Majors & Minors
Majors
Multimedia Journalism
Photography
Graphic Design
Minors
Multimedia Journalism
Photography
Graphic Design
Business Communications
Speech
Black Hills State University
Communications Department
Letter from the Editor
Life is about taking risks and living to the fullest. It is about walking through the doors that open up opportunities. It entails embracing the possibility of falling and getting hurt while on the journey to make it to the top. This drive, this want, this passion fuels me. However, if someone would have told me that my senior year at Black Hills State University would encompass me being the Editor-In-Chief for a brand-new magazine, I would have replied with, ‘I’m not a writer.’ Well, nearly a year later, I am proud to say that I said yes to that open door.
Through this willingness to say, ‘yes, I want to do this,’ my eyes have been opened to a new perspective on life and journalism. I have witnessed that a blank page allows for the possibility to tell one’s story and how using the instrument of words can express emotions and raw honesty that make us human.
This opportunity is something I will forever be grateful for. Through this process, I have met people from all different backgrounds, ideologies and cultures that make them who they are. I have heard a range of stories that made me laugh until I couldn’t breathe, to experiences that made me wish I wore waterproof mascara that day. I have been enlightened to see each person in a different light as they embrace the joy, pain, achievement, passion and hard work that makes them human.
The magazine, Ponder, is not just pages of articles and photographs. Rather, it is an invitation for readers to be introduced to people across the Midwest and their lifestyles. It provides readers with the opportunity to dive into a new perspective of human interest and how the ‘average joe’ is more than just a person you may nonchalantly pass on the street. It allows one to see that each person is unique and different; but also, how each person has something in common — a willingness to say yes to something. Whether that yes is to a risk in a new business or a yes to see friends. This willingness to step out of one’s comfort zone has allowed us to be innovative, adapt and be open to possibilities.
This journey would not have been possible without my team and the support of professors Allen Morris and Skott Chandler. Thank you especially to Ashley, Hope and Rylan, for your hard work and willingness to also say yes to this opportunity. I am so grateful to have met each and every one of you. You are all more than just a team but are now people who I call my friends. Thank you also to my biggest support and the ones I love the most, my family. Joe and Jacob, thanks for being the best brothers a sister could ask for. And a huge shout out to my mom, Brenda. Thank you for showing me the strength to keep pushing forward. You have been such a role model of unbreakable strength while raising three kids as a single mom and I hope to have just a fraction of perseverance that you do. Last— but certainly not least—thank you so, so much Dr. Justin Bergh. Thank you for being the leader and support I needed. I would not have grown at the rate I have in the past year without your trust in me. The time has finally come, we did it and I am proud to be part of Ponder.
Bridget Schneller, Editor-in-Chief
Editor in Chief:
Bridget Schneller
Lead Graphic Designer: Graphic Designers:
Ashley Beguin
Noah Westergaard
Bridget Schneller
Chief Photographer: Photographers:
Hope Schumacker
Rylan Bruns
Ashley Beguin
Alec Butterfield
Artists:
Annalina Scalise
Sophie Neiman
Business Manager: Ad Sales:
Writers:
Ashley Beguin
Bridget Schneller
Bridget Schneller
Nathan Feller
Zied Ben Aich
Kendra Mitchell
Grace Boe
Austin Graft
Taylor SanFilippo
Ashley Beguin
Kate Kenton
Student Media Advisers:
Justin Bergh, PhD
Skott Chandler, MFA
Allen Morris, MFA
MONTANA NORTH DAKOTA
COLORADO
NEBRASKA
SOUTH DAKOTA WYOMING
Good Eats
LIVINGSTON a taste of
story by Ashley Beguin
photography by Ashley Beguin and Hope Schumacker
Livingston, Montana, is a small town booming with great food and even better people. Visiting three businesses that bring their culinary expertise to the town gives a small taste of what the community is all about. The Livingston Community Bakery, The Fainting Goat Pub, and Campione’s have unforgettable atmospheres, hard-working and creative people, and food that brings people back. Each place has a unique presence in Livingston, where customers in the community enthusiastically donate their time to the bakery that funds the Livingston Food Pantry, an Irish Pub that brings various live music to mix with the already incomparable vibe from The Fainting Goat Pub, and the beautifully crafted food and hospitality that can not be missed from Campione’s.
Time and dedication have proven to be among the most essential aspects of the ethos in these restaurants. If these people did not put in the time and effort, none of them would be where they are today, and they would not be making as big of an impact on the culture of food and community in Livingston.
The Livingston Community Bakery, which officially opened in 2020, was built with productivity in mind, just like the Production Kitchen at the Food Resource Center, with high-quality equipment and ample space. Although this is a significant part of the operation, it is only a fraction of what makes the bakery unique.
The bakery came to fruition because of the Livingston Food Resource Center's mission and vision, which is based on tackling food insecurity by addressing the root cause of poverty in the community. This is done in several ways, including breaking the conventional food pantry model by reducing the acquisition of overly processed foods.
There used to be a high stream of white bread going into the resource center, and Michael McCormick, a previous executive director, was not satisfied with that. White bread has very little nutritional value, and they wanted to improve the health of their clients.
“[He] wanted to create a bread that utilized local ingredients because of this, along with there being a lot of wheat being grown in Montana,” said Katie Going, the inventory and procurement manager. “So, we started in the production kitchen making a few loaves of bread a week to put in the pantry to see how it went with our clients, which they ended up really liking.”
Because the need for food had grown in the past few years, especially during the time of Covid, an influx of clients and the need
for food grew, and the production kitchen matched this growth by making more bread, but the need for space is what led to the search of a new location to continue growing. So, that is how the Livingston Community Bakery came about.
One of the most significant impacts the bakery has made is being able to fund the Livingston Food Resource Center.
“This bakery not only helps us achieve our mission and vision through food, it’s also funding us – it’s acting as a daily fundraiser, which allows us to put more money back into the local economy,” Going said. "It brought in more jobs – we have eleven paid employees here, and we have numerous volunteers coming in and doing dishes, scooping cookies, and slicing bread.”
Despite the number of dedicated employees, the bakery relies heavily on its volunteer base, many of whom have come through the Food Resource Center. Something the bakery holds very high is ensuring the volunteers are educated on the mission. This has gotten people more excited to volunteer because they are witnessing the impact of what they are a part of.
With the help of all the volunteers and employees, the bakery has consistently produced high-quality, healthy foods from start to finish. They make their own butter, fold their dough, and prepare most of their goods 100 percent in-house, made fresh every day, which many bakeries do not. On top of this, they are as local as it gets. The bakery buys over 31,000 pounds of flour a year through Montana Companies, keeping the local economy's cycle going.
"Our croissants are our top seller because the flour is all sourced from Montana,” said Gabby, the interim bakery manager and cake decorator. “So, we’re staying local – we’re staying organic."
Along with the already extensive list of things the bakery and resource center have done for the community, they have also brought education sources to the Livingston community.
“One thing that I really love about this bakery and the job is that it has brought in a lot of training and education that we didn’t have beforehand,” Going said. “We have high schoolers who are apprenticing with Gabby and learning lifelong skills. Profits that we make here also go into summer food and backpack programs – all of these things that help.”
Something present in every aspect of The Livingston Community Bakery and the Food Resource Center is that everyone is working for
the same mission and vision: to end hunger by addressing the root causes of poverty and the local economy.
The bakery's expansion has produced opportunities for great-hearted people and shown only good intentions for the Livingston community. There will undoubtedly be more growth and opportunities in the future.
Open for just over a year now, The Fainting Goat Pub has exceeded expectations for the town of Livingston and its visitors, thanks to Sean McGovern and his two business partners, Azure Tarpy and Kyle Webling.
It takes a lot of work and dedication to see an opportunity like this through and watch it grow into a successful business – it also takes finding the right people to help make it happen.
Sean McGovern moved from San Diego, California, to Bozeman, Montana, in early 2020, right after COVID-19 began to emerge. Little did he know this move would mark the start of a life full of new friendships and experiences.
“I actually grew up in Maryland, then moved to San Diego, where I was stationed in the military, which I got out of in 2020,” McGovern said. “I decided it was time to try something new, and Montana seemed pretty appealing, especially during Covid because San Diego was pretty locked down. So, Montana seemed like a good option.”
Kyle Webling started his life in Virginia before moving to San Diego and then to Bozeman, where he worked with Sean as a bartender for Azure at the Bozeman Tap Room. This is where they all got to know each other over the years.
“[I] ended up bartending in Bozeman,” McGovern said. “Through that, I got a management job at a wedding venue working for [Azure Tarpy], and then we developed a relationship along with Kyle. The three of us were pretty like-minded, and we all were interested in starting an Irish Pub together if we could find something worthwhile to invest in.”
Not long after, a small bar in downtown Livingston went up for sale and the team made an offer on what would later become The Fainting Goat Pub.
"We were officially in business together," McGovern said.
Azure Tarpy, with her previous business experiences – owning Copper Rose Ranch, a wedding venue in Paradise Valley, and being part owner of the Bozeman Tap Room – was a great addition to making the Pub come to life. Along with already being a local business owner, Azure is an interior designer – a woman of many talents.
"So, we made it happen. [Azure] comes in and puts her touch on it – turns it into this beautiful space,” McGovern said. “I mean, the place was already nice, but she put all her ideas into it.”
The Fainting Goat Pub officially opened its doors in late January 2023. Between the food being served and the staff at the Pub, it is the perfect environment for anyone who appreciates an excellent bite to eat and a Guinness.
“We’ve got some top-selling burgers, which are all local beef from a ranch in Belgrade,” McGovern said. “We have our Irish items as well. Even though Ireland is not necessarily known for its food, one thing we wanted to do was make sure we made it an Irish menu either way. So we’ve got things like shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash - those kinds of things.”
However, what stands out the most and sets the pub apart from other restaurants in Livingston is the unwavering atmosphere and live music that is hosted three to four nights a week. It creates a new and exciting environment for the community to sit down and have an excellent time while out for dinner.
While live music is played primarily by local artists, many people travel from different parts of the country during the summers on music tours, where they may get a gig at The Fainting Goat Pub. This is one of the many delightful surprises for anyone who walks into the pub’s doors, especially for those not from the area.
For Sean, one of the best parts about owning and operating The Fainting Goat Pub is being involved with the Livingston Community. Small towns like this are where many find precisely what they need.
"It’s such a unique town that within the first few weeks, you feel like you know everyone around,” McGovern said. “It’s a great town to live in. I lived in Bozeman for a year and a half, and Livingston is completely different – much more my speed. Other than the Yellowstone tourism in the summers, it stays a pretty local, friendly town.”
Campione is another restaurant that has built a name for itself in Livingston, thanks to Jeff Galli and his co -owners, Josh Adams and Anthony Safera. All three come from different backgrounds and have unique experiences and styles they brought when building Campione, and this is part of what kept them going.
“We opened in August 2020, which was in the midst of the global situation in an uncertain time. We didn’t know what was going to happen,” Galli said. “So, Josh, Anthony, and I decided that we would open, but it would just be us running the whole restaurant, which is ambitious for three people to run a whole restaurant.”
Even though the circumstances were not ideal, it was an excellent opportunity for them to open more organically. It gave them the room and opportunity to be completely hands-on with every aspect, from the preparation of the food to the
We’ve got some top-selling burgers, which are all local beef from a ranch in Belgrade."
execution, the service, the music and everything else. Doing it this way allowed them to work things out in a way they would not have if they had a more extensive staff in the early days of Campione.
“So, obviously, I wouldn’t wish to go through that experience again, but I will say that everything that happens has an opportunity with it, and if you look for these opportunities in situations, you can sometimes find that advantage you need,” Galli said. “That helped us become what we are today.”
Jeff grew up on the East Coast, where his family still resides, which differs significantly from Livingston. Growing up in a family that did a lot of camping vacations and outdoor activities, Jeff found that Montana had always been a state that had much romantic appeal to him in terms of all the opportunities — the beauty of the outdoor space and openness pulled him in.
“So, it’s great. I love being here,” Galli said. “I'm happy to call [Livingston] my home.”
Galli is highly grateful to be where he is. The area has allowed him to do all of this, which he had always hoped for.
“Anthony Safera runs the baking program, the music, and the Instagram profile. We have been rooted through our spouses' families, which really is a great way to be introduced into Montana— it gives you a little street credit,” Galli said. “Josh has been here for ten years at least. He came for his own adventures and to check out the area and has been here ever since.”
Josh Adams, the chef at Campione, also grew up on the East Coast, but his parents were missionaries, so he spent some time in Taiwan as a child. These experiences have helped him develop a more worldly approach to his cooking.
Even though the food being cooked at Campione is very Italian, it is evident that the style is influenced by Josh's experiences and knowledge.
This is one of the great things about their cooking – they do not hold themselves to any specific recipes or family traditions. They approach Italian cooking from an ingredient-driven point of view. The flavors are influenced by all of their experiences, especially Josh's.
Campione's philosophy of cooking is centered around not being completely rigid about how the food is cooked but being open to other cooking styles as well, then applying them in a very Italian way. Another part of this is bringing other aspects of the community into the mix.
