Born to be mild: Meet the moped crew of Sioux Falls

Before you hear the big and angry growl of a hog heading west for Sturgis next month, listen instead for the cute meep meep of a moped tootling through town at 30 miles an hour.

We see a lot of scooters or mini motorcycles promenading Minnesota Avenue this time of year. Maybe you’ve waved at a rider while at a stop light on 41st Street or awed at a parked silver Vespa downtown. How fun! How summery! They’re hard to miss and hard to resist.

Nettie Lawrence has been riding her “girl Stella” for over 15 years. It’s a two-stroke engine motorcycle she first owned while living in Wisconsin before she met her now husband in Sioux Falls. She keeps Stella on the road here but was missing “her people” she used to scoot with back home.

“I love to move, I love to ride,” says Lawrence, who works at Vern Eide Motoplex and Honda PowerSports, both north of town off 60th Street. She likes to “yammer” with customers about scooters and finally met enough to start a Facebook group and regular ride schedule.

What’s more charming than spotting a scooter at Terrace Park? Spotting a dozen scooters zipping by with a friendly honk and wave.

Safety first and fun always

The SuFu Mini Moto Crew meets on Friday nights for a two-hour-ish ride through parks and neighborhoods, stopping for ice cream at Yonutz or pizzas at Remedy Brewing Co. afterward. They bring their mini motorcycles, vintage scooters, retro monkeys and Honda Groms or the all-new, futuristic BMW CE o2 electric that Lawrence rode last time they met.

“You can’t even hear this coming by,” Lawrence said.

This is the crew’s second summer together, and they have over 100 members. Anyone is welcome to join, any night and “just go.”

“You get to take in the city in a whole new way,” said Tony Reiss. He joined the Mini Moto Crew last year and rides a red Honda Trail 125. “People are always watching you, and this one has turned some heads since it’s based off of Honda’s old CT90.”

When Leah Hofer was in her 20s, she often rode on the back of mini motos with friends.

“Short shorts, tank tops, flip flops — it was totally unsafe, but it was all about the look,” says Hofer, who drives her own mid-sized, beginner-friendly Honda Rebel today and will ride around with her son. He’s on a Grom and also in his 20s but leaves the flip flops at home.

“It’s nice to ride on the back and enjoy the scenery, but now I ride myself and go where I want and whenever I want,” Hofer says.

Lawrence had a group of over 600 members back home in Wisconsin. She’s savvy at leading tours and won’t start a ride without a lesson on safety and etiquette.

“Ride at your own pace and ability,” she reads from poster boards she made for the group. “If some people are doing wheelies, you can just not do wheelies if you don’t want to.”

Stay up front with Lawrence if you’re new, don’t assume you have the right of way, ride three seconds apart and avoid potholes.

“Ok, yes, scooter burnouts accepted,” she says to the guy in the back.

Peep the stickers

We are seeing a resurgence in mini bikes, Reiss says. Sure, the Vespa became famous after Audrey Hepburn’s iconic tour through Italy in the 1953 comedy romance “Roman Holiday,” but electric options are appealing today, mopeds are easy to maneuver and the “price points aren’t bad at all,” he says.

Leah Simmons joined the Moto Crew for the first time last month, rolling up in an army green, rugged Honda Ruckus and a black helmet with kitty ears perked on top.

“I just got it and, dammit, I should’ve bought this sooner!” Simmons says. She’s already put 300 miles on it and only $8 worth of gas in the tank.

They’re carefree, playful, and “no windows,” Reiss says, to notice more and hear more around town.

And peep the stickers. Lawrence says whenever she’s at a gas station or parking lot and sees a fellow scooter, she hands ’em a SuFu Mini Moto Crew sticker with the Sioux Falls flag and a buffalo on it — of course himself on a moped.

“I want everyone to know that we have a scooter club!” Lawrence says. “Come ride with us! It’s always a nice day to go for a scoot.”

Sanford’s longest-serving medical pilot retires

You might not be able to get ahold of Sherwin Bolks right now.

For the past 42 years, he’s been on call as Sanford Health’s longest-serving medical pilot for their AirMed program. With a phone or pager ever in his pocket, whether at church or a baseball game or having dinner on Christmas Eve, he’s been ready for the next trauma patient within 15 minutes.

Bolks retired in May.

“I’m actually walking away from my phone, maybe running to the store without it,” Bolks said. “I’ve just always had in the back of my mind that somebody needs help right away. I think it will take a while to get used to this.”

The same goes for his team. Sanford’s vice president of air transportation Mike Christianson said Bolks was a “legend in our world.” As the most-tenured pilot among nearly 50 other fifth-wings, he was “always jovial, very reassuring, and the guy everyone wanted to be around.”

“Sherwin always made people feel more comfortable when they were really unsure of what was going to happen at that time,” Christianson said. “He will definitely be missed.”

'Patients put a high level of trust in me'

Sanford’s critical care air ambulance operation began in 1977, after receiving a federal grant to reduce the state’s infant mortality rate. Still today, the program most often specializes in neonatal, obstetric and pediatric care. Including a need for stabilizing treatment, well over 100,000 patients have been served since the aviation program’s inception.

