Equipment Blades

The Burggraff home immediately following the worst of the derecho storm. Part of the volunteer clean-up crew the day after the derecho hit.

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equipmentblades.com | 605.368.5221 27127 Parklane Dr., Sioux Falls, SD

Her children from her first marriage, Layne and Taylor Kuper, are both veterans of 4-H and FFA. Layne will be a senior at Lennox High School, where he’s active in football, track, FFA and 4-H. He placed ninth in the state last year for dairy cattle judging. During the 2021 Lincoln County Fair, Layne showed the reserve champion market sheep; took first place in sheep showmanship; and was champion of the round robin contest. He lives half-time at Lennox with his father and also works at an area feedlot.

Taylor graduated from Lennox High School. She started showing steers at just eight years old. Jolene said, “She was just a little girl with this 1,400-pound Red Angus steer and she was the junior points champion for South Dakota Red Angus that year.” In addition to the Red Angus, she also showed sheep, pigs and goats. “I learned some of the best life lessons that I still carry with me today and met some of the greatest people that turned into lifelong friends,” Taylor said. Today, Taylor works as a nurse’s aide in the pulmonary department at Sanford; is training to become a registered nurse; plus has a 19-month-old son (Ryver) and another one on the way. Her fiancé, Nick Lunstra, works for Noles Dragline & Construction and they live between Baltic and Renner. Taylor and Sommer were friends before Wade and Jolene even knew each other. The girls played competitive softball together and their parents met at the first game of the season eight years ago. Six years ago, Wade and Jolene purchased their home and

30 acres east of Colton. They’ve been cleaning it up ever since – and May’s derecho increased the workload. After the storm cleanup is finished, they’ll plant new trees and eventually build a new house. Wade said, “We fell in love with this place when we bought it six years ago. And then all of sudden on May 12th, the trees were gone. But, you know what, we still love it.”

FRIENDLY CONVERSATIONS

Old house or new house, record winds or a peaceful calm evening … no matter the circumstances, this plot of land where they raise sheep, run a few horses, and bale hay is home sweet home. “When we're here, there's always somebody stopping by or we go to the neighbors. We just sit and have some beers and shoot the bull,” Wade said.

Friendly conversations with their neighbors roll right into the friendly conversations they enjoy at their full-time jobs. Both Jolene and Wade work for Equipment Blades of Tea. “Our customers are easy to talk to. When we go out to the dairies, they're so willing to show you around, and they're so proud of what they have and what they've built. They know what it's like to work hard and we know what it's like to work hard. So we’re on the same level,” Jolene said. Equipment Blades is a distributor of heavy equipment wear parts, including edge systems for skid steers, excavators, bulldozers, graders, loaders and snow plows. Jolene has worked there about four years. Her job has expanded from caring for the website and blog to now doing inside and outside sales and marketing as well as measuring buckets and equipment. Wade joined the company last November. He manages incoming inventory, organizes and maintains the warehouse, coordinates shipping, and, if need be, does welding repair on buckets.

Layne Kuper won the Round Robin competition at the Lincoln County Achievement Days in 2021. Taylor Kuper with her fiance, Nick Lunstra, and their son, Ryver. The couple is expecting another boy.

Wade’s professional life included time as a farm hand and 32 years helping to build fire trucks, first at Willy Siemonsma’s welding shop and then at Rosenbauer in Lyons.

SQUARE BALING: FUN OR NOT?

Off the farm, winter or summer, the family enjoys spending time on their side-by-sides. In the summer, they go to lake homes owned by two of Wade’s brothers. In the winter, they like to travel to the Black Hills to snowmobile. Layne also spends free time hunting everything from pheasant, deer and coyotes to geese and raccoons. He also bow fishes in the creek.

Fun for Wade would be throwing more square bales. Running the machinery and baling hay were two of his favorite chores growing up – and is what he misses the most about not being a full-time farmer. Jolene, Taylor, Layne and Sommer all help with baling, but none of them would classify it as “fun” like Wade does. Sommer said, “With Jolene or me driving the tractor, I think Layne gets the short end of the stick on the baling deal.” Layne didn’t disagree: “Baling hay is definitely more fun for Wade than for any of us.” Sommer said Jolene would be lost if she couldn’t spend time with their sheep, especially during lambing season. Jolene said, “There's times I'll sit out there on the bucket and just watch and wait and just be quiet. This is probably weird, but I've always said the best place to cry is the sheep shed. If you need a good cry, you can always go to the sheep shed. I guess it wouldn't be the same if there weren't sheep in there.”

Ivory and Evan Wintersteen during 2022 planting. Photos courtesy of Evan and Ivory Wintersteen.

CALLED TO SERVE HIS COUNTRY, FAMILY, FARM AND THE LORD

By Bob Fitch

Evan Wintersteen was a nuclear missile operator in the U.S. Air Force and he was deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the Air National Guard.

“Afghanistan was the not-scary part,” Evan said. What really took courage was asking out his future bride. The Air Force trained him to make decisions under stress, but nuclear missiles are apparently not as intimidating as a beautiful woman. “It was no small thing when you ask a lady like Ivory out. I was playing mind games in my head, I was saying, ‘Yeah, man, you should ask her out. No, no, she'd never date a guy like you. She’s too good for you …’” When he finally asked Ivory Niewenhuis Ries out, it was the day before he was flying to Covid quarantine en route to deployment in Afghanistan. So their first official date was delayed four months while he performed intelligence analysis in a theatre of battle. “If I never do anything else that cool in the Air Guard again, I'm okay with that because I was doing the job in a combat zone and, yep, we made a