“A lot of what we do is done in-house – we are a very much made-from-scratch restaurant. Most of what we produce is from start to finish,” Galli said. "We do use a lot of community resources when we need them, so the [Livingston] Community Bakery provides us with sourdough bread that we serve at Brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.”
All the experiences have come together to make this restaurant what it is. Jeff, Anthony and Adam's personalities have made for a unique adventure in building a foundation for Campione to continue growing.
Customers come back for more, and they bring their friends and family to Campione to showcase one of the things that brings people Livingston – the food, the community that has been created around it, and the people who make it happen.
“We all live here, this is our community, and this is what we know how to do,” Galli said. “So, I would have to say the best part of this experience has been that it benefits our community. People really do light up when they come here, and they look forward to it – they have great experiences and come back to have those experiences again. That’s the best feeling you can have – seeing that your hard work is appreciated and that people identify with it.”
SAGE & CEDAR Steeped in Healing
story by Grace Boe and Bridget Schneller photography by Ashley Beguin and Hope Schumacker
Plants embody not only the power to capture our sight with their vibrant colors that bloom in the spring and turn orange in the fall, but they also possess the power to heal and nourish our bodies. For millennia, humans have utilized Earth’s abundance of plants to heal, consume and utilize in multiple and unique forms, including tea.
Joe Vanderberg and Ashley Holdquist established Sage and Cedar in 2022 to provide Spearfish, South Dakota, consumers with teas that are infused with vibrant flavors that pair with natural healing powers. This inspiration stemmed from personal beliefs, practices and philosophical ideologies.
Vandenberg was born in Lead, South Dakota. Growing up in a mountainous environment, he developed a special bond with his surroundings. He filled his time with fishing, camping and going on adventures in the Black Hills to discover a more in-depth connection with the land.
While surrounded by the pure air and towering trees, he let his mind wander. His thoughts manifested a drive to learn and get to the root of ideas. This led to him adopting Eastern Philosophy and practices. To tie nature and spirit together, Vandenberg learned herbalism through the Herbal Academy.
As life started to capture serenity, it soon fell into turmoil. He fell ill and noticed that his body was not in unison. Vanderberg noticed that his life was starting to lose its stabilization and he needed balance again. So, he went on a path of utilizing his knowledge of herbalism to start feeling healed naturally and to take care of his body.
Vanderberg was not alone in a journey of self-discovery and channeling his passion for natural resources into something beneficial for the body and soul.
Holdquist grew up in Custer, South Dakota. This land allowed her to embed herself into nature and gave her an appreciation for how Earth provides people with ingredients to fuel their bodies such as the wild plants that blanket the Black Hills’ grounds.
Her care for the Earth is also reflected in her yearning to be a caretaker. Health to her is not just influenced by personal instinct and how to go about it but also using her beliefs in astrology. She studies the patterns from the sky that embody the macrocosms and microcosms.
Holdquist’s interest in creating healing products influenced by astrology led her to attend the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. This provided her with a broader understanding of utilizing plants to make teas infused with healing components.
As the two met, they shared a connection not only for nature but also to utilize Earth’s gift of plants to transform into healthful tea blends. This connection established Sage and Cedar. Vanderberg’s background in herbalism led him to be Sage and Cedar’s master tea blender and sourcing specialist. Holdquist added her expertise in health to the blends, making her the company’s medicine maker.
Sage and Cedar is unique, in a sense, as it does not have a store front. Rather, this company sells its teas and mixes through various forms. They vend from place to place, market to fair, to tent to booth. They also sell wholesale to various places throughout the Hills, including the Black Hills Farmers Market in Rapid City, and Leones Creamery and Redwater Kitchen in Spearfish. They rely mainly on different farmers markets and festivals to spread their products and share knowledge. As explained by Vanderberg, they would prefer to meet face-to-face with those who may be purchasing and enjoying their hard work, and to have a connection with them, rather than be another chain with a factory who sells boxes to the masses.
Vanderberg and Holdquist channeled their South Dakotan roots into their business as well. Through this business decision, they teamed up with local farmers. This allows their original inspiration from the beautiful Black Hills to be an instrument in their teas.
Sage and Cedar is innovative and open to new flavors and creating unique loose-leaf blends. Their variety of flavors includes 96 loose-leaf blends and powered teas. With so many decisions, consumers have voiced that their top picks include Vintage Earl Gray Tea, the Vanilla Elderflower Tea and the Spiced Chai. Mushroom blends are also a popular item for them, along with their Less Stress Life Blend Tea.
Sage and Cedar herbal Tea Company is not just a blend of steeped leaves in steamy water, rather it provides Black Hills residents a taste into the reality that we only have one body and it should be taken care of, whether that is through meditation or through what we consume.
Don't Judge a Menu by its Cover
by Ashley Beguin
story by Bridget Schneller |
photography
Since 2017, chef Jordan Taylor has owned a burgeoning group of restaurants in the Sioux Falls area. At first glance, it may appear as if his life was a series of successful steps leading up to this point. His accomplishments, however, mask the struggle and personal perseverance that allowed him to get to this level of achievement in his life and career.
Taylor is a free-spirited man who never fails to make those around him laugh from his self-deprecating humor and humble nature. His 20 years in the culinary industry, however, consisted of trials and setbacks that could have ended his career at any point if he didn’t possess an unrelenting drive to perfect his craft and an unwavering confidence in his own creativity and skill.
Taylor grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He comes from a mixed-race family — his mother was Japanese while his father is white. Beyond the racial differences, his upbringing was shaped by the fact that his mother struggled with mental illness and his father’s experience as a loan shark. Eventually, the two split up.
“It wasn’t easy seeing my mom with schizophrenia,” Taylor said. “My parents got divorced when I was in high school, and I know it was for the best because they weren’t happy together.”
After the divorce his mother moved to Minneapolis while his father stayed in Sioux Falls. After high school, Taylor left home to attend college. He decided to pursue a degree in business.
For his first year of college he attended Mankato State University. His stint there did not last for long, however, due to his grades. His courses associated with business, especially math, were starting to hinder his advancements in higher education. To find a solution to this situation, Taylor transferred to South Dakota State University in Brookings. Even at SDSU, the classes were still a struggle.
“I struggled in economics, as even the terms seemed like a foreign language to me,” Taylor said. “Even when I was getting tutoring from my professor, he got frustrated with me for saying ‘I don’t get it,’ and he responded with throwing his hands in the air saying, ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’”
After several years of struggle, he managed to complete his degree, and moved to Portland, Oregon, where he secured a job at a bank. His time in the banking industry was unfulfilling. He sensed that something was not right, and he wasn’t where he should be. His life seemed as if one were trying to force a square piece into a circle hole—Taylor was made for something different.
After living day in and day out of the same routine, Taylor realized he appreciated cooking and decided to make that his career. So, he enrolled in culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu.
While his family has always been supportive of him and his decisions, his father was skeptical of his decision to pursue a career in the restaurant industry. His father accompanied him on a campus visit to Le Cordon Bleu.
“I remember my dad looking at me in the waiting room and saying, ‘I don’t know if this is for you, you're not really that creative,” Taylor said.
This moment did create a feeling of doubt and ‘what am I doing with my life.’ However, it did not deter him from pursuing his dream.
“I learned a lot at Le Cordon Bleu, like knife skills and cooking techniques,” Taylor said.
His new career, however, got off to a rough start. An Asian restaurant offered him a job and implied that he would be trained to eventually take on a role as a sushi chef. With a hopeful spirit, Taylor said yes to this opportunity.
The first day at this job entailed him prepping ingredients for food. The following day was a nightmare. The owner told him to clean out a grease pit at a new location they were opening. Typically, that job is intended for professional cleaners to take care of with the special equipment. Taylor, new to the industry, didn’t realize that.
“I remember standing in this disgusting hole full of what smelled like shit,” Jordan said. “While most restaurants have a system for this grease, there’s was like a catacomb of gross, and just nasty stuff that I had to shovel.”
What made this job even more disheartening was that he never got paid and the owner never contacted him after he did the manual, repulsive work for that restaurant.
Eventually, Taylor got hired at a restaurant which allowed him to start making money and he continued to work on his culinary skills.
After about a year and a half of training at culinary school, he needed to execute an externship to complete his culinary certification. Rather than simply taking an externship that would satisfy the requirements of his certification, Taylor wanted to take risks and ‘go big, or go home.’ So, he told his adviser he wanted to work at Herbfarm. This restaurant, at the time, was one of most critically acclaimed restaurants in the country, but that fact did not scare him away.
“Maybe I was just cocky or more ambitious when I was younger, but I told [my adviser] to get me the paperwork to apply at Herbfarm,” Taylor said. “They told me just to apply then, and so I did, and I got the externship.”
This restaurant was open only four days a week and utilized fresh food sourced locally. Each item of produce was handpicked from their own gardens, including vegetables, fruits, and edible flowers. This experience showed Taylor that using fresh items can emphasize flavors that can elevate a meal from good to great. It also showed him that the effort required to prep and the process from ingredients from dirt to the plate was a time-consuming and labor-intensive process.
“When I was working there, it wasn’t easy work,” Taylor said. “I remember being in the gardens picking a certain amount of ingredients in the hot June sun and counting how many of each item we would be using in the dishes we would serve that night.”
Having the experience at Herbfarm on his CV opened doors for him in the Portland area. Taylor was able to work at nearly any restaurant he applied to. He was making decent money working in Portland, and he loved his apartment as it was close to downtown and he was in long-term relationship, yet unbeknownst to him at the time, his life was changing.
Restaurant work is not easy and many in the industry deal with the stress by blowing off steam at the end of a long shift. It was high stress and a ‘go, go, go’ mentality. Soon, Taylor was joining his colleagues in the industry. As soon as he got off work, he immediately went straight to partying, drinking and drugs – only to get up and do the same routine the next day.
This lifestyle started to have an impact on his relationship with his girlfriend and on his health.
“It was a gross lifestyle,” Jordan said. “You work all day and smell like food and are sweating and then when you get off of work, you are still sweating and just going hard on alcohol and drugs.”
The environment of the Pacific Northwest did not help either due to the rainy conditions.
“I remember just getting out of work and it just raining and being dark,” Taylor said.
As this viscous lifecycle continued, Taylor got a call that his mother had become very ill. He moved to Minneapolis for a
temporary period, living with a close friend to be there for his mother until she eventually passed away.
This rude awakening made him realize that life is short and that he wanted to be close to his father and to not work for someone, but to own his own business. This reflection on his life and career was validated when his friend from high school reached out to him.
This friend – Barry Putzke – was also living in Portland. They stayed connected throughout the years in various ways, including playing fantasy football. Putzke asked Taylor if he would meet with him at Old Chicago to watch some football games and to talk about fantasy football and drink cheap beer. As ironic as it was for Taylor to eat out at a chain restaurant, he thought it would be a fun time. So, with that willing ‘yes’ to joining his friend marked the night that his world would start to change again.
“It’s kind of funny how it all happened,” Taylor said. “He called me and was like, ‘You want to meet out at Old Chicago?’”
The two sat together eating nachos and talking about football. Putzke mentioned that he was planning to move back home to Sioux Falls as his wife had just given birth to their child and wanted to settle down closer to family. He then looked at Taylor and offered to be his business partner in starting a restaurant in Sioux Falls. He knew that Taylor encompassed the skills to create food that would
be special to that region and believed they could start something together that would be successful.
“So, [that night] we each had about six beers and that’s when he asked me to do it,” Taylor said. “He collected the idea over Italian nachos and Miller Lights.”
Taylor realized that this partnership offered the chance to do something special in his life and career. With his mother recently passing, he knew he wanted to be closer to his father who was diagnosed with cancer. So, that night he took the chance and decided to leave his life behind in Portland and move back to his roots in South Dakota.
“My mom passed and my dad, at the time, was also struggling with health and cancer,” Taylor said. “So, I knew that would be the time to move back.”
This dream soon turned into reality, but the hard work of starting a business began.
“I said [to Barry], if we are going to make this work, we are going to need to do a couple more things, or at least something,” Taylor said. “At the time I was 40 and I should be making at least the same as what I was making before moving here.”
The comfortable lifestyle that he had experienced before moving back was no longer. He was just getting by and realized that in deciding to start this business, he risked everything. Nevertheless, Taylor set out
to create a restaurant and menu that, if successful, would change the Sioux Falls dining scene. It was a tremendous risk, but Taylor created a continually changing menu based on utilizing local produce that was in season, just like what they did at his externship.
“South Dakota is known for its agriculture,” Taylor said. “We partnered with farmers and use fresh produce in our kitchens that we prep. We don’t use Sysco and or anything like that for our ingredients.”
The concept struggled to take off at first. Each month, Taylor experimented with new sandwiches that went through a meticulous testing process before they made their way onto the menu. He was putting in over 100 hours per week as the executive chef, only to be faced with a dearth of customers, including many that failed to grasp what he was attempting to do.
“There’s a reason we use a chalkboard menu at Bread and Circus,” Taylor said. “We are using fresh products and always creating new parts to our menu offering something different all the time.”