Bolks started in 1984 and likely provided more than 250 flights a year across the Upper Midwest. Sanford takes off from remote bases in Bismarck, Dickinson, Fargo, North Dakota; and Bemidji, Minnesota., but Bolks said he’d fly far beyond their footprint for critical care patients and corporate “outreach flights” − doctors and nurses needing to get to patients who couldn’t travel.

It was “like a light switch I needed to turn on and off,” Bolks said, to not emotionally connect with the situation and “just do my job and get them on the ground safely.”

Bolks has a warm and hearty voice, like a jolly grandfather who was always “wise cracking” and making you laugh, Christianson said. Moreover, he has the kind of presence that relaxes you and a smile that makes you feel safe. Anyone would take a hug from Bolks.

“Patients were putting a high level of trust in me that I’d get them somewhere safely,” said Bolks, who would also assist with loading and unloading patients, always communicate on flight duration and flying conditions and “take some of the stress away.”

“They need that assurance," he said.

An aspiring mentor in ambulance aviation

Sanford AirMed operates with nine aircraft in service 24/7: five turboprop King Air 200s and four EC 145 helicopters, most of which Bolks has flown.

“I like my wings to stand still,” he said.

Christianson said Bolks was a whiz in the air, a leader who knew the region and all airports well. He took time to build meaningful relationships with the FAA, hospital executives and the more than 200 nurses and paramedics.

“He knows how this program works and was always a good teacher for the young guys coming in,” Christianson said.

Bolks would write training manuals for new staff and helped to initiate a safety program for the team.

Early on, AirMed was only a two-plane service. By 1986, the program became one of the first hospitals operating on-demand charter flights with its FAA Park 135 license.

“We were hauling patients nonstop,” Bolks said, adding that the team was also facing short narrow runways, with little or no room to approach, and no weather reporting at the smaller airports.

But this was never an obligation, Bolks said. It was a privilege, and one his family supported well.

“Honestly, this is a family job,” said Bolks, who raised four kids with his wife and has two grandchildren today. “If you go out to dinner, you need to take two cars. When the pager goes off in the middle of the night, you’re gone. You get callous to it after a while.”

What’s next on the ground?

Bolks’ grandson was asleep in the backseat of his car when he sat in the front and spoke recently with the Argus Leader.

“I’m on Grandpa Daycare today,” he said. “We have a blast together.”

But that’s not all he has planned for his retirement. He’s got a motorcycle “waiting to get worn out,” then plans to buy a camper next year. 

Of course, he’s always the pilot who likes an adventure, a “challenge” that keeps him young. He first learned to fly with his brother when he was 16 years old.

To honor Bolks’ retirement, his team performed a traditional water cannon salute at Maverick Air Center for his final flight on a sunny day.  Family arrived to watch firetrucks spray an arch of water as his airplane taxied through the curtain, a symbolic farewell and nod to his service.

“He has done his duty for the organization,” Christianson said. “We’re very grateful for the time we had with him.”

Blue skies and tailwinds on your next journey, Captain Bolks.

Deadwood bar named one of best in the country

Travis Pearson has been shot and killed 15,000 times inside Saloon No. 10.

For more than 15 years, “I die and resurrect three times a day!” says the actor who portrays Wild Bill Hickok in the historic bar’s daily re-enactments of the famed outlaw’s death by the pistol of “Crooked Nose” Jack McCall in 1876.

The chair in which Wild Bill was shot while playing poker inside the dusty saloon still hangs on the wall today.  

But there’s such a larger history lesson inside the Deadwood, South Dakota, bar on Main Street. Built during the peak of the Black Hills Gold Rush 150 years ago and family-owned for 60 years now, Saloon No. 10 is a “museum with a damn good bar” for relics and folklore from the Old West. Peep more modern artifacts, too, like the stunning collection of George and Joseph Fassbender’s artwork, a 1990 Dick Termes spherical painting and an elk hide robe worn by actor Duane Howard in the 2015 movie “The Revenant.”

Now it’s been named one of the 29 bars included on the 2025 USA TODAY Bars of the Year list, created by USA TODAY Network food writers across the country. The list includes everything from humble dives to high-end cocktail bars with some wine bars and music venues thrown in the mix.

“There is a certain magic here,” says general manager and co-owner Louie LaLonde. Her parents, Lew and Marion Keehn who both died in 1999, brought ragtime piano and gambling back to Deadwood to boost tourism in an otherwise “crumbling” mining community. Today, Saloon No. 10 fills to capacity with ages 21 to “oh, folks at least in their 80s” line dancing in the back, bellied up to play blackjack, or shouting stories at the bar.   

“I’m only me, the one who hopes to god I’m making the right decisions up in my office,” LaLonde says. “I’m not the one who brings the magic — that’s our employees, they make this place feel like home.”

What makes Saloon No. 10 stand out?

