falls. He’s as proudly South Dakotan as Sitting Bull and has become an oracle of chislic history and tradition.

“Russian-German immigrants migrated from Europe and landed in Hutchinson County, South Dakota, in 1870,” Phrommany told Fox News Digital by phone a few days ago, between bites of chislic at lunch with his daughter.

“So to celebrate the harvest they would slaughter the oldest sheep, which is mutton, and they would cube it and fry it and skewer it.” 

Mutton meat is tougher than that of younger sheep. Small cubes, deep-frying and salting made mutton tastier and easier to chew. 

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Beef is now common, too. Few eateries have deviated, until recently, from the tradition of salting the meat and serving it with saltines — a modern interpretation of dry, long-lasting breads such as hard tack common in the 19th century. 

People around the world know chislic as shishkebab. 

“It’s been done that way for years and served at all the little bars around South Dakota,” said Phrommany. 

He even created a YouTube video tracing the history of chislic to one Russian-German immigrant in particular, John Hoellwarth, who brought the dish with him from the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea. 

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The word chislic traces its roots to shashlik, the Russian word for a common dish of cubed, skewered meat from nearby Turkey on the other side of the Black Sea. People around the world know it as shishkebab. 

Chislic is most common in the southeastern corner of the state, an area that South Dakota Magazine dubbed “The Chislic Circle.” 

The Regret Burger from Urban Chislic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The hot double smash lamb burger was featured on the show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” with Guy Fieri and generated national acclaim for the restaurant’s modern take on chislic, a South Dakota culinary tradition.  (Christian Holman/Urban Chislic)

Sioux Falls, easily South Dakota’s largest city, is the heart of The Chislic Circle.

Top spots in town to experience the South Dakota delicacy include the Barrel House, Attic Bar & Grill, Gateway Lounge, Ode to Food & Drinks and Tinner’s Public House, according to the website of the Sioux Falls Convention & Visitors Bureau. 

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Urban Chislic tops its list. Phrommany opened the eatery in 2018 with partners Erik Christensen and Chad Knudtson. 

Their concept gives traditional chislic a mix-and-match makeover you might find in an overseas or big-city ramen bar.

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The menu comes with a choice of both proteins and sauces. In addition to lamb or beef, guests can select cubes of fish, pork, chicken or bison and pair it with any of a dozen different dips. 

Chislic nachos with house-fried tortilla chips from Urban Chislic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Chislic traces its roots to the arrival of Russian-German immigrants in the 1870s.  (Christian Holman/Urban Chislic)

Among them: creamy white barbecue, spicy-sweet maple and honey mustard sauces.

One sauce, jaew bong, is a tribute to Phrommany’s birthplace and ethnic heritage. 

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The traditional Laotian condiment is a sweet-hot sauce made with Southeast Asian chili spice.