Opening the doors to Bread and Circus did not take too long, but winning over the community became a hindrance. The restaurant is in downtown Sioux Falls, where people who eat out often avoid due to the effort of parking and walking. In addition to this, people were not too keen on the symbolism of flags that presented as ‘too progressive.’ This change was starting to uproot old ideas and encourage a change in perspective in the area.
"We are using fresh products and always creating new parts to our menu offering something different all the time."
His food was successful in drawing a young crowd open to change and trying new food and ingredients, but that was not a large enough consumer base to keep the doors open. This lack of customers led to a pay cut which created a tension large enough that Taylor almost quit.
“I remember I could barely pay for a car payment and didn’t have any extra money to just spend,” Taylor said. “I was 40 and I thought I should be better financially than I was before I moved.”
Taylor told Putzke that if this business was going to continue, they needed to start to expand in order to diversify their business and hopefully make additional money from another location and restaurant concept.
“I told him that what we were doing, we needed to change,” Taylor said.
This led to them opening a second restaurant called Pizza Cheeks. This second restaurant began to help with the financial burden. At the same time, Bread and Circus began to get recognition around town and expand its customer base.
That success soon led to national attention. Guy Fieri, the Food Network TV host of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” showcased Taylor’s restaurant for the South Dakota episode. Fieri enjoyed the food so much that he asked his camera crew to pick up more sandwiches for the flight home. The crew still reaches out to Taylor saying how much they loved his food and appreciated his restaurant. This exposure took his business from a local hotspot to a place where people from across the country come to try his food.
“It was cool to have Guy come to the restaurant,” Taylor said. “It definitely helped get us known more.”
Even though the praise for his restaurants started to gain traction, his innovative methods and progressive nature has presented issues for people who are not willing to adapt and expand their views.
“We get these nasty comments on social media or just comments from people in general who don’t like change saying that my food isn’t good or asking, ‘who does he think he is just trying to change things,’” Taylor said. “It’s frustrating because they are hating on my food without even giving it a chance, and rather than just minding their own business they just try to tear it down.”
Instead of letting these negative comments hinder his growth, he uses it as motivation to continue his success.
After opening his first two restaurants, he continued his ambitious drive. Following several requests or comments on how he should cater his food for events, he decided to start a catering company. Taylor named this business En Place Catering, and it now offers food for all types of events ranging from weddings to special events.
Following En Place Catering’s launch, Taylor had the opportunity to partner in a new business in Pierre, South Dakota, which would be a seasonal bar and grill overlooking the Missouri river. Boat House Bar & Grill launched in the summer of 2022. Its successful launch added a fourth location to his expanding culinary empire.
Taylor has not slowed down in expanding what he has to offer in his culinary expertise. This year, Taylor will open Perch Neighborhood Kitchen. Unlike Pizza Cheeks and Bread and Circus, Pearch will be a sit-down style restaurant with servers taking orders from tables.
“Pearch is going to be in the middle of a neighborhood,” Taylor said. “This is definitely a unique location.”
Taylor’s success did not happen overnight, nor did it come easy. Rather it entailed a journey of self-detection, drive and hard work. Through it all, Taylor continues to express his unique culinary creativity and skill, and in the process is reshaping the South Dakota foodscape.
Arts & CulturE
A Living Past
story by Bridget Schneller photography by Hope Schumacker
Just as we are part of our parents, so too, are they part of their parents and so on, and so forth. It appears as a domino effect, perhaps a chain reaction. Each generation is – in a sense – connected to the other. Years stack on from former lives which then pass down aspects and characteristics to the next generation. These inherited traits encompass one’s appearance, culture and beliefs. Each person is a living vessel of past lives.
Just as we have all stemmed from past generations, so too does vinegar. The parent acetobacter, though microscopic and overlooked by the human eye, is a form of bacteria that builds up into vinegar that can be produced over and over from the first living vinegar cell. When a new batch is created, it still has the soul of the original. The past lives on in present batches. It feeds and grows, passing its memory of rich flavors of sweetness, fruitiness and tang to a fresh tank of grape juice. As the juice ages, it takes on flavors and aromas unique to the parent acetobacter, carrying on a past legacy and transforming it into an ingredient that enhances the taste into something blissful.
Learning how to produce such a tedious product of fermentation was mastered by George Johnson, leading to him creating the vinegar business George Paul Vinegar in Cody, Nebraksa. For nearly two decades, Johnson has patented and distributed high-quality vinegars that are sought after nationwide. Each vinegar, from his wine vinegar to his balsamic vinegar, is handcrafted to induce an array of decadent flavors.
Johnson is a witty man. He has never wasted a moment in his life, nor has he passed on opportunities to take risks. This adventurous nature has provided him with endless stories, from which he imparts wisdom based on experiences spanning decades. This drive for something spectacular has fueled his entrepreneurial spirit. He has always had a passion for doing things that he loves –he does not work to live but lives to work. With this mindset, he has been self-employed in some form or another throughout his life, from ranching to starting multiple companies, with his most recent project being George Paul Vinegar.
“I have always started my own businesses, I have had the entrepreneur spirit,” Johnson said. “I have never worked under someone, and I like being my own boss.”
After retiring from ranching, Johnson still wanted to do something that he enjoyed and something he could work on. While he loved reading books from his home library, he wanted to continue to work. He felt as if boredom filled his days. Even after several surgeries on his back and both shoulders, he still sought something that could supply his days with a purpose, while also doing something that did not require him to work under someone else. His wife encouraged him to pursue a passion project.
With her encouragement, Johnson realized that he always loved growing plants and fruit. He has done that for years. So, he decided that he would spend his time growing a vineyard.
“I have always planted fruit trees wherever we have lived, I’ve had apple trees, peach, pear, tried all different kinds of things,” Johnson said. “That was my interest. So, I planted some grape vines.”
The region of Nebraska in which Johnson lives happens to be ideal for growing grape vines as it has the perfect climate for these delicate fruits.
“It has the highest quality grapes of the Midwest because it is a very unique sight and environment here,” Johnson said. “It is perfect for growing grapes as it is hot in the daytime, we don’t have a lot of rain usually and it gets cold at night allowing the grapes to rest and they develop their flavors.”
With a conducive environment and Johnson’s care, the vineyard quickly exceeded what he first envisioned.
“I thought, ‘As these vines are getting mature, what the hell are we going to do with all these grapes,’” Johnson said. “I didn’t want to have a winery— it’s like milking cows and you got to be there all the time—I didn’t want to be there all the time.”
Johnson’s daughter Emily encouraged him to make vinegar. She knew that his wine was special and came up with the idea for vinegar from a friend with a history in the culinary business. Johnson’s entrepreneurial spirit kicked.
“One of [Emily’s friends from California] was a very smart, talented young man from the East Coast and his Godfather happened to be the food critic for the New York Times,” Johnson said.” “So, he grew up knowing very good foods and he knew a lot about vinegars. He told Emily that these wines would make great vinegars, and you need to make vinegar.”
The encouragement from his daughter to do something unique with his wines led to an attempt to make homemade vinegar.
“I finally said, ‘Well hell, let’s give it a try,’” Johnson said.
After four years of trial and error, Johnson and his daughter unlocked the precise process of creating high-quality vinegar. This entailed hours of dedication to learning about this art. Johnson found it difficult to locate resources on producing vinegar, as it is now a specialized, often esoteric skill. Through his research, though, he discovered how much science was entailed in creating vinegar.
“I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the internet, “Johnson said. “Some of the best information I found was a master’s thesis that was written by chemists as they happened to pick vinegar production — and I learned a lot about it.”
Johnson also utilized his connections in learning the fermentation process and how to use chemistry techniques.
“I learned a lot from my old wine mentor that had the first winery in Nebraska, Ed Swanson,” Johnson said. “[He] was just an encyclopedia of chemistry, never went to college. He was one of the best winemakers in the country, without question.”
After discovering the process of making vinegar, Johnson decided to discontinue making wines at his vinegary. Winemaking is a delicate process. The environment, equipment and air quality all need to be at the right balance. It required him pumping his vinegar out of the tanks, storing them in another space and then sealing those vinegar containers. After this process, he would disinfect the building to the point where one could no longer smell vinegar anymore in order to eliminate all the acetobacter in the air, which if left unchecked, will ruin the wine.
“In order to make good vinegar, you have to have really good, high-quality dry wine that has had nothing added to it,” Johnson said. “The wine projects [in the vinegar] the fruit of the original wine which could be apple, raspberry, peach, but mostly what we use is grape.”
From this point onward, Johnson retired his winemaking operation and sold his wines and grapes to a nearby family, the Nollettes, with the business deal that he would continue using the wine they produce for his vinegars. He planted their first 200 grape vines, taught them how to prune the fruits and showed them tricks of the trade in crafting wine. Johnson also helped them with their winery company by bottling their first wines before he fully ceased making wines at his property.
Johnson and his daughter’s main priority was to start working on producing vinegar. These vinegars were not made like the ones from industrial machines that can produce vinegar acids in 24 hours. Rather, these vinegars require aging to infuse flavors.
“The wine vinegars usually take about a year to a year and a half,” Johnson said. “From the time we get the wine in then add the live acetobacter until it is finished which sometimes could take two years, and they’re all different.”
Johnson’s handcrafted vinegars include apple cider vinegar, prairie red vinegar, prairie white vinegar and raspberry vinegar. In addition to these flavors, there are also blended wine vinegars which include Brianna vinegar, Temparia vinegar and Edelweiss vinegar.
His daughter is the special component of why these vinegars continue to produce their soughtafter flavors.
“My daughter, she is the secret to our business because she has a unique talent where she can taste and smell things that no one else can,” Johnson said. “When we figured that out, well that’s our secret, and we never bottle anything until she goes through all of our vinegars, and she tastes them and smells them.”
Her senses are so keen that she can tell her father the measurements of the chemical balance that needs to be adjusted.
“I test the vinegar in my lab so I know what the PH is, I know what the acid content is and I know the volumes,” Johnson said. “She will go through them and say, ‘Okay, I want 10.1 percent of this, 8.7 percent of this…’ and she goes through the whole thing if we blend them—and I do exactly what she says and everybody likes them.”
Due to the tedious process of creating these vinegars, they are not like the ones sold in typical grocery stores. The acid does not pierce one’s pallet but is smooth and rich in flavor. A signature thing that Johnson likes to do to surprise his visitors is to put the raspberry vinegar onto vanilla ice cream.
“We had a man once say, ‘His vinegar is so good, you can put it on ice cream,’” Johnson said.
In addition to these vinegars, Johnson has also mastered the techniques of creating balsamic vinegar. This vinegar is special as it is made the same way it would be made in Italy. This balsamic vinegar takes nearly a decade to produce.
“Our signature vinegar is our aged, American balsamic made as close as we could come to as they make it in Italy,” Johnson said. “It
takes from six to eight years from start to finish, and we don’t make wine to do that, we just start with the grape juice.”
Since his daughter was integral to the process, Johnson named it Amelia after his daughter, Emily.
The process begins tenuously. As the grape juice is heated to a certain temperature, it essentially eliminates all of all the water but leaves all the grape aromas and flavors. The hot temperatures cannot be at a point where the liquid boils because sugar is an important ingredient to keep for the balsamic. Once the heating process is over, there is nearly double the amount of sugar and grape juice left. After it has cooled down, they put it in a large tank and add the Amelia mother of vinegar. Every six months Johnson will pump the concentrated liquid into another tank so all of the sediments will be eliminated. Johnson consistently tests the batch’s chemical levels, as he needs the PH levels to decrease and the acid to increase.
To keep the balsamic authentic to its Italian origins, Johnson puts wood such as French oak into his tanks to induce additional flavors. The original process of making balsamic includes aging it in wooden barrels which cost nearly $3000 apiece. In addition to the prohibitive cost, Italians will not sell the authentic barrels.
“We use French oak and some other woods that they use to make those barrels in Italy to make traditional, Italian balsamic and put the woods in the tank and it kind of does the same thing,” Johnson said. “It gives you a hint of chocolate, a hint of coffee, a hint of cedar, all kinds of different things.”
Just as vinegars pass down special traits to the next batch, holding onto characteristics from the parent, so too does Johnson’s daughter take on qualities from her father. She has created her own printing business utilizing old 100-year-old German printers. With these printers and cutters, produces George Paul Vinegar’s labels, boxes and cards. She designed the logo for the business as well. Her expertise has allowed the business to be family-run throughout all aspects of production.
Family is the focus of Johnson’s enterprise. The walls of the business are adorned with pictures of his children and grandchildren.
Johnson is a person who cares for the people around him. He is a person who wants others to do well in life. He has allowed his employees a place to stay and strangers a bed when they did not have a place to go. Just as vinegar passes down its best traits to the ensuing batches, so too, does Johnson pass his characteristics to the ones around him. This, who he is as a person, is what makes his business so successful and attracts people from across the country to continue coming back to George Paul Vinegar.
"We had a man once say, ' His vinegar is so good, you can put it on ice cream.'"
Footprint in Time
written by Nathan Feller photography by Rylan Bruns
A collector, artist, author & educator,
Tom Finke, along with his wife, Mami Yamamoto, resides in a quaint home, cluttered with decades worth of art from various adventures, in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado.