Sure, Calamity Jane once caused trouble here and, more recently, Kevin Costner visited often after opening his own casino down the street in 1991, but it’s the Keehn family themselves who are the celebrities.

Lori Keehn-Moore, the baby of the four other siblings who run the bar today, says she used to help wash dishes or attend some of the live shows if her dad let her as a child. She grew up with the romance of the Old West as her lullaby, the history of Deadwood as her bedtime story and “loved every minute.”

“This is the best family you could ever work for,” says 30-year Saloon No. 10 bartender Kal Varland. “It is just the best job in the world, very gratifying. I’ve met some of the best people here and some of the worst, but there is a lure here you can’t get anywhere else.”

If you wake up in the morning with saw dust in your socks, poker chips in your pocket and a tattoo of Wild Bill Hickok on your face, well then Saloon No. 10 has treated you well and will tip their hats to you again soon.

What to order at Saloon No. 10

Co-owner Charlie Struble-Mook, who is the daughter of Keehn-Moore and also mayor of Deadwood, studied American whiskey and went to Kentucky to bring back her own barrels of Buffalo Trace, the bourbon they pour into the 10’s most-popular Old Fashioneds. Struble-Mook says they have at least 10 barrels, each of which encases around 250 bottles’ worth of bourbon.

“One barrel will maybe last six months,” she says, but that’s just their Buffalo Trace. They also have one of the most extensive whiskey collections in the Midwest, including over 400 different brands as well as limited editions and exclusive barrels.

Upstairs is the Deadwood Social Club, Saloon No. 10’s sister restaurant that opened in the ’90s and is where LaLonde will enjoy a nice scotch in a more “chill vibe” or on the rooftop patio. If you make it past the rowdy dance floor in the saloon, try the smoked tuaca pheasant.

Did you know?

The Keehn family is one of the most prolific philanthropists in Deadwood. On behalf of Saloon No. 10, they have raised more than $1 million for local cancer research and just last March donated $30,000 for chemotherapy patients using cold caps during treatments.

They are a very dog-friendly bar and also donate to the Twin City Animal Shelter in neighboring community Lead, S.D.

Female-run horse ranch in the Badlands to hit the big screen

From taming renegade horses on her dusty ranch in South Dakota to shining her spurs for the red carpet in New York, Tabatha Zimiga never saw it coming.

She brands cattle in Badland Country and coaches wayward teens toward their first belt buckle in competitive rodeo. She slow-cooks a pot roast for the neighbor kids then hushes her 40-head of horses to bed each night, with a diapered baby on her hip.

(Nevermind that the rest of her kids are still riding bareback and barefoot out there somewhere in the dark).

Zimiga grinds with no remorse. She riots her way through an archaic cowboy culture with wing-tipped eyeliner and a half-shaved head that will intimidate the hell out of you. She has no time to be soft or to reflect or to grieve the sudden death of her lover in 2019. Give her your hand, and she’ll sic her rottweilers to your feet.

Until she met a new friend.

Los Angeles filmmaker Kate Beecroft “had no business” happening upon Zimiga while making a wrong turn just east of Wall, South Dakota, more than five years ago. There was no likelihood for her to be away from the west coast at all, but she was craving a good story to tell the way Zimiga was craving for someone to listen to hers.

So she pulled up to a trailer home frozen in time and a group of teenage girls staring her down – her old Toyota Tacoma a pion on the gaping plains. And she didn’t turn around.

In no less than an hour, the cowgirl shared her secrets with the Californian, and Zimiga’s diary will now open for us all as part of Beecroft’s debut feature film, “East of Wall,” premiering Aug. 15 nationwide.

Learning how to act, writing together

Beecroft was supposed to be an actress. She studied Shakespeare in college and went to drama school in London before realizing she wanted to cast the stars, not be one.

She leaned into people, fascinated by whatever they felt made their life tedious, and Zimiga fit this unorthodox endeavor.

Instead of writing a script then piecing together the cast, Beecroft plucked a real story from a real rancher in the emptiest part of the country. Then, she patiently “searched for the magic.”

After first meeting Zimiga, Beecroft was drawn to the ranch again and again. Eventually, she just stayed − living with the family for three years.

“I didn’t think this would become a feature film, but I did know I was in love with their lives,” said Beecroft, 31. “I felt starstruck and was obsessed with them but also more connected to myself when I was with them.”

“East of Wall” is a docu-fiction drama that features Zimiga, 36, playing herself, her 18-year-old daughter, Porshia Zimiga, playing herself and a few other rider friends stepping in as novice actors. Tabby’s 6-year-old son, Stetson, is also in the film.

Their story was crafted by Beecroft while she was living their life alongside them and working with a very scant budget – tagging calves, bailing hay, grabbing a soda and an Indian taco in Wasta or stepping out while Mom screams at Porshia for stealing traffic cones in the middle of the night.

“They were for barrel racing!” Porshia says. (That one makes it into the film).

