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Michael J. Mullin is a professor of history at Augustana University, where he teaches American, regional, and American Indian history. He is currently the University’s NEH Chair in Regional Heritage; he is a two-time recipient of the Vernon and Mildred Niebuhr Faculty Excellence Award. His writing currently focuses on various aspects of South Dakota and Sioux Falls history. He has had articles appear in South Dakota History, the American Indian and Culture Journal, the American Indian Quarterly, and Mid-America: A Historical Review. In addition, he has six book chapters in various compilations. He has one published manuscript, with another currently under review at a university press.
Elinor Nauen was born and raised in Sioux Falls, graduated from (the old) Washington High School, and currently lives in New York City. Her books include Now That I Know Where I’m Going, So Late into the Night, My Marriage A to Z: A Big-City Romance, American Guys, CARS & Other Poems, and, as editor, Ladies, Start Your Engines: Women Writers on Cars and the Road and Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball. Her poem “The History of Western Philosophy” was recently selected for the Best American Poetry blog. As a journalist, she has written about health, automobiles, sports, travel, and much more for many national magazines. She also maintains a six-day-a-week blog at ElinorNauen.com.
Evan Nolte moved with his parents to Sioux Falls from Iowa. He graduated from Augustana University with a BA in political science and business administration. In 1992, he was named president/CEO of the Sioux Falls Chamber, retiring in February 2017. During his career, he held a number of community leadership positions, including serving as co-president of Forward Sioux Falls, the community’s premier economic development and quality of life program initiative, and a joint venture of the Chamber and the Sioux Falls Development Foundation. In retirement, he is a board member of Sioux Falls Thrive, a new “Cradle to Career” community coalition designed to enhance the alignment of pre-K, K–12 and postsecondary education and community resources.
Virginia Olson is a Sioux Falls native. Currently, she is the editor and content coordinator for the monthly magazine, Southside Living, and also regularly writes local features for Sioux Falls Woman and Sioux Valley News in Canton. Before shifting her passion to writing, she was a teacher at Lincoln High School. There, she taught creative writing and journalism and was adviser for the school newspaper, the Statesman.
Destiny Pinder-Buckley is a recent Augustana University alumna (depending on how long “recent” entails) who has lived in many places, but mostly in South Dakota. She double majored in English and French because she loves words and languages and bad accents. She spent a semester in St. Petersburg, Russia, and it became a personality trait for her, along with enforcing her wanderlust addiction. But when she returns from wherever the heck she’s been, she’s always happy to land back in Sioux Falls.
Margaret Preston grew up in New Orleans and received her BA from Loyola University. She has lived in Sioux Falls since 2001. Preston is a professor of history and teaches at Augustana University, where she is currently the Stanley L. Olsen Chair of Moral Values. On the board at the Center for Western Studies at Augustana, Preston is the author and co-editor of a number of books and articles, including Charitable Words: Gentlewomen, Social Control, and the Language of Charity in Nineteenth-Century Dublin (٢٠٠٤). In ٢٠١١, for the hospital’s centennial, she authored A Journey of Faith a Destination of Excellence: Avera McKennan Hospital’s First Century of Caring.
Marcella Prokop is a writer, educator, and vagabond at heart. Neither wholly Colombian nor American, her dual identity shapes her writing and her place in the world. Marcella’s work has been published online or in print by Ploughshares, Pank, the Brooklyn Review, and the Christian Science Monitor.
Hannah Redder grew up blocks away from the World’s Only Corn Palace. She holds an undergraduate degree from Augustana College (not University!) in Sioux Falls and recently graduated from NYU’s creative writing MFA program. She currently lives in New York, where she is finishing her first novel.
Charles Rogers is a lifelong resident of South Dakota who became interested in history while attending Wessington High School. After earning a masters of education in school administration with a minor in history from South Dakota State University, he taught American history and American government at Scotland High School and Washington High School. He served as an adjunct professor at Kilian Community College for twenty years. An active member of the Washington High Historic Committee, he was involved in the placement of historic markers around the school. He has authored two books on South Dakota history: South Dakota’s Challenges Since 1960 (2011) and South Dakota Stories from WW II (2020).
Eric Schulte was born and raised in Sioux Falls. After graduating law school at USD in 1999, he worked as a law clerk for one year in Sioux Falls for the judges of the Second Judicial Circuit. Since 2000, he has practiced law in Sioux Falls at Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz & Smith, LLP. From 2015 through 2016, he served as president of the South Dakota State Bar Association. He also served for several years on the executive board of the Banquet, including a one-year term as president in 2017. Eric also writes poetry, with some of his poems being published in Pasque Petals, the magazine for the South Dakota State Poetry Society, and South Dakota Magazine.