The walls of his home are filled with photographic prints and paintings from artists of varying stages of fame.
“I started collecting in the seventies,” Finke said. “Fortunately or unfortunately, my collection has extended further than just photos.”
Coffee tables and counters are heavily decorated with miniature statues, wooden figures and other miscellaneous objects from diverse cultures. Despite the complexities of a number of his collections, each one represents the deep love one man can have for the arts.
“We’re to the point now that if we see something we like we just get it,” Finke said. “Although we’ve also gotten to the point where we just have so much stuff.”
Since he was a boy, Finke has been surrounded by the arts. His father, Thomas Finke, was said to have always had a camera in his hands, and, because of that, so did his son.
Sadly, Finke’s father died in 2022 at the age of 96. However, he is remembered fondly by his surviving family as an avid fisherman, businessman and family man.
“My father passed away last July,” Finke said. “He was a big fisherman. I’m trying to decide how to deal with it, but I’ve got his tackle box and I’ve got all these lures from the thirties and forties that I could do something with. They’re beautiful and one of a kind.”
Aside from his hobbies as a photographer and fisherman, Finke’s father was a partial owner of the Finke Company, a non-food wholesale business and the father company to Pharm-O-Spot.
“I worked there through high school and a few years when I was in college,” Finke said. “But working for your family is really difficult. They were just set in their ways.”
Although Finke loved and respected his family and the business, there was an adventurous spark within him. He needed to explore.
“I wanted to go to the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid,” Finke said. “So I asked for time off and they said no, so I quit. They told me I couldn’t quit, and I just said, ‘I quit. I’m going to Lake Placid’ then I got in the car, drove to Lake Placid, and went to the Olympics.”
Finke arrived at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid with no documentation that could prove he belonged there. Not even a ticket.
“I didn’t have a pass and I didn’t have any tickets,” Finke said. “But I was really good at slingin’ bullshit.”
Weighed down by his photography equipment, Finke approached the area designated for photographers and media workers. Immediately he was asked to show his pass. Finke made a show of frantically patting down his pockets, swearing and eventually failing to find his pass. Fooled by his acting skills, the guard allowed him through.
“I actually went to the U.S.A. [v.s.] Russia hockey game where they won gold,” Finke said. “I also got to see the gold medal for figure skating and I went to the ski jump[ing]. I just lied.”
It was not long before Finke began making friends, establishing himself as a professional photojournalist in the eyes of the staff watching over the media personnel.
“Finally, the same people got to know me and they didn’t even ask when I walked by,” Finke said. “I also met a photojournalist
finding the unique artistic beauty in even the most mundane of subjects...
from Montreal. She told me if there was ever an issue to say I was her assistant.”
One scandalous trip to the 1980 Winter Olympics sparked a lifetime of adventurous desire and serves as one of the first great stories in Finke’s photographic career.
Finke possesses an innate talent for finding the unique artistic beauty in even the most mundane of subjects through the lens of a camera. Much of his personal photographic work focuses on the average and the unnoticed, a photographic theme he discovered and pursued since he fully realized his passion for photography as an undergraduate student.
“Where I went to undergrad, you were required to take humanities and art classes,” Finke said. “I took a painting class. It was horrible. I took a jewelry class and I did really well, so I took a couple other jewelry classes. But then I took a photography class, and it was just one of those ‘aha’ moments. I just felt a connection.”
For the most part, Finke’s work consists of candid street photography. He wanders through bustling city streets with a simple film camera slung around his neck, shooting photos of passersby in their natural environment. His street photography freezes seemingly insignificant moments in time, allowing viewers to realize the otherwise unrecognizable beauty of any given moment.
“I still shoot on the street a lot, and that’s something I’ve been doing since undergrad,” Finke said.
After decades of shooting street photography, Finke had accumulated an expansive stock of photos. Within his workspace are dozens of boxes filled with photos taken in a variety of cities in the United States and Japan. The only problem was finding a way to share them with the world.
“Robert Frank, [Joesef] Koudelka and [Garry] Winogrand, for the kind of work I do, were like heroes,” Finke said. “And when I was in Paris, one of the things [Koudelka] said was if I wanted to get my work seen, make a book. At first, I was confused. Then, I realized a
Koudelka print is around twenty-five thousand dollars – I can’t afford that – but I can afford a forty-dollar book and get to see fifty Koudelka prints.”
After taking some time to consider other potential options, Finke decided to pull the trigger and get the ball rolling on his first photo book.
“[Making a book] ain’t cheap,” Finke said. “Just the paper to make the prints was seventeen hundred dollars. Then they had to be taken to Japan and sequenced and then of course you have to pay the designer and all of these details. But it was definitely worth it. They came out really good.”
“Japan: Footprints in Time 1997-2010” was published in 2015. It features a collection of Finke’s best street photos in Japan taken over a nearly thirty-year span. Within the same year, Finke published his second photo book, “America: Footprints in Time 1982-2012” which, much like his previous publication, exhibited his best photos from his work on American streets.
“Mami was really good with making things really minimal,” Finke said. “The numbers on the pages are really small and stuff. She also did the translation so it’s both in Japanese and English, which is really nice.”
Finke loved the final product of his first two books and fully intends to begin the process of creating another.
“I want to do one on the spaces between the houses [in Japan],” Finke said. “I feel like that work is pretty much finished at this point.”
Finke’s “Spaces Between” project continues to follow the theme of finding beauty in the common, repetitive things in life. Only this time, his focus was not on the average person, but the repetitive places.
“Japanese houses are not far apart,” Finke said. “I could reach out and touch my neighbor’s house from my own house. But, they decorate those spaces between the houses, and sometimes stuff just falls in between them.”
As he spoke, Finke drew stacks of prints out of cardboard boxes. They depicted the between-spaces that he spoke of. Some photos showed lights and other decorations strung across the space, others showed clothes hanging out to dry or toys that had been left behind. His work somehow captured a glimpse of the residents’ personalities in only five feet of space.
Despite Finke’s overwhelming surplus of quality prints, he is always focused on new ideas and the next project.
“Currently, I’m working on a series of photographs called ‘Silent Places’ which have no people in them, but you would expect – you know – it’s Tokyo, you would expect people to be everywhere. I feel like that’s interesting.”
However, it seems that one project at a time is not enough for the experienced photographer. Finke often cycles through mini-obsessions with particular styles and settings for his shots, constantly challenging himself to come up with new ideas and testing the limits of his capabilities as a photographer and artist.
“For me, there’s something about shooting at night that I really like,” Finke said. “And it’s safe [in Japan]. I’ll go out at two o’clock in the morning and nobody will bother me. It’s not something I would do here.”
Finke’s passion for the arts – specifically photography – has led him down many interesting roads in life. It has also allowed him to combine the pursuit of his true calling as an educator with his long-time passion for photography.
“I’ve always been a soccer coach,” Finke said. “That’s kind of like teaching, and I love to teach. I really, really love to teach, and I minored in art in college. I knew I didn’t paint very well, but then I thought of photography. So, I went back [to school] and got my MFA from the University of Cincinnati, and then I
enrolled at Arizona State for my PhD in education because I knew I wanted to teach.”
Finke has lived this dream since 1979 when he began teaching college-level photography classes. He is currently a professor at Red Rocks Community College in the Denver area. However, Finke was not always dead set on becoming a professor of the arts.
Initially, Finke began his post-secondary education career as a pre-medical student, studying the science of the human body. But he soon realized that medicine and healthcare was not the career path for him.
“I backed off and ended up getting a degree in biology,” Finke said. “So then I went to graduate school and got my advanced degree in, basically, biochemistry. After that, I worked as a research scientist for a while working with Peregrine Falcons. You know when the DDT was making the eggshells really thin? We were working on that when the government cut funding.”
Around the same time that the funding for his research was cut, he was approached by the United States Military. He was offered an opportunity to continue working as a research scientist. Certain that joining the military was not the right choice, Finke made the decision to return to school to become an educator.
Although by the time he enrolled in graduate school Finke knew that photography and education were his purpose, he still felt a connection with many other forms of art.
“Where I went to graduate school, you had to major in two things,” Finke said. “I majored in photography and ceramics, which are two very different arts. [Photography] is really clean, and in ceramics you can get as dirty as you want.”
Despite his passion for his work, Finke found himself frustrated and burnt out with the relatively stagnant process that is film photography. Fortunately, the contrast between the day to day of photography and ceramic art was enough to rejuvenate him whenever his frustration grew. Finke found balance between the overbearing cleanliness of the darkroom and the chaos of the ceramics lab.
“In the darkroom there’s no dust, you can’t sneeze, you don’t bring anything to eat or drink or anything like that,” Finke said. “So when I used to get tired of it, I would go to the ceramics lab and throw, and I would just get absolutely filthy. It was a great way to decompress.”
Finke continues to find balance in many aspects of his life, now using his work in the dark room as his way to decompress from the stress of educating the next generation of photographers like him. Finke’s art has inspired and impressed many, but, at the end of the day, he knows he became an artist for one reason.
“I make [art] for me,” Finke said. “And if you like it, fine, and if you don’t, I don't really care.”
We're in the middle... but not the middle of the road.
The Tri-State Museum and Visitor Center is a museum, center of the nation monument and historic cabin complex, smack dab in the middle of the U.S. at Belle Fourche, SD.
We're small, unique and refresh our exhibits and events continually. Free admission to the complex, but there's a cool gift shop, too. Ordinary? Not us. Come see for yourself. 415 Fifth Avenue in Belle Fourche, SD www.thetristatemuseum.com
Tues-Sat, 9 to 5 in winter
Sun-Sat, 9 to 5 in summer
The Man Without a Plan
story and photo by Nathan Feller
art by Annalina Scalise
Weaving through faceless strangers on a sidewalk, the famed Murray Block stood motionless as tourists passed by. The rustic brick building exhibited a sense of dying history in the bleak, early afternoon light. I admired the strength of each brick as I waited. Each one stood for over a century to provide comfort and shelter from the unpredictable Montana weather.
At ten till two, my patience was quickly dissolving into anxiety. I worried that he had forgotten or decided that I wasn’t worth his time after all. My text remained unanswered no matter how many times I checked my phone. Then, finally, my phone buzzed to life with the message I was expecting for what felt like an eternity, “Come on in, just got here.” Relieved, I stood, shouldered my backpack, and pulled on the heavy wooden door that – according to the lightless neon sign above – would lead me straight into the Murray Bar.
I stepped inside and the darkness enveloped me as the door thudded shut. The hazy barroom was unexpectedly busy, considering how early in the afternoon it was. Waitresses and patrons bustled around me as I scanned every table and barstool for a face I had only seen in photos. At last, on the other end of the island bar, a waving hand and a bright, crooked smile caught my attention.
“Hey man, how’s it going?” The man said, extending a calloused hand. “I’m Callan.”
Callan Wink embodies Livingston, Montana. His face is tanned and weathered from working outside during the hot Montana summer. Creases and lines trail from the corners of his eyes from years of squinting through the sun and enjoying life. The man was as vibrant as the town itself –always lively, always moving and always up to something. Truly unpredictable.
An expanse of farmland bordered by deep blue mountain ranges suggests just another sleepy rural Montana town. Within the city limits, however, is a bustling mini metropolis. Rustic brick buildings covered in bold signs dominate the downtown architecture, notifying visitors of the history that the locals are passionately proud of. Within the sea of faded brick are new, brightly painted businesses that incorporate a modern, artistic look within the downtown area.
Livingston provides an endless diversity of entertainment. Award-winning restaurants, independent bookstores, cafés, fly shops and local miscellaneous stores can be found all over. But the crown jewel of the old railroad town stands tall on the corner of West Park Street. Since 1904, The Murray has been a focal point of the town’s historic past. A conglomerate of
a hotel, a café and a bar, The Murray Block has welcomed the patronage of famous figures like showman Buffalo Bill Cody, renowned celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and legendary writer – and parttime Livingston resident – Jim Harrison.
His handshake was firm and business-like in contrast to the toothy smile on his face and the kind, mischievous light behind his tired eyes. We settled side-by-side at the bar. Soon after, a bartender paused in front of us.
“What can I get you, Callan?” she asked.
“Well, it’s still early I guess,” Callan said. “I’d better stick with beer. I’ll do a PBR and Clamato.”
The waitress disappeared to the other end of the bar, then returned with a large glass, a brown bottle and a smaller glass filled with tomato juice.
“I’m more of a tequila guy anymore, but it’s before four o’clock and I still got shit to do today,” Callan said, laughing as he mixed his drink.
After a taste test of his orange concoction, he turned and stared at me expectantly. I realized he was waiting for the interview to begin.
“Well, I grew up in this tiny little town called Morley,” Callan said of his Michigan upbringing. “There were probably three hundred people, a blinking stoplight – you know – that kind of thing. I went to a high school that was like two towns consolidated. I think I graduated with like eighty people or something. But, yeah, it was a small town out in the woods. My mom was a teacher and my dad worked in construction.”
Callan’s mother held a firm belief that television rotted the young, developing minds of children. Therefore, not a single screen occupied the Wink household. Literature was the primary mode of entertainment. Callan constantly had his nose buried in paperback Western novels and poetry books. Soon, his love for reading grew into an obsession for writing.