But it’s all collaboratively scripted, putting Tabby and Porshia into the position of essentially rehashing their own stories in real time – not an easy feat for a feral teenager and a broken-down widow trying to maintain 1,200 acres of family farmland on her own.

“I ain’t no ‘Yellowstone,’ ” Tabby says. “I ain’t got no white picket fence or lush green grass everywhere. I got prairie dog holes and mean-ass dogs outside, but I have a lot of trust in Kate.”

TikTok on the horse ranch

“East of Wall” first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It won most votes from audience attendees and was quickly picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, likely for its raw slap in the face about warrior women in the modern American West.

The melodramatic intensity of a classic Western does well and all, but put a bunch of tattooed women around a campfire to reveal the real macabre behind a cowboy, leaving the cameramen in tears, and you’ve got what they call “Hollywood gold.”

“I tried to leave the theater watching that scene,” Tabby says. “Porshia did, too. But Kate held my hand and kept me there, and it has made the grief easier.”

Beecroft taught herself how to direct while at the same time teaching these girls how to act, but she always saw it in them.

“I needed to see their faces and their souls onscreen,” Beecroft says. “They have a natural ability as performers, and anyone who watches this will fall in love with Tabby and these kids.”

The film is unexpected, too. Yes, there are rodeo queens, the twinkle in a cowboy’s eye and the romantic haze of a sunset, but then Tabby’s selling horses on TikTok, the girls play Shaboozey while riding bareback in bikinis and someone just landed a backward flip off their horse.

All the music in the film is from Tabby’s Spotify playlists for rodeos or breaking horses. Forget the cowboy hat, your girl’s got a JBL speaker tied to her saddle.

“I’m a vegan from LA,” Beecroft says. “I didn’t want my fingerprints too much on this film. I wanted it to be Tabby and incorporate how she sees things.”

A story of female resilience

There were a few actors in the film. Broadway star Jennifer Ehle, known for “Pride and Prejudice” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” stars as Tabby’s mother, Tracy, and even wore Tracy’s actual clothes for the movie.

And Emmy-nominated actor Scoot McNairy, who recently starred in the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” plays fictional character Roy, a filthy deep-pocket rancher who wants to buy Tabby’s land.

“East of Wall” is a story about female resilience: their unapologetic power behind the submissiveness that Hollywood wants us to see in a woman.

But the film made it this far by the power of friendship. The cowgirl and the Californian who “protect each other,” lived together and broke bread together are “forever.”

“We’re worlds apart,” Beecroft says. “But she’s the closest person in my life.”

Feeding South Dakota celebrates 50 years of fighting hunger: A look at their footprint

One of every three children in Buffalo County, South Dakota, is hungry.

In one of the poorest counties in the country — made up mostly of sparsely populated plains, tribal land and the persistent rumbling of the Missouri River snaking through it — there’s a family-owned grocery store off Highway 47 in Fort Thompson, but the cost of milk is $5 and the cost of cereal or eggs is approaching $10, and prices don’t fare much better at the next nearest grocery store 30 minutes south in Chamberlain.

Fifteen percent of households in the area are without a car to seek out better prices anyway.

The poverty rate in Buffalo County creeps ever closer to a haunting 50%, where families endure insufficient housing, bleak employment opportunities or any adequate access to accommodations that make up normal living situations, like dinnertime.

But they are not invisible.

The Tokata Youth Center in Fort Thompson serves around 1,000 meals a month to the people of the Hunkpati Oyate — the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe — providing a free, well-balanced plate of meat, carbs, fruits and veggies mostly provided by Feeding South Dakota, a statewide endeavor to end hunger.

Feeding South Dakota is celebrating a half-century of service this month.

“Having a safe place to eat a hot meal is important,” said Tokata Youth Center director Aaron Vaughn. “If you think past today and tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, you’ve got to have a full belly.”

So, what does the empty belly of one in every three children look like?

A timeline of merciless need

In 1975, when South Dakota was still considered a rural state and the nation was recovering from the most severe recession since World War II, a generous clergy formed a humble community pantry for food insecure families in Sioux Falls.

Their initial effort distributed over 80,000 pounds of food in Minnehaha County alone and grew toward West River by the ’80s, often doubling its distribution numbers year over year and merging with one county after another to keep up with need.

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Today, that booming business fulfilling a relentless demand is known as Feeding South Dakota, the state’s largest hunger-relief organization that has now distributed over 14 million pounds of food over the past 50 years and served over 11 million free meals across all 66 counties in the state.

“And right now, we have the highest need we’ve ever had,” said Lori Dykstra, CEO of Feeding South Dakota since 2021.

The staggering numbers in Buffalo County only contribute to an even larger plight: One in nine adults and one in six children experience food insecurity in the state. What does that mean?

Over 10% of South Dakotans are consistently unsure of how they will afford to eat.  

“It’s such an important, complicated, often misunderstood issue,” said Feeding South Dakota board member Mike Gould. He often hears the “general ignorance of food insecurity” when people give the advice to “just pull yourself up by the bootstraps.”