George W. Shurr was born in Rock Rapids, Iowa, and raised on the family farm about thirty miles east of Sioux Falls. After graduating from geology programs at the University of South Dakota, Northwestern University, and the University of Montana, he taught at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota for thirty years. When he moved back to the family farm about twenty years ago, he became interested in local archaeology. As a part of his interest in Blood Run archaeology, George met Dr. Dale R. Henning who has done the foundational professional excavation on the site. Dr. Henning’s extensive publications are the main basis for our understanding of the people who once lived in the Blood Run National Historic Landmark.
Jon C. Teaford was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and now lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin. In 2011–2012, he served as president of the Urban History Association. At present, he is professor emeritus of history at Purdue University. He is the author of a number of books on urban history including Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest. He also served as a senior consulting editor to The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia.
Harry F. Thompson holds a PhD in English with a concentration in historical fiction. His own research activities have included publications about the history of American literary publishing houses, the intersection of history and literature in the novels of Willa Cather and Frederick Manfred, and radicalism among contemporary western authors. Previous to his appointment as executive director of the Center for Western Studies in 2009, he managed the center’s research collections and book publishing programs and directed the annual Dakota Conference. Thompson directed the History of the Arts in South Dakota project, cosponsored by the state’s arts and humanities councils, and is the editor and publisher of over sixty books for the center.
Christopher Vondracek grew up in Kiester and Wells, Minnesota, and currently lives in Washington, DC. He taught college English for a decade before pivoting to journalism, and he is now the South Dakota correspondent for Forum News Service. His poetry collection, Rattlesnake Summer (Badger Clark Publishing), assigns a poem for each of the sixty-six counties in the state, while tracking local news, family history, and a drought.
Bob Wendland is the artistic director and cofounder of the Good Night Theatre Collective and serves as the assistant director of performances and events at the Washington Pavilion. A graduate of Augustana College, Wendland has performed, directed, and collaborated with numerous theatre groups, visual artists, dance companies, and musicians. He received the Mayor’s Award for Individual Excellence in the Arts, Innovative Project Award from the Sioux Falls Arts Council, Best Pivot of the Year Award from Hey Sioux Falls, and Best Actor Award from Sioux Falls Stage.
Grant Wentzel is an incidental transplant from Columbus, Ohio, and he can be found all over town performing music as Link West, covering local arts and culture at fyisiouxfalls.com and publishing creative work at ouchthatshot.com
April White is an award-winning writer, editor, and researcher. She is the author of The Divorce Colony (Hachette Books, ٢٠٢٢), the stunning true story of the socialites who pioneered modern marriage and divorce in Sioux Falls. She has also written numerous other historical tales—including the story of a Hollywood makeup artist who taught World War II spies how to hide in plain sight and the harrowing saga of a ١٩٣٠s search for a summit higher than Everest—for publications such as the Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, WWII Magazine, Atlas Obsurca, JSTOR Daily, and the Atavist Magazine. White previously served as an editor at Smithsonian Magazine. She is based in Washington, DC.
Stu Whitney is a native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, who graduated with a journalism degree from Michigan State University in 1989. He worked at the Lansing State Journal before embarking on a thirty-year career at the Argus Leader, where his roles included sports editor, news columnist, content coach, and editorial board member. Whitney was a three-time South Dakota sportswriter of the year who also won awards for his reporting on Native American student-athletes and ethics abuses in South Dakota politics. He and his wife, Lisa, have a daughter (Emily) and son (Elliot).
Steven Wingate is the author of the novels The Leave-Takers (٢٠٢١) and Of Fathers and Fire (٢٠١٩), both part of the Flyover Fiction Series from the University of Nebraska Press. His short story collection, Wifeshopping (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ٢٠٠٨), won the Bakeless Prize in Fiction from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is associate editor at Fiction Writers Review and associate professor at South Dakota State University.
Publication Credits
Andrews, John. “The Missing Amidons.” South Dakota Magazine. November/December 2014.
Hallstrom, Linda. “Sioux Falls Public Schools: 1873-1989” Brochure.
Whitney, Stu. “Yankton Trail Bridge.” Argus Leader. 10 August 2018.
Blood Run
The Big Sioux River
The Big Sioux River
The Big Sioux River
Patrick Hicks, City of Hustle