“When I was pretty young, I started writing bad poetry and I still continue to do that,” Callan said. “Probably until my early twenties, I actually thought I wanted to be a poet. But then I just sort of realized that all my poems were just short stories that I was too lazy to actually flesh out.”
Like William Faulkner famously said, every novelist is a failed poet. Callan fits that adage.
“Well, I was never really a very good poet, but when I finally started, you know, forcing myself to work at it a little longer I was able to turn some of them into stories,” Callan said. “That’s what I should have been doing all along. I still think it’s good to start out thinking in terms of poetry for imagery and things like that. I don’t really read a lot of poetry though. I think I just liked it because you can just finish, you know, it doesn’t take so long. I like the sense of accomplishment.”
By the time Callan graduated from high school, he knew he loved two things: fly fishing and telling stories. The summer after he graduated, he moved to Missoula, Montana. He found a job working on a dude ranch as a fly-fishing guide in order to save up
for college. Callan fell in love with the Montana lifestyle. He had discovered his home.
“After that summer, I moved down to Bozeman for college,” Callan said. “It would have been the end of my first full year full year in Montana, so 2003 or 2004. I can’t really remember exactly, but I moved down here because it was cheaper. I ended up working at Dan Bailey’s fly shop. I worked there all through college, and, for the most part, lived above it in the shitty little apartment they had up there. I liked Livingston because I was just used to small towns.”
Not long after, Callan found a family to go with his newfound home in a man named Dan Lahren, a fellow fishing guide.
“Yeah, Dan’s a character,” Callan said. “He’s kinda my surrogate dad here in Livingston. He’s a cantankerous little son of a bitch, but he’s funny and extremely smart. Pretty crusty but he’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He’s a great cook as well. I benefit from it because I’m not and he takes pity on me frequently and makes me dinner a lot.”
After years of home cooked dinners, fishing trips, drinks and crashing on couches, Callan and Dan have built an unbreakable bond. Callan’s friendship with Dan has also introduced him to many opportunities, including a working relationship with Jim Harrison, who Dan had been taking on fishing trips for over thirty years prior to Jim’s death.
“[Jim] was one of the first writers that I got to know who was an example of how to be a writer,” Callan said. “Jim was the first real working writer I ever knew. He had a good work ethic. He wrote everyday for a longtime, no matter what he was doing, which I always thought was impressive. No matter if he was carousing, or fishing or doing whatever, he always got his ass up and wrote something in the morning. I appreciated that and I’ve tried to follow that.”
Despite his lust for literature and his run-ins with many writers, Callan has never modeled his writing after another author. He prefers to speak with his own voice.
After completing his bachelor’s degree at Montana State, Callan felt the need to continue honing his writing skills. He enrolled in the Creative Writing MFA program in at the University of Wyoming. Shortly after completing that program, Callan became a recipient of the Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University where he shared his knowledge and love of fiction writing with aspiring authors.
However, despite his impressive academic success, Callan longed to return home. Upon his return, he felt an entrepreneurial spark and started his own independent outfit as a fly fishing guide which has become yet another of his feats.
“Fishing is fun,” Callan said. “Dealing with people can be tiring though. At least with guiding you’re the boss of your own little domain, so if you don’t get along with the people you never have to take them again.”
Callan takes advantage of the area’s pristine fishing spots during the summer months, transitioning his aptitude for sharing knowledge from the lecture hall to the boat. However, a fly-fishing guide often finds business slow when the water freezes. For fishing guides, the winter months can be a difficult time. Many must search for other jobs. But not Callan.
“In some ways, it’s good,” Callan said. “When I’m done fishing for the year, I’m excited to write. But, it’s also hard to keep a schedule. It’s hard to do longer projects when I haven’t been writing for half a year.”
Despite his somewhat sporadic writing schedule, Callan has published four books: August (2022), Big Sky Country (2021), August: A Novel (2020) and Dog, Moon, Run (2016). Although he has proven himself capable of writing novels, he has found he lacks the patience most novelists have mastered.
“If I had my way, I would just write short stories because they’re more fun to write,” Callan said. “You could write a short story in a week. It’s hard to be a novelist only working half a year. Unfortunately, publishers don’t like short stories.”
Despite Callan’s distaste for writing novels, he has produced a few novellas, all focusing on the rural Montana way of life, a topic he feels the most comfort and passion writing about.
Most recently, Callan published an article in the Angler’s Journal. The article was a reflection of his career as a “rower of boats” and the approaching end of his career as age and uncertainty close in behind him.
“I don’t know,” Callan said. “You know, I haven’t done a lot of planning in my life thus far. Maybe I’ll regret not having a retirement plan, but I’ve got buddies who are still guiding into their sixties. I have a little more time to figure it out.”
Callan paused for a moment and took a sip of the tequila he had ordered at around three in the afternoon, maybe the clock on the wall was a little off. A deep sadness began to consume the light in his eyes.
“You know, my mom had a pretty gnarly stroke when she was in her early fifties,” he said. “It basically disabled her and she died. Shit like that changes your perspective. You live a little more short-term when something like that happens. It’s made it hard for me to spend too much time pondering my distant future.”
Instead, Callan spends his days fishing, writing, traveling, drinking and creating memories. He knows death is the only given in life, and he will not take the time he has for granted.
Callan and I sat in silence for a moment while he finished his drink. I was at a loss for words. I knew it was time for me to go, but all I wanted to do was sit and talk with this man I had just met but felt like I had known for years. The man without a plan.
The Current
Eight Seconds
story by Kendra Mitchell
photography by Ashley Beguin and Hope Schumacker
To most, eight seconds is not enough time to accomplish much. We spend more than eight seconds getting dressed, talking on the phone, and even brush our teeth longer. However, to Professional Bull Rider, Conner Halverson, eight seconds could be the difference of winning thousands of dollars, it could be the difference between walking out of the arena or leaving on a stretcher.
Though not from a rodeo family, Conner Halverson knew at a young age that he wanted to become a bull rider; and at 22-years-
Determined to pursue bull riding, Halverson built himself a drop barrel, a training tool designed to simulate a bull bucking. With his homemade drop barrel, he began to teach himself the basics, and by 14, he was riding bulls at the Nebraska Junior High School Rodeos. Though Halverson played other sports in high school, his primary focus always remained on bull riding, helping him to secure the title of the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association Champion Bull Rider twice. After turning 18, he
“You don’t ever want to stop a kid from their dreams and goals.”
old, he is making his dreams a reality, currently ranking 19th in the Professional Bull Riding world standings.
Growing up in Gordon, Nebraska, Halverson was exposed to farming and ranching communities; however, he and his family lived in town and had no real connection to the sport of rodeo. Since the age of three, Halverson was infatuated with watching the PBR on TV and idolized the world champion bull riders he would see. His fascination with the adrenaline filled sport continued to grow until age eight, when Halverson told his parents he wanted to ride a steer at county fair.
“You don’t ever want to stop a kid from their dreams and goals.”Halverson’s mother, Marika, said. “So, we just let him keep going; he kept riding and riding and his dream kept getting bigger and bigger. He continues to achieve his goals every day, so we just let him roll with it.”
quickly purchased a PBR membership, marking the beginning of his professional bull riding career.
Halverson attributes a tremendous amount of his success to his family and friends that helped him learn. Even though they were not familiar with the sport of rodeo, his parents did not hesitate to drive him to all the practices and rodeos. Though he had a lot of support, Halverson does recount several people who told him bull riding could never be a career or that he was wasting his time; but he never let their negative words discourage him.
“After graduation, none of those other sports were going to matter anyways, and this [bull riding] is what I wanted to do for a living.” Halverson said.
Since joining the PBR, Halverson has competed on several tours including the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour and the Unleash the
Beast Tour, allowing him to qualify for two PBR World Finals. Halverson spent most of the 2023 season competing in Challenger Series events before being drafted to PBR team, the Florida Freedom. Since 2022, bull riders now have the potential to join teams by being added to a draft, from there riders are picked by the teams. Although he is a part of a team and competes in series specific to teams, Halverson can simultaneously compete as an individual in other series.
“When he was in high school and wanted to be in the PBR I thought, if he could just make one [PBR World] Finals in a lifetime; and then he made his first finals his first year.” Marika Halverson said. “And then to make another Final, and to be drafted in the first ever draft; His dreams and goals just keep exceeding every expectation.”
Bull riding is a physically taxing and dangerous sport; not only do you have your own body to think about, but you also have to worry about what the 1,500-pound animal below you is doing. Every bull rider, whether an amateur or professional, has or will be injured bull riding at least once in their career. For Halverson, his worst injury to date was lacerating his liver. Yet, the possibility of a career ending injury has not slowed Halverson down.
"His dreams and goals just keep exceeding every expectation.”
“I don’t really worry about getting hurt, it’s just something you put in the back of your mind.” Halverson said. “You know it’s something that could happen, but you just try to control the situation as much as you can, and you know whatever happens is what’s going to happen.”
Halverson hopes to have a long career in the PBR and to one day compete at the National Finals Rodeo. He and his family understand the risks surrounding the sport, but they all agree it is worth it for Halverson to reach his goals.
“We can walk across the street and get hit by a car or step off the curb and break our ankle.” Marika Halverson said. “So, I look at it as, if or when Conner got hurt from bull riding, he can’t be mad because he got hurt, because he’ll have gotten hurt doing what he loves.”
Before each ride, bull riders must focus on the bull they are about to get on rather than what might go wrong or previous buck offs. Halverson says, in order to gain the level of focus he needs, he has to find a way to tune everything else out. He often accomplishes this by finding something in the arena or crowd to focus on, such as a banner or sign. He will stare at that one banner until it is time for him to get on, helping him to not get distracted and let other thoughts fill his mind.
"I just let my body take over."
"Sometimes it’s so quiet, I can hear myself breathing.”
“There’s a zone I get in behind the chutes, and then everything completely turns off when I sit down on the bull,” Halverson said. “Then it’s pure work after that, I just let my body take over.”
Bull riding is as much about mental strength as it is physical. Although Halverson is currently one of the youngest riders in the PBR, he seems to have mastered controlling his nerves. No matter the size of the crowd or what bull he has drawn for the night, he says that if he can keep his mind focused before a ride, the nerves never hit him. Halverson’s ability to suppress any nerves he may be feeling has been fundamental in his PBR success; helping him to qualify for two World Finals and, most memorably for the 2024 season, winning round one at the PBR Monster Energy Buck Off at Madison Square Garden in January.
No matter how long a bull rider has been competing, no matter if it is their hundredth ride, every ride is different; no two rides will feel or look the exact same. However, the one thing Halverson says stays the same, is the way all the noise from the crowds and announcers drowns out as soon as the chute opens.
“Each ride still takes a lot out of you.” Halverson said. “You could get off completely ready for another [ride] or you could be hurting head to toe… I can always hear the whistle, but during the ride I usually don’t hear any noise. Sometimes it’s so quiet, I can hear myself breathing.”
If Halverson could give any advice to young people interested in bull riding, even if they have no prior rodeo knowledge, it is to do it; there will always be people who are more than willing to help you learn. Halverson has experienced this firsthand, having several people help him learn as a kid. Even now as a professional, other PBR riders will step in to give each other advice and tips.
“The number of guys that have helped me along the way is pretty deep,” Halverson said. “Just find the right people that have the resume and that have had their own success; they’ll be able to help you and make you better.”
At only 22, it is hard to predict what the rest of Halverson’s career will look like, but he can say with certainty that he will be satisfied no matter how it ends. He has gone from a three-yearold dreaming of being a bull rider like the ones he watched on TV, to riding professionally alongside his idols.
story by Bridget Schneller
photography by Hope Schumacker
The dirt-filled arena air has a thickness due to horses kicking up dust from their powerful legs. The dust is met with a scent that consists of livestock, leather and denim. As people enter the rodeo grounds, the sound of cheering and talking creates a blurred, unison sound that is mixed with loud country music. Lights from above create beams that stream through the space while the jumbotron showcases riders, illuminating the ground with dancing colors.
These distractions do not phase professional breakaway roper Rickie Fanning. Instead, her mind is filled with rushing thoughts of what she is about to do. Visioning the decisions about to come and rehearsing her preparation for roping the calf dominates her senses and obscure her surroundings.
As Fanning waits in the chute, she sits in anticipation on her horse, pacing her breath. “Just breathe,” she says to herself. She understands the task ahead of her but just needs to wait for her moment. Her rushing thoughts are abruptly disrupted by the clank of the spring-loaded door. Her fixated silence is broken as she reacts to this cue that signals the calf is now free and running freely in the arena.
To make a qualifying ride she first needs to let the calf break the barrier which allows the animal to have enough of a head start. If she starts too soon, a 10-second penalty will be implemented. Fanning’s patience controls any impulse to immediately follow the calf.
Once the barrier is broken, Fanning swiftly follows on her horse. Every thought is lost, and muscle memory takes over. She twirls her lasso over her cowgirl hat.
She has just one shot to utilize her years of practice and experience to lasso the calf in a competitive time. To have a clean run she must bell collar the calf, only roping the neck of the animal – roping any other part of the animal is an automatic disqualification.