“But the face of hunger is a child who doesn’t even have bootstraps,” he said. “We need to teach people what hunger really looks like.”

Dykstra, who previously served as COO for Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons in Sioux Falls, said they are seeing more working families in their food lines than ever before. Similarly, self-deprecating college students flock to campus food pantries without outwardly acknowledging that they prioritize tuition over lunch. Seniors who are homebound, single working mothers who need to keep their homes warm and their cars running or unhoused veterans on the streets: They are cutting food from their budgets because economy hits hard, they are in poor health, they are facing discrimination, or their “bootstraps” are worn enough.

“My goal is to disarm judgment,” Dykstra said.

Programs extend support for families

Collaborations to achieve that goal are what has made Feeding South Dakota so prolific over the years.

Feeding South Dakota might be most well-known for its Backpack Program, an initiative that sends food insecure students home with 5 to 8 pounds of food for the weekend.

In 2024, the nonprofit filled 165,000 backpacks.

“But the struggle is these backpacks don’t meet the needs of that family,” Dykstra said. “It is meant to feed the need of that kid, but they are going home to a hungry family, they are sharing that backpack with their family, and it’s not enough food.”

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Fulfilling a need in one place only unveils need in another, so now Feeding South Dakota has opened school pantries across the state, where families can shop for food when they pick up their children. In 2024, over 3,000 pounds of food fed over 600 students monthly.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, Feeding South Dakota became more reactionary, desperately trying to reach thousands of food insecure families now even more isolated. This brought to fruition mobile food distributions, a volunteer effort to set up monthly drive-thrus to hand out boxes without much questioning.

In the program’s first year, over 4.2 million meals were served. Last year, 1,500 people waited in line at the fairgrounds for a Thanksgiving meal in Sioux Falls.

Other programs through Feeding South Dakota include the Senior Box Program, delivering free boxes to nearly 28,000 senior residents last year; and the Wellness Pantry, immediately serving over 18,700 patients in 2024 who were screening positive for food insecurity at their doctor appointments.

Lastly, partnerships like the one with Tokata Youth Center in Fort Thompson help to make room at the dinner table.

Dave Lone Elk on the Pine Ridge Reservation, who runs a food pantry in Porcupine, used to open his doors only monthly. Now that he’s partnering with Feeding South Dakota, he’s open at least eight times a month and serving around 40 families weekly.

“People can come at their own convenience now,” Lone Elk said.

On the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, Mary Olive helped to found The Mustard Seed, a community that offers food from Feeding South Dakota and 8x12 cottages for 40 unhoused or home-bound families. During the summer, 300 people are served weekly picnic-style meals in Eagle Butte, where there are otherwise only two small grocery stores covering two entire counties.

Feeding South Dakota is rain for the food deserts.

“We strengthen bodies, raise spirits, respect people and encourage hope,” said Olive, who along with two other women serves as a volunteer to operate The Mustard Seed. “We don’t want children going without. I want to know people are getting fed.”

How you can be a partner to Feeding South Dakota

For 25 years, a philanthropist known as R.F. Buche has been president of G.F. Buche Co., a fourth-generation organization that owns grocery stores and fast-food restaurants in 23 rural locations across the state, including all nine reservations. Ten years ago, Buche founded Team Buche Cares, a deeper initiative to address hunger and which Dykstra touts.

“Our initial effort in the next five years is to push resources into rural communities, and we need partners like R.F. Buche to do that,” she said.

Buche said last summer, he worked with the Pass Creek Tribal Council to serve 28,000 meals twice a week to children across all nine districts of the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Next week, he will host the inaugural Steelers in the Field fundraiser in Dallas, South Dakota, a charitable pheasant hunt for Team Buche Cares that will welcome NFL players Mason McCormick, Zachary Frazier and Ryan McCollum.

“Hunting has long been a tradition in South Dakota,” Buche said. “Through Steelers in the Field, we’re bringing awareness to food disparity in rural and tribal communities and helping to improve access to nutritious food for those who need it most.”

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How else can you help?

Dykstra said as part of its 50th anniversary, Feeding South Dakota has introduced 605 Meal Makers, a monthly giving program asking community members to donate $50 a month for a year.

“That’s 150 meals to families and 1,800 meals in one year,” Dykstra said. “And our food sourcing team is very creative with menu planning.”

Donate peanut butter if you can, Dykstra said, but if you donate $1, that makes three meals.

“People who are fortunate enough to take care of people who are not fortunate enough, that’s an amazing story,” she said. “That’s neighbors helping neighbors achieve more equitable access.”

Dykstra said she is “hopeful,” and board member Gould believes persistence will prevail.

“We are not in good shape, and change is slow,” Gould said. “But we are problem solvers, and everybody is part of the solution here.”

Outdoor music venue CEO leads consistent growth for South Dakota arts scene

Next year, Levitt at the Falls will grow from an intimate band shell on a lawn to a 7,000-square-foot music venue, all from the tap of a wand in Nancy Halverson’s hand.

She has made it all look so effortless.

Halverson is the president and CEO of Levitt at the Falls, a nonprofit organization that provides outdoor live music to communities nationwide. Our Levitt has been in town since 2019, at once an inviting grassy knoll right at the entrance of Phillips to the Falls, where passersby and tourists and neighborhood businesses hear the echoing of music outside and, before they know it, have swayed on the lawn until the last song at sunset.

And it likely wasn’t even a genre they would’ve liked.

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That’s the grace of Halverson, an unassuming businesswoman who all year long stumps across the city and region to raise money so she can book bands and residents can enjoy free concerts on warm summer nights.

And many of them are up-and-coming performers — diverse in their age, nationality, style and sound. It’s like surprise and delight at the Levitt, with food and drink and camaraderie.

That’s all Halverson, but she doesn’t even care whether you know that. She just wants you to come on by and hang out in her backyard.

“All I know is that she wants to make a difference,” says Laura Mullen, director of volunteer engagement at the Levitt. “And she does. We could not ask for a better leader than Nancy.”

A return to Sioux Falls for the arts

Halverson and her husband, Bruce, first lived in Sioux Falls from 2000 to 2006, when Bruce was president at Augustana University (Augustana College at the time).

During those few years, Nancy Halverson was the hostess with the mostest.

“As ‘first lady,’ I had thousands of people through my house,” she said.

But she loved it. With a background in musical theater and as a singer in many bands, she welcomed the fellowship that would later serve her future career at the Levitt.

After her husband’s tenure at Augie, the couple and their son moved to South Carolina for a bit, where Nancy Halverson ran a children’s museum before they returned to Sioux Falls to be closer to family.

It was then that a dear friend of Halverson’s, former South Dakota politician and local photographer Tom Dempster, tapped her to run the Levitt. The concept to open one here was his idea, Halverson says.

“I remember when we lived here before, I found that area of town as a lost opportunity,” she says of the burgeoning Phillips to the Falls today. Now there’s apartments, restaurants and commercial spaces at Cascade at Falls Park, west of the Levitt, and a hotel, more restaurants and office spaces at The Steel District, just north of the band shell. The River Greenway project and Lloyd Landing continue to develop, and Jacobsen Plaza in the same area is underway.

Lloyd Companies, who owns the nearby Steel District and Lumber Exchange, once credited the Levitt as the reason they were able to even dream up the expansion, Halverson recalls.

“I just love that the arts have been such a big part of this community growth,” she says.

Year-round programming includes camps, mixers, volunteering

At the jump, Levitt at the Falls hosted 30 free summer concerts in its first year. It was a wild success. Then, the pandemic struck, and they had to get creative — Halverson’s signature move.

“Way back in 2019, Nancy had our staff sit down and create value statements that would help guide our decisions,” Mullen said. “With those guideposts, we were able to create and provide new programs that reached far beyond the concerts on the lawn.”

You think their summer is busy? That’s the party after all the work, the cold drink after the long day.

Today, their off-season programming includes professional development for musicians — like helping with taxes or Monday night mixers so musicians can get to know one another — summer camps for kids or volunteering at area nonprofits. They also put on “Levitt in your Neighborhood” concerts — like hosting performances in the parking lot of Good Samaritan Society for the residents or bringing musicians to perform at Sanford Cancer Center or Avera Behavioral Health.

It wasn’t enough for Halverson to invite thousands of guests to her — over 100,000 people showed up last year — so she brings “the healing power of music” to hundreds of them.

This is why the Levitt is growing — both physically around the bandshell and in the community today.

Three large naming gifts round out $5M expansion plan

Last month, Levitt at the Falls announced a breakthrough in its $5 million expansion campaign, confirming three large naming gifts that will support new office and programming spaces, a second stage, larger storage for equipment as well as dressing rooms and a green room for performers.

“The Sweetman Atrium,” the largest part of the expansion, will be named after Dick and Kathy Sweetman, who gifted to the Levitt via the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation. The “Lust Family Second Stage,” for additional educational programming, will be named on behalf of a gift from John and Jeanelle Lust.

The Dakota State University Foundation also served as a donor and will name future programming space, and any remaining funds will be used to purchase more lighting, sound and video equipment.

Construction will begin Sept. 1.

“The Levitt is an important part of our city,” said Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation director Don Kearney, who partners with Halverson, her board and her mighty staff of five. “We are excited to work with Levitt at the Falls to complete the expansion to the shell, and I look forward to seeing the new programming opportunities.”

How does she do it?

When the Argus Leader first met Halverson in her swanky office in December — located as of now inside the Gourley Building but soon at the bandshell once the expansion is complete — she excitedly pointed to her science-project-style poster board, nearly covered with thumbtacked pictures of bands she had already booked for this coming season, each under their scheduled performance date and with only a few opening slots remaining.

“The goal is a diverse audience, so I want as much diversity on stage as I can possibly get,” she says. “I am looking for artists who represent our community so that any child who comes to the stage can look up and see somebody who looks and sounds like them.

“That,” she emphasizes, “is how we will build community through music,” making a nod to the Levitt mission nationwide.