Time is of the essence. Just a tenth of a second leads to a victory or cause her ranking to fall. The swinging motion of her lasso is thrown to the calf. Within the blink of an eye, the calf now has a rope tied around his furry neck. The calf attempts to keep running, creating a pulling force against the opposing tug from Fanning and her horse, leading to a snap. This moment creates a standstill in time.
This is not Fanning's first rodeo, nor her last. Rather, it is another day of her fulfilling a true passion that she has fashioned into a career—professional breakaway roping. The sport is unique – it was only introduced to the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) in 2019. Its addition provided more opportunities for female rodeo athletes to compete as the only other form of professional rodeo open to women was barrel racing.
Fanning capitalized on the opportunity and has earned herself a spot in the WPRA, including finishing the 2023 season ranked no. 13 in the world, and securing her a place in the Women’s National Finals Rodeo (WNFR) for a second time.
To rise to these ranks, however, Fanning’s entire life has centered on rodeo. Growing up in the Spearfish, South Dakota, area offered opportunities to enter local rodeos. Another leading factor was the support from her family, especially her father, as rodeoing was always a part of his life. With this, he bequeathed his skills to Fanning and her siblings.
“[My dad] was raised on a ranch in Bowman, North Dakota,” Fanning said. “He was into roping and he’s the one who brought us into it.”
Due to her father’s lifestyle, Fanning learned how to ride horses around the same time she learned to walk.
“When I was younger… two, three years old, my dad put us on a horse and we would ride bareback and we would have a ‘buck and ride’ thing that we would ride on,” Fanning said.
One of Fanning’s fondest memories is from the period in which she first learned how to ride.
“We had this old horse that all of us kids, my sister started on when she was two, I did and then my brother, and he was a big horse,” Fanning said. “Our saddle blankets would only go so far down – well, so would our legs. So, he would always try to roll with you when you were on him. You would be trying to learn how to ride him, and he would try to lay down and roll.
Being around horses and riding them developed in Fanning a notion that rodeo is more than just a sport – it’s a passion.
“A big thing was my dad,” Fanning said “He got us all started in it…and then it just kind of grew into a passion. It was never forced on us if we wanted to rodeo but was an opportunity we had in our hands if we really wanted to do it. My dad was going to help us, and my mom was a huge asset too.”
In addition to her father training her, Fanning also utilized the expertise of others in her quest to perfect her techniques in breakaway roping.
“[I learned techniques from] Jerry Golliher and Carole Hollers, they have clinics,” Fanning said “And we would go there, and they do a lot of the basic stuff, and they also do a lot of the advanced stuff. I mean, shoot, we probably went to five, six, seven of those things growing up. That was a big thing in helping you in roping.”
Fanning even joked about how this clinic was a way of validating what she learned from her father.
“My dad knew what he was talking about,” Fanning said. “But then also when you have us, it is sometimes good to hear it from someone else too so you can tell when he was right.”
Once she established basic skills in roping and riding, her family entered her and her sister into local rodeos.
“It was a lot of going to Little Britches Rodeos in Rapid or even like going into the finals in Boulder, Colorado – we went there a lot,” Fanning said. “Those are the big memories when we were younger.”
Throughout middle school and high school, Fanning continued to practice and spent countless hours dedicated to the sport. Mornings and evenings encompassed trial and error, patience and developing muscle memory.
“There were a lot of hours…I don’t even know [how much],” Fanning said “There would be times in high school when we would do two-a-days. We would get up at 5:30 in the morning and rope until 7:30 and then go to school and then come back after and practice and stuff and we would rope again that night.”
Growing up, Fanning made a mark in the amateur levels of breakaway roping, as competing at the professional level was not an option at that time in her life.
“Before we just did amateur rodeos,” Fanning said. “There are a lot of amateur level rodeos, Texas where we go in the winter and then if not [those places] you just hit the big jackpot. Opening rodeos, amateurs and jackpots are what you hit [then].”
After high school, she continued to compete in rodeo in college where she met her husband, Rhett Fanning, who also now competes professionally in rodeo. While both have different types of events they compete in, it does not stop them from meeting each other.
“We both ended up going to Gillette, Wyoming, to rodeo and that is where I met him, and we started dating when we were sophomores and then got married,” Fanning said.
Since being married to her husband, they now enter rodeos and travel together.
“[For his sport], he will team rope but the main thing he does is ride broncs, he likes to ride bucking horses,” Fanning said. “We get to rodeo together now, and we get to enter together because we are married. It’s fun and he loves it, too. His passion is doing it as well.”
Fanning continued to make relationships throughout the rodeo community, creating connections that aided her in her climb up the professional rankings. Who you are as a person is a huge component that contributes to success in professional breakaway riding. One’s character is important in this type of business.
“Our performance speaks a lot – I mean if you are good, people are going to recognize you, but that only goes so far,” Fanning said “A lot of people forget the aspect of outside of the arena, like who you are as a person is a way to get known. They go hand-inhand. Yeah, your competition, how you rope and your level of horsemanship, those things go into a category, but also how you treat people and who you are as a person outside of the arena goes into another category.”
Her reputation for having a genuine personality is acclaimed by the rodeo community.
“There are a lot of people about who can say, ‘Oh she is really good at roping,’ but you can also say, ‘but she is not very friendly,’” Fanning said. “So, if you are a good person, and you rope good, you are going to be known by a lot of people. Whether it is now, or whether it is in five years.”
Not only has Fanning formed relationships with people, but so too with her horses. She understands that these animals are important components of the sport. This encompasses training, respecting and caring for each of her horses.
“We have had horses to live up to 30-years-old and had some we competed on until they were 27-years-old,” Fanning said. “A lot of it comes down to taking care of them and what you can get out of them.”
Fanning has also utilized horses that others would ignore making him a unique teammate. This is seen with the horse that she has now that would have been overlooked by other ropers.
“The horse I have now, I bought as a practice horse,” Fanning said. “He is blind in one eye, and he was 17-years-old when I bought him. I had another good [horse] to practice on and I just wanted to
compete on her, and I needed a practice horse so I could practice for myself. Within a month, my good horse got hurt, she bowed a tendon on her front leg. When I went on [my practice horse], I realized, ‘Wow, he’s kind of the next big thing I needed.’”
Having a bond with her horses, along with her years of dedication, has led to Fanning earning the ranking she holds and qualifying for the WNFR.
“I mean it is such an amazing opportunity to make it two years in a row, [as it] is such a cutthroat event too, not in a bad way, but I mean there are so many good ropers, and so many good horses and so many good rodeos,” Fanning said. “The big thing is if you can capitalize on the right one, that helps a lot too to get you to where you need to be.”
With all her success and titles, Fanning ultimately believes that when it is your time to make it, it will happen.
“When it is God’s timing, I guess it is your timing,” Fanning said. “And that is a lot on what we go off of base ourselves off on. If it is your time—it is your time, and this year it was a long tough season, but in the end, it was where I wanted to be.”
A Life in
story by Bridget Schneller
The sky
photography by Rylan Bruns
Wheat dances in the slightest breeze creating a golden ocean that gently sways. The horizon of the South Dakota farm fields touches the June sky which is painted with the colors of pinks, oranges and yellows. The clouds create brush strokes in the air that add texture to the sunrise. The aroma of dew fills the air. The morning is quiet as it is still early. All is silent. All is peaceful.
Birds start chirping their music as if they were the first of the land to be up on this beautiful summer daybreak. Sudden rumbles of a
crop-dusting plane engine firing cut through the organic sounds as the manmade engine overpowers the softness of nature.
Morris Riggins, a crop duster, has already started his day at 3 a.m., preparing to spray summer crops. He takes advantage of these peaceful mornings as timing out the conditions for a perfect spray run is of the essence as each element needs to be matched. The air cannot be too hot, nor too windy, as this will create a drift in the pesticides.
He taxis on the golden-covered runway as the sun peaks over the horizon line, coating everything it touches with its bright rays. The engine roars as it starts to pick up speed. Within seconds the black rubber wheels are free from touching the pavement. The wings are no longer casting a shadow over the airport, but rather, over the golden ocean of farm fields. Within 15 feet from the ground, he creates flight routes of back and forth patterns. His mornings and evenings, when the air is cooler, are filled with this serenity of just him and his plane.
Riggins' lifestyle is not just limited to crop dusting. He has years of experience in other forms of flying. His life has revolved around aviation since he was young and being a pilot has been part of his family for generations.
“In 1917, my great uncle was actually an Army fighter pilot, and they trained him in WWI and sent him to Europe on a boat,” Riggins said. “By the time he got to Europe the war was over, so they turned him around and sent him home. So, he went back to Havre, Montana, and as soon as he could afford it, he bought an airplane and had airplanes for the rest of his life.”
From here, the chain of pilots in the Riggins family started and his father became involved in the aviation lifestyle as well.
“When my dad was old enough, he was working for him on his ranch and so he taught dad how to fly,” Riggins said. “World War Two
come along and then dad was a flight instructor for the Army in World War Two. After that, he got into crop spraying and flying lessons.”
If it were not for his father choosing to be a pilot for his career, Riggins may never have gone into aviation.
“My dad had a sheep ranch, and I am glad he got rid of the sheep before I come along,” Riggins said. “I am pretty sure I would be a sheep rancher right now because whatever my dad was doing was fine with me, but yeah, flying worked out a lot better than tending sheep.”
Some of Riggins’ first memories involve flying, as his father introduced him to being in the cockpit as a child.
“I remember sitting on my dad’s lap and flying the Cherokee because I couldn’t reach the rudder pedals,” Riggins said. “But I could sit on his lap and use the control wheel. So, that’s my first memory was sitting on his lap and flying.”
Just as his uncle taught Riggins’ father how to fly, so too, did his father teach him to fly as well.
“I come around in 1960 and he taught me to fly,” Riggins said. “On my birthday, Christmas Eve in 1976, I did my first solo in the Super Cub that we still own and both of my sons did their first solos in the same airplane.”
Riggins’ career in flying was more than just a job but a passion. With this, he created a business where he would be involved with aviation year-round.
“I wanted to be a spray pilot and that is all I really wanted to be, but we only spray crops three… four months out of the year,” Riggins said. “So, I became a flight instructor and a mechanic so I could make money for the rest of the year.”
After this achievement, he started to use his pilot’s license to start making money and earning other certifications for his portfolio.
“I got my commercial certificate when I was eighteen and that summer I got to spray,” Riggins said. “When I graduated from high school, I went to mechanic school in Watertown and that is where I got my CFI that year in ‘79. So, each year I added another rating like a multi-engine rating, multi-engine instructor, glider instructor and over the years I just kept adding stuff…I have all the fixed-wing flight instructor certificates and rotorcraft helicopter.”
The decision to explore other forms of flying led to opportunities for Riggins to open a flight school teaching students not just from the South Dakota region, but to people nationally and internationally.
This has become a possibility to get his business known through word of mouth and creating connections.
“We’ve done a lot of people from Australia,” Riggins said. “15 years ago, I checked ride a kid from Australia and aviation over the world is a small community, but a country like Australia is really small so he went home and told his dad, and his dad’s friend come. We just do a whole ton of people from all over the world now.”
Riggins Flight Service has continued to maintain traction and popularity in the aviation world creating a full schedule for years for pilots receiving certifications through Riggins.
“Last year we taught like 300 people to fly here,” Riggins said. “We do all the way from private to commercial and multi-engine instrument and we do float planes, too.”
Riggins has continued to utilize the old ways of how he teaches his students compared to other flight schools.
“We still teach as if it were the 50s or 60s stick and rudder skills,” Riggins said. “So, we don’t really spend a lot of time, especially for the beginning students teaching them how to run fancy radios and fancy instruments, but we actually want them to learn how to fly the airplane. Later on in their career, when they upgrade to a fancier airplane they will learn how to run an autopilot. None of our planes have autopilot.”
Riggins has also established traditions for his students that other flight instructing schools do not do, which makes his school unique. He creates memorable times with his students such as creating souvenirs out of their shirts when they solo.
“Nobody really knows the origin of it but the story that seems the most plausible was that in the early days in the old biplanes, the flight instructor didn’t have an intercom and you really couldn’t talk to your students so you had to tug at their shirt tale to get his attention,” Riggins said. “So, from what I understand they would cut the shirt tale end off because there was no flight instructor to tug at your shirt anymore.”
This has led to all of his students hanging their cut shirt tales on his wall which dates back to the 90s. Each shirt is signed and has a story associated with it.
“We still do that tradition here,” Riggins said. “When you do your first solo, we cut your shirt off. You sign it and we put it on our wall. Very seldom do we give the shirt back to the student. They can come back and look at it. It’s an old tradition that old flight schools keep up.”
In addition to flight instructing and crop dusting, Riggins has branched out to other forms of flying across the country.
“I worked in Alaska for one whole summer, and I did survey flights on the north slope and stayed at the oil camp,” Riggins said. “And part of my job in the fall in the hunting season was going on I would take hunters up in the mountains and drop them off in the mountains and pick them up two…three…five days later.”
In addition to Alaska, Riggins has experienced a range of locations where he has offered his flying expertise.
“I’ve flown a little in Canada, a little bit in New Mexico, Central America and Mexico,” Riggins said. “In like Mexico, Canada, Central America, that was for a freight operation.”
In addition to flying charter and freight, Riggins also utilized his flying for entertainment purposes and showcased his flying skills as an acrobat pilot for Red Barons.
“There are not really too many people who are professional mechanics and professional pilots, there are very few of us who do that also,” Riggins said.
This dual aspect of aviation work has been an element he has enjoyed since he was young as he built things growing up and fixed items.
“I was a mechanic before I was a pilot,” Riggins said. “I would drive my dad nuts because for Christmas I would get a new toy or a bicycle and I would take it apart before I would play with it. He would ask me ‘Why are taking a brand-new bicycle apart?’ and I would say, ‘I don’t know, I can’t stop myself.’ So, I would tell everybody that I was a mechanic before I was anything because I was literally taking things apart as long as I could remember.”
“I have over 40,000 hours. There are not too many people with those hours and I tell people, ‘try to catch me,’”
“I did that for six years, two years full-time and four years part-time,” Riggins said. “That was seasonal, too, flying those Stearmans. We did airshows, we did promotional stuff for Red Baron’s Pizza.”
All of these experiences throughout his life in flying have added to thousands of hours in the air—doubling in hours than most pilots would attempt to work toward.
“I have over 40,000 hours. There are not too many people with those hours and I tell people, ‘try to catch me,’” Riggins said. “An airline pilot career would probably have 20,000 hours. Some other careers are kind of hard to say, nobody is a flight instructor all their life, they usually go on to become a charter pilot. But yeah, over 40,000 is an overachiever—not too many people in the world can say that.”
When he is not flying, Riggins is utilizing his skills in mechanics and fixing airplanes. This is also an aspect that he enjoys that is a part of his career.
Having this skill of being able to fix planes led to a collection of planes that he has at his airport that he utilizes for his business in crop dusting and flight instructing.
“We have forty planes,” Riggins said. “Everything we have we use in the business somehow, well besides the Stearman we bought for fun and the helicopter we bought for fun, but everything else there is a purpose. We don’t do as much tailwind anymore so we have six Cubs and I don’t think we will ever really sell any of them because I like Cubs so much. But yeah, there is always a purpose in mind when I buy something.”
In addition to collecting airplanes, Riggins also rebuilds and fixes airplanes. This was a major part of his business before he made instructing a full-time business.
“Some of my better airplanes when the weather was bad, I would build a Piper Cub or Champ or a fabric airplane,” Riggins said. “I would rebuild a couple three in the winter because we didn’t have that many students because if I taught ten or twenty a year to fly that would be a big thing for us so I spent a lot of time fixing stuff which I really enjoy.”
This part of his business is something that Riggins does as he continues to work on airplanes.
“I still sneak out early in the morning and I have a project and I do something,” Riggins said. “It’s my therapy. I work in the shop every day and I fly every day. If it deals with either airplanes or motorcycles, I'm there to work on it.”
With each of his planes, he takes care of them, allowing them to continue to fly and operate even with their age.
“Most of our planes are from the 60s and 70s and if you closed your eyes and looked on my ramp you would swear it was 1970 because my newest plane is from 1974,” Riggins said. “We take care of them better than we do our cars.”
This aviation lifestyle that Riggins chose to pursue for his career and passion is something that most people cannot say they can do or are associated with.
“For spray pilots, there are only four thousand spray pilots in the United States out of the millions that live in the United States,” Riggins said. “As a pilot examiner, there are only seven hundred and fifty of us pilot examiners, so I seem to gravitate towards the section that there are fewer of. Spraying is more dangerous than the rest of it so that has something to do with it and as a pilot examiner I got kind of lucky I was at the right place at the right time, and they needed an examiner.”
This way of life has been part of who Riggins is and will be. The thousands of hours in the sky and the shop have created a lifetime of doing his passion—aviation.
“I tell people it's better than having a real job,” Riggins said. “I still enjoy flying and sometimes I just take one of the cubs up and fly it by myself and fly around.”
Travel
From Till to Table
story by Taylor SanFilippo
art by Sophie Neiman
Just northeast of Sturgis, South Dakota, nestled right outside of Bear Butte National Park resides Bear Butte Gardens. This farm has become a staple of the organic produce market in the Black Hills area. The company was founded in 2010, and as of 2012, Michelle Grosik, the owner, had the farm officially organic certified.
“I was growing vegetables,” Grosek said. “I just wanted to have my hands in the soil and grow something. I realized that in the area there were a lot of backyard gardeners, but there weren’t a lot of people right around Sturgis that were growing vegetables to sell to friends and neighbors. That’s why I started with them because I could’ve easily gone to flowers, but I felt that vegetables were a greater need at the time.”
Grosek truly seemed to want to help better her community and provide healthy options for locals.
“My goal is making sure that the local community has access to locally-grown, fresh and nutritionally dense food,” Grosek said. “We want to help people understand the true seasonality of food unlike how some supermarkets and grocery stores may have all types of produce throughout the entire year.”
To support this concept of seasonality, along with the natural flow of how crops grow locally, Grosek relies on local businesses and even neighbors to demonstrate how weather and seasonal conditions can affect the outcome of certain crops.
“We rotate through collaborating companies with the time of the year,” Grosek said. “Our popular items really just depend on what's the most abundant during different parts of the year. A couple years ago we were able to get our hands on a mountain of asparagus, and then last year we had a neighbor that would bring us apples every morning to sell or turn into apple chips.”
A portion of their stock is collected from these local businesses and families for a variety of different products.
“We have about 60-plus producers that we buy from,” Grosek said. “There’s meats and wines and beers from local companies. Also tea mixes and similar things.”
Although the farm collaborates with other organizations in the region, Bear Butte Gardens has grown, raised, processed and sold the majority of their product itself.
“I have chefs and bakers that come in to make products,” Grosek said. “They sell across the board: salsas, pickles, pasta sauces and we make those in our commercial kitchen. We also process and dry all of our herbs and such in the starter greenhouse during the winter, then we sell and use them for the stand.”
When asked how the farm keeps their practices sustainable, Grosek had a take that allowed for freedom within her trade.
“[Sustainibility] is a word that is used a lot anymore, so it has a lot of meanings, and I feel like it’s a bit overused,” Grosek said. “Even with that though, to live up to our definition of sustainable or self-sustaining, we do a lot of things. We butcher the poultry on the farm. We compost the feathers, keep the chicken feet. We use everything except the heads and guts. We send our cattle to a butcher and we get as much back from that as we can. We send the skins off to get tanned, and try to get back as much organ material as possible. We also get the bones and fat back since those can be used for so many different things.”
Bear Butte Gardens also takes these practices into account with her crops and raising the animals as well.
“We grow our own hay to feed to [our livestock] and have pasture for them to eat and try
to bring in the least stuff possible from off of the farm,” Grosek said. “We’re not there a hundred percent. We still sometimes have to bring in a few dumptrucks full of manure from someone else to have a big enough compost pile to handle all of our gardens, but we also use our old hay to give more carbon to our compost so we don’t have to buy rotted hay from other farmers when we can just rot our own. Then it makes it easier because we know exactly what’s in that hay instead of having to ask that question to the people we’re buying from.”
Being an organic certified farm, there are many restrictions and guidelines that Bear Butte must live up to so it can continue its certification.
“Our seeds need to be certified organic or saved from our farm or another that is using organic practices, then be able to prove that,” Grosek said. “If for some reason I can’t find certified organic, I then have to track that I wasn’t able to find them, and find the next best option for that particular crop. Another example, would be our tractor, if we were to take it over to a neighbor’s place, when we bring it back we need to wash the wheels and any implements on it. Say we maybe cut some hay for them and they’re spraying [pesticides or fertilizers] over there, then we have to wash that tractor so we’re not bringing anything back to our farm that could contaminate the soil.”
This also requires Bear Butte Gardens to find alternative methods of maintaining its land through the use of livestock.
“When we decided to do organic certification, and we realized that if we didn’t want to spray some sort of fertilizer on our crops, then we needed to have some sort of nutrition for the soil to not use up the nutrients ," Grosek said. "We thought we probably needed to have something that was producing manure and do some composting, and have some control over what we’re putting on our gardens. We started with chickens, then we added on turkeys, then lambs, then we added cattle and goats. What animals we have just depends on the year.”
Grosek also considers her honeybees to be an extension of her livestock. Keeping such delicate insects leads to an abundance of preparation.
”For their best health you need something blooming from March, ideally, to October or November," Grosek said. "We’re constantly planning things to bloom at different times. It’s not just for our honeybees though. Once you have honeybees, you become very aware of all the other
"We grow our own hay to feed to [our livestock] and have pasture for them to eat and try to bring in the least stuff possible from off of the farm."
pollinators too because honeybees are really the one pollinator [we have] that aren’t native at all. We do a lot of work to have healthy land here for [all of the local pollinators].”
These livestock have also extended their opportunities for events to be held through the company.
“We’re thinking of doing a fiber festival later in the fall [of 2024],” Grosek said. “Our sheep need to be sheared twice a year, so we’re thinking of doing a demo with our Icelandics. Then we want to do some sort of a meal [focused] around lamb specifically, then invite some people to do some more demos like how to spin wool into useable fiber.”
Bear Butte Gardens supports a host of other events through collaborations with other local companies.
“We have a Mushroom Festival that’ll be on July thirteenth, and this will be our second time doing this [event] ," Grosek said. "It surrounds everything having to do with mushrooms and we’re working with Black Hills Mushrooms in Rapid City for it. [The festival is about] growing them, foraging for them in the hills [and] cooking with them.”
Not only does the farm host large scale events, but it also hosts smaller scale cooking classes and private dinners.
“Typically we have classes in the kitchen two to three times a month. They’re open to the public and cover a lot of different things.
Our chefs do kitchen skills classes which include knife handling, vinegrettes, pasta-making, canning, so many different things," Grosek said. "We also do farm-to-table dinners. The chef makes dishes with several meat options, then we have local wine and veggies. Our strong suite is probably doing meals that are completely local.”
These events include planning and community support to help reach their long-term goals.
“It’s a lot of talking and a lot of planning,” Grosek said. “If we realize we’re having conversations about the same projects over and over again, at some point I’ll say, ‘Okay, let’s sit down, write these down and prioritize them for the next one, two, three or even five years.’ We’ve found it’s easier to do it backwards.
"We start with our five-year plan then work our way into the one-year plan, but we do spend just a lot of time talking and not really having too much organization to it all, and that’s good too. We get the neighbors opinions about projects or [family members] just trying to get input about what we should do next.”
The immense amount of work put into maintaining something leads to a very meticulous, but fulfilling career.
“Doing these things, [being environmentally conscious and maintaining organic status], makes your eyes open up to every single thing we’re doing here, and if it’s harmful or beneficial to the land," Grosek said. "We try to be good stewards of the land.”
Driven
The roar of the cheering crowd, the revving of the cars’ engines, and the smell of gasoline and burning rubber fill the speedway. Since he was young, Dustin Strand has lived a racingcentered life. Before he was the driver behind the wheel, his father was the one racing.
Strand is a business owner and race car driver from Grand Forks, North Dakota. He has been racing since 2002.
“I got my start when a customer came into my dad’s shop with a car, a 78 Impala, pure stock, and he wanted me to race it,” Strand said.
Before Strand gets in his car to race, he is nervous.
“I’m thinking about where I’m going to start, or what’s happening with the track, and trying to get the car right,” Strand said. “Even in line my nerves bother me.”
But once the green flag waves and the race is a go, those nerves melt away.
“Once you get on the track, you forget about everything and you’re just focused on what you’re going to do next with the steering wheel,” Strand said.
The race cars enter the track lined up in rows. In the formation, Strand’s black and orange car stands out beside the light-colored vehicles. Heavy metal music blares as the vehicles round the track.
LegacyBY The Racing Journey of Dustin Strand
story by Katrina Kenton photography by Alec Butterfield
The announcer’s voice is almost an indiscernible mumble lost in the cacophony of noise that fills the air. The race begins and the engines roar as the race cars fly down the dirt track.
At the beginning of Dustin’s racing career, his father knew his own career had to end.
“My dad said ‘if you want to race, you know where the tubing is, go build yourself a car.’”
Since then, Strand’s father has made a point of going to each of his son’s races, cheering him on from the stands. While Strand’s father is wholly supportive of his son, it is nerve wracking to see his son race.
“My dad hardly ever races anymore but he’s always said ‘I think it’s harder watching my own kid race than racing myself,’” Strand said.
Strand, like his father, relishes in sharing his love for racing with his family. Strand describes himself as a very family-oriented man. He and his wife Savannah have three children (Paisley, Kaidence and Tate) and racing brings them closer together. Nearly every time Strand races, his family is in the stands.
“I was being interviewed after my win, and the crowd started going wild,” Strand said. “I turn around to see what the ruckus was about, and my daughter was standing on the roof of my car and they
were cheering for her. Now it’s a tradition for my kids to climb on the roof of my car after races.”
Strand’s daughters race snowmobiles in the winter, and his son loves going to the shop with him.
Children often look up to their fathers, and while Strand loves that his daughters like to race, he shares his father’s idea.
“When my daughters race snowmobiles, I feel like I’m more nervous than they are, and more excited,” Strand said.
Strand and his father both share a lot of passion for the sport of racing. Both are heavily involved in the sport and their collaboration has brought them closer together. When he was younger, he would accompany his father to the shop just as his son does with him now. Strand hopes that his son, Tate, will continue the racing legacy when he is old enough. Strand’s family life is seamlessly intermixed with his professional life.
Strand’s biggest supporter is his wife. Before meeting Strand, Savannah had never been to a race before. Her father was a racing fan and is now a big supporter of Strand’s, however Savannah was initially apprehensive about the idea. Fortunately, she fell in love with the sport.
“She keeps us all going pretty good and she keeps my spirits uplifted when I’m down,” Strand said. “I appreciate everything she’s done for me.”
Savannah watches the children when Strand is away racing and she wrangles their herd while in the race stands. Strand’s wife cuts hair in the same building as his shop, so they’re always together throughout the day.
The support of his loved ones is unfortunately not enough to deter the dangers of racing. Like every sport, there are risks involved. There are special risks involved in racing, as a driver is flying down the track at an average of 90 miles per hour. In a race, it is not uncommon for cars to lose control, collide with other vehicles and wipe out.
When Strand was still a spectator watching his father race, he witnessed his father crash. It was a roll-over accident in which his car flipped 40 feet in the air.
“There’s a picture somewhere of my dad’s car in the air, straight up and down,” Strand said.
Fortunately, he was not injured too badly, and continued to race after recovering from the accident.
History repeated itself when Strand was in his own roll-over accident. When he emerged from his wrecked vehicle, his father was the first one by his side.
“People always say that when something like that happens, everything slows down,” Strand said. “It’s true, it was like I was in slow motion.”
The accident occurred at the beginning of the race. Strand was hit by another driver that had lost control of his vehicle. Strand’s car was completely totaled.
Fortunately, a concussion was the most severe injury in his accident. Race cars have a multitude of safety equipment built-in to keep the driver safe in the event of an accident. The crash cage in Late Model cars is suspended just a few inches above the driver’s head, and Strand hit his head on it on the way down.
“My dad said one of my eyes was bugged out,” Strand said. “It was wicked.”
After the accident, Strand began wearing a neck restraint that would hold him to his seat if the event were to ever repeat itself. He did not initially wear a neck restraint because not all series mandate the safeguard. Although he began racing without one, Strand was shaken up by the accident and figured it was better safe than sorry.
Thankfully, Strand’s passion wasn’t deterred by the accident.
“The accident did shake me up a little bit, but not enough for me to consider quitting racing,” Strand said.
Strand followed the example of his father and continued racing after his recovery.
A lot has changed since racing the ‘78 Impala. Now, Strand races in two classes: NLRA Late Model and WISSOTA Modified. He uses the Millenium SRT Chassis and his engine is from Ben Adams Automotive. He proudly displays his number, 71, on his car.
Late Model cars are vehicles that are built for racing; they are typically the latest model. Late model vehicles are the highest class of car raced in the United States. WISSOTA Modified, as the name suggests, are vehicles that have been modified – these vehicles are the most common race cars.
Drivers often race with organized groups. Strand often races with the The Northern Late Model Racing Association (NLRA), a group of professional drivers that race Late Model stock cars. The NLRA was founded by drivers from Manitoba, northwestern Minnesota and northeast North Dakota. The group was founded in 1998, and since then race tracks and businesses have joined the coalition.
The River Cities Speedway, a race track in Grand Forks, North Dakota, is affiliated with the NLRA. The River Cities Speedway is hailed as one of the top five race tracks in the country. Strand frequently races at his local speedway. At River Cities Speedway alone, Strand has achieved over 100 feature wins between all classes. He estimates his all time win count to be somewhere in the 400s.
The racing season in North Dakota takes place in the summer months, but there are off-season races to partake in. In Arizona, the racing season is year round and Strand travels to participate. The most memorable moment of his career took place in Arizona when he won the Wild West Shootout Championship at the Arizona Speedway.
Since the beginning of Strand’s racing career, he has accumulated over 28 NLRA series wins, the second most NLRA series wins of all time. He hopes to one day hold the title of the driver with the most NLRA series wins.
Racing is not the only thing that Strand learned from his father. Strand was also given the business by his father. Fastlane Racing Equipment/Millenium Chassis is a race car repair shop that also builds cars. For Strand, business is the priority while racing is a hobby.
Every car created by Strand’s company is virtually the same. Through trial and error, Strand has been able to create cars that fit the needs of his clients. In the builds, Strand uses Mullins Racing Chassis Manufacturing’s frame but they build everything else.
“The most rewarding part of working is making something that looks nice,” Strand said.
Strand’s father often stops by the shop to help out.
“I love working side-by-side with my dad, I’m very grateful for the relationship we have,” Strand said.
Running a race car fabrication shop was not Strand’s initial life plan; he got a welding degree from a technical institute which was the career path he thought he would take. Luckily, the cards worked in his favor and he is able to make a living doing something he is passionate about.
Passion runs rampant in the racing community. Drivers pour a lot of time, energy and money into their sport. For them, racing is an addiction. Strand has been in the racing community since he was young and it hasn’t changed since then.
Racing careers average to be around 20 years long. Strand’s father raced for 27 years before he tapered off and began supporting his son. Strand has no plan to quit racing.
“I’ll probably stop racing whenever Tate’s ready to take over the wheel,” Strand said.
In the meantime, Strand is hopeful that he will be able to continue his own racing career for many years to come.
The race ends when the checkered flag is waved, which is followed by the addicting rush of victory or the sting of defeat. Practice makes perfect, and each race is experience under a driver’s belt.
While racing is something Strand does for fun, it is more than just a hobby. It is a passion that has been instilled in him since childhood, it is a legacy passed down through generations. Racing is clearly in the Strand blood.
FULL SEND
story by Zied Ben Aich
photography by Alec Butterfield
Amid winter’s enchantment when the exquisite ballet rhythms of snowflakes intertwine with the Coyote state's majestic peaks, many intrepid enthusiasts seek thrill in such a scenic wonderland. Humans’ adventurous spirit interweaves with nature’s mysteries to defy the bitter weather and depart on recreational adventures to embrace the beauty of alpine landscapes.
An immeasurable diversity of odysseys prevails in the serene haven of the pristine Black Hills, making it one of the favorite destinations for adrenaline-seekers in this area.
Terry Peak is a breathtaking ski resort among the multiple other outdoor destinations available for like-minded folks in South Dakota.
As you make your way through the lodge and take a glimpse out of the windows, you will perceive something extremely captivating—apart from the snow-capped mountains and delighted skiers sliding off the hills — a variety of well-designed skis displayed, mounted to the walls. They are comprised of noticeably distinct materials and will create an eye-catching visual adding an alpine glamor to the panoramic view.
These skis were made by FullSend Ski.
Douglas Bachand, the owner of FullSend Ski, was inspired to start building his skis out of an inner passion for crafting things from scratch.
"I really love to build & create things. It’s an integral part of my passions. I’ve been gifted the ability to love making stuff."
Kevlar, plastic, resin, fiberglass, wood and metal are the ingredients needed for Bachand to put together into a top-notch recipe that skiers find compelling to purchase. Each piece of the skis is the outcome of diligent artistry, impeccable innovation and scrupulous craftsmanship led by Bachand.
The skis currently offered by FullSend are the fruit that stemmed from Bachand’s radical thinking process of how to create the “perfect ski” for himself.
In fact, the idea originated from Bachand’s crafting of different quivers and pioneering exploration of different flex profiles—the distribution of stiffness and overall rigidity over the length and width of a ski— in order to find one that suits him the best.
“FullSend Ski company was more or less just trying to build kind of like the best skis for me and I wanted to explore like a couple of different avenues with different flex profiles and different ways to engineer them so they better fit kind of like my riding style,” Bachand said.
Bachand gradually became more savvy with ski quivers and how they function alongside developing solid flex profiles tailored to his ski riding style. His ultimate endeavor was to assemble all the best characteristics into one ski, which led to the birth of FullSend Ski company’s final product.
Flex profiles are of uttermost importance for skiers as they determine how a pair of skis would perform on different surfaces. This feature reflects the level of stability and reliance that the skis would have.
As such, this aspect is the one Bachand was committed to excelling at. It is among the most elemental features that distinguish a pair of FullSend skis from other skis found in the market.
Aesthetics are of tremendous importance as Bachand likes using wood veneer on top of the sheets to give a unique customized look. He also stresses the importance of having quality raw materials as they will make up a better final product eventually.
“We cater the flex profiles and cater the stiffness and the composite layup and even the core as well,” Bachand said. “We can build a ski that will match what you want and also it’s gonna look amazing!”
As Bachand was unfolding the engineering steps he went through to attain this outcome, he stressed the crux of experimenting with different materials and figuring out how they all work together to make up a complete functional scheme: FullSend skis that perform marvelously. Recognizing that minor changes could lead to an entirely different output allowed Bachand to gain new insights which he found of great use when contemplating how to craft the skis.
“Changing one thing affects everything down the road so it comes down to the question of how it all works and it’s a weird combination of an engineering and an art that can result in an end product that can meet and exceed your expectations,” Bachand said.
Bachand’s vision has always been to have skis as versatile and adaptable as possible by delving into the roots of ski design and experimenting with its fundamental edges.
FullSend Ski is also keen on maximizing the performance of all of the individual characteristics to ensure that the skids get a prime performance in different avenues and environments.
“The whole purpose behind it is to be able to build and manufacture a really good set of skis and build unique custom skis that you’re not gonna find anywhere else in the world and I wanna keep it that way,” Bachand said. “I wanna keep it like that sort of unique flavor.”
Well into the company’s 8-year history, Bachand still considers building skis a perpetual learning and refining process. In this realm, materials are evolving by the day. FullSend is no exception to that as they are perpetually adapting skis to suit the ever-changing parameters and keeping up with the rapidly dynamic variables.
This contributed majorly to the success of FullSend Ski Company with a product that represents a meticulous work of continuous improvement, dedication and art that Bachand translated into his skis.
What is of greater importance though, is that a solid pair of skis does not only stem from good materials but also how they all function together and sync to form a harmonic pair of skis fitting the customer’s style and preferences.
“It’s about how the ingredients go together and a lot of that just comes down to coming up with a unique style that you want your skis to hit,” Bachand said.
FullSend skis have elicited positive feedback from customers. Such feedback ignites Bachand’s passion to craft more FullSends and develop his zealous business further.
“We’ve had some customers that have gone out like taking these ski blades on super long tours and hit a ton of crazy lines,” Bachand said.
Fellow ski community members have also been of crucial importance in supporting Bachand with the design process from start until finish. Bachand reckons he is extremely fortunate to have had enthusiasts providing him with critical feedback about the performance and aspects that could be refined regarding the skis produced. They were an elemental pillar in leading FullSend Ski to avoid unperceived pitfalls and details that went unnoticed in the design process.
Bachand admits that skiing holds crucial significance in his life – it is not merely a sport for him. He sees it as a getaway therein he relishes the isolation from other people by embracing the delightful feeling of nature’s grandeur to himself. It transcends the recreational purpose to encapsulate a journey of self-discovery and gratification. Surrounded by the snowy mountains, embraced by the
cold whispering breeze and mesmerized by the symphony of snow and gravity, landscapes become his cradle in fulfilling his existence and grasping the adventurous exhilarating spirit within him.
“I can just go off and disappear into the world I cannot have anyone else notice me and I can kind of sit there and have almost the entirety of that joyous feeling of skiing all to myself,” Bachand said.
Yet, in his personal journey, Bachand also knows shared experiences and camaraderie are of tremendous importance. He considers himself fortunate to be able to ski alongside like-minded enthusiasts and savor the journey together. Ultimately, the value he could provide to this community, through Full Send Ski, derives from the euphoric skiing experience that he has on his own.
Moreover, Bachand’s endeavors transcend merely financial success to become a pursuit of a higher cause – a mission of artful excellence, an inner immaculate passion and profound alpine admiration.
“I really believe that as long as you’re doing something that you really like and passionate about then I think money comes second,” Bachand said.
Bachand admits that the pilgrimage of crafting skis surpasses the conventional idea of being “an entrepreneur” and seeking tremendous profits. FullSend Ski Company is thus more of a lifestyle
“The whole purpose behind it is to be able to build and manufacture a really good set of skis and build unique custom skis that you’re not gonna find anywhere else in the world and I wanna keep it that way I wanna keep it like that sort of unique flavor."
enterprise depicting how certain risk-takers, like Douglas Bachand, can establish a passion-driven organization revolving around what they relish doing the most in life. In this sense, the company’s objective goes beyond profit to the mission of fostering a well-rounded community of mountain lovers and offering skiers a unique product that will enhance their recreational alpine experience.
Bachand said he would keep building skis even if Full Send Company was never created and it is rather an entangled devotion that he was born for.
“Even if I never ran this as a business and wasn’t open to the public, I’d still wanna build skis,” Bachand said. “I’d just do it for fun on the weekends. I