In all, there will be over 50 concerts this summer, every Thursday through Saturday, beginning May 23. The lineup will be announced this spring.

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Halverson says to completely fill her loyal poster board — “I’m a visual person!” — she needs to always be building relationships with agents and navigating busy tour schedules of multiple bands at once. She looks for “great musicianship and clean entertainment.”

The Shaun Johnson Band is always a hit every summer, she says, as is Brulé and their annual Lakota music festival, All My Relatives. Halverson is planning a new festival this year with the ADA, featuring performers of all abilities, and a few other surprise shows.

When she’s not networking, Halverson is writing grants, booking hotels for the performers and food trucks for the lawn, writing annual reports, recruiting volunteers, drawing up brochures and maybe even knitting a sweater or two at home. But the ring of an agent or contributor is ever near.

“My goal is always that we should be the duck on top of the water,” she says. “Nobody should see our feet.”

But we as the music lovers are getting doused with her good graces, and we’re thankful for the duck.

“Though our Levitt board had high aspirations for sure, the Levitt today is 10 times as crazy successful as our wildest dreams,” says Dempster, who served on the board when Levitt shows first hit the stage. “So much of that success is because of Nancy. She herself is a super-star — insightful, passionate and utterly indomitable.

“When I go to the Levitt concerts, I often find myself choking back tears.”

S.D. Mediterranean restaurant named one of best in the country

Originally published in the USA Today.

At Sanaa’s Gourmet Mediterranean in Sioux Falls, S.D., clean cuisine is not meant to make you feel full, it’s meant to make you feel well.

Owner Sanaa Abourezk has intrigued the Midwest for years and has received national attention on “Beat Bobby Flay,” in Food Network Magazine and in the New York Times, but according to USA TODAY’s 2025 Restaurants of the Year list, today her restaurant is one of the top 44 places to eat in America.

“This is so nice, I’m so flattered,” said Abourezk, a two-time James Beard Award nominee. “You have to understand, I had never opened a business before, and I’m a woman selling food no one has heard of before, but I opened this place so people can know what fresh food really is.”

More:What's the best restaurant near you? Check out USA TODAY's 2025 Restaurants of the Year.

More:Inside look at how USA TODAY chose its Restaurants of the Year for 2025

What makes Sanaa's stand out

The odds were against her. Abourezk was a Syrian-born agricultural engineer with a master’s degree in nutrition who wanted to serve soy beans and tofu in a state that needs red meat on every menu.

“People would come in and say, ‘So what do you have here that I can eat?’” Abourezk said. “‘Do you have a burger? Do you have a hot dog? Where are the French fries?’”

She’d kindly offer kufta instead, a Turkish meatball in tomato sauce that probably a Midwestern carnivore could appreciate, and they’d come back the next day.

“I just wouldn’t compromise,” Abourezk said. She was told to change her menu, to change her hours, to serve drinks or to go someplace else, but her snug and neighborly lunch spot stays anyway, with its savory spices, chopped veggies every morning, pitas in the oven and music in the kitchen, just as she intended more than 20 years ago.

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Abourezk is like a gentle mother to the Sioux Falls community, quietly putting a bowl of chickpea soup in front of us when we didn’t even realize we were hungry for it. On her social media, she teaches us how to make an “easy breezy” sumac-spiced arugula sandwich and how to “cookercize” for our bodies and souls.

“I just want you to enjoy healthy food and teach you how to cook well,” Abourezk said.

And don’t think healthy food cannot be sweet. There’s baklava and lady fingers in the pastry case, but it’s Abourezk herself who is the cherry on top. If you catch her on Instagram or even in the restaurant’s kitchen, her hip is poppin’ to 50 Cent and the bells on her skirt are jingling. Did you just spot an okra necklace on her?

Why, yes you did.

At Sanaa’s Gourmet Mediterranean — the one amid all the steakhouses — there is a pep in everyone’s step and an aroma you want to take in the way you inhale atop a mountain. It makes your body feel good.

What to order at Sanaa’s

Tabbouli: This one’s Abourezk’s favorite dish; she has it for lunch every day. The crisp salad is finely chopped parsley — she goes through 400 bunches of parsley a week — mixed with bulgar wheat, tomatoes, onions, olive oil and lemon juice dressing.

Fatayer: “Say it like flat tire,” Abourezk said. And enjoy it however you like. Choose from eggplant or potato, cheese or mushroom shawarma, beef or chicken (16 options in all) for this Mediterranean calzone. It’s made with homemade pita bread dough, baked in a stone oven — “We don’t fry anything, period!” — and served with a side of basmati rice pilaf and yogurt cucumber sauce.

Shish tawook: And this one’s for the first-timers. Tender shredded chicken is cooked slowly in red sauce with cumin, garlic and sesame seed paste and served with basmati rice. It’s a safe, delicious dish, one that always makes the skeptics go, “I didn’t know healthy food tasted so good!”

Did you know?

Abourezk was married to Jim Abourezk, the first Arab to serve in the United States Senate, and also her reason for becoming a chef. “Oh, Jim was a lousy cook,” Sanaa said. So when they first met, she took his pan of boiled beans off the stovetop and instead made for him healthy, delicious meals for the next 40 years. He died in February of 2023.

“People used to approach him and say, ‘Ah! Are you Senator Abourezk?’ ” Sanaa said. “And he’d say, ‘Well, I used to be. Now, I’m Sanaa’s husband.’ ”

S.D. activist for trans population named one of USA Today’s Women of the Year

As originally published in the USA Today.

In 2017, Susan Williams’ 10-year-old child wrote her an eight-page letter.

“I can’t do this anymore,” the letter read. “I am a boy, and I have always been a boy. I have never been your daughter, and now I need you to help me.”

So, blindly and completely self-taught, his mother did.

Five years ago, Williams founded the Transformation Project, a resource and educational nonprofit organization for the trans population in South Dakota, a state that tends to discount the LGBTQIA2S+ community and in 2023 banned doctors from providing gender-affirming healthcare to transgender youth.

Williams’ efforts to support her son, Wyatt, who today is an 18-year-old college student in Chicago and “thriving,” have awarded her as South Dakota’s honoree for USA Today’s 2025 Women of the Year program.

The Transformation Project includes an advocacy network, which influences policy against legislative discrimination, and Prism, a community center designed to support, mentor, gather and empower a vulnerable population in her community and region.

“Transgender South Dakotans have faced misunderstanding, hostility and outright discrimination simply because of who they are, and they deserve better,” Williams said.

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Wyatt always showed signs of gender dysphoria, a condition where a person might feel convicted that their body does not reflect their gender identity. Williams said Wyatt first resisted girl clothes or long hair, then by age 9 started experiencing severe anxiety, depression and angry outbursts.

“We felt very alone,” said Williams, who was shunned by her church community and distant family after she and her husband began supporting Wyatt. “There were no resources or connections to a transgender community in our state.”

She first hosted a weekly support group in her basement for trans youth and their families until more than 50 people would show up and stay for the entirety of the day. She was growing a community of hope right in her home.

Today, portraits of transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Harvey Milk hang next to colorful LGBTQ2S+ flags in the Prism center. They host game nights, “hang out hours” for youth and adults, a virtual Discord and name change clinics, or they watch movies and have coffee as friends.

“South Dakota is full of folks who are ready to surround transgender kids with love and support,” Williams said. “I will continue to wrap my arms around them.”

The Argus Leader sat down with Williams for a special question-and-answer session as part of USA Today’s Women of the Year project. The conversation has been edited for conciseness and clarity.

Who do you pave the way for?

My hope is that I pave the way for people to educate themselves and engage in allyship for the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Through my work and through sharing our story, I strive to create a path where understanding, support and advocacy become the norm, not the exception.

What was your lowest moment?

It was a time when several low moments seemed to collide all at once. Professionally, our state government withheld federal funding intended to support the population we serve at the Transformation Project, leaving our organization in a severe financial bind. We made the difficult decision to sue the state, and navigating a lawsuit was incredibly stressful.

During that process, I was diagnosed with skin cancer, and my mom was diagnosed Parkinson’s disease. There were a lot of tears and months where I was anxious and stressed, but even in that season of struggle, there were moments of joy and growth that reminded me to be grateful.

What is your definition of courage?

Courage is about authenticity – having the strength to embrace vulnerability and bravery to show up as your true self, no matter the expectations or judgments of others. Since I started getting to know folks in the gender-diverse community, I have witnessed incredible courage – both in their stories and allyship.

My son has been my greatest teacher in courage. Watching him live his truth inspired me to reflect on my own life and realize I was not allowing myself to be authentic. I’ve learned there is so much freedom in breaking away from who society expects me to be.

Is there a guiding principle or mantra you tell yourself?

Growing up, both my parents and grandparents modeled lives of service and generosity, with volunteerism at the heart of our family values. Those lessons instilled in me a deep sense of responsibility to give back. I strive to make a positive impact.

Who do you look up to?

My grandmother Evelyn was one of my biggest champions. I felt extremely connected to her. She’d gone through a lot of unimaginable things, but her courage, entrepreneurial spirit and desire to care for others will always inspire me.

How do you overcome adversity?

I’ve built a strong foundation through the challenges I’ve faced in life. But I’m a positive person who holds onto hope, which keeps me moving forward. My faith, family and inner circle provide grounding support, and I’ve learned to reach out for help – through therapy, mentorship or seeking guidance from others who’ve been through similar circumstances. Practicing gratitude or self-care is another powerful tool. Finally, knowing I’ve overcome challenges before gives me confidence that I will do it again.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Stop worrying so much about what others think of you. Being a people-pleaser is exhausting, and you’re not living authentically by doing that. Discover who you are and who you strive to be, and focus on developing confidence. Set boundaries, trust your instincts and embrace your unique self – the world needs you, not the perfect version you think you’re expected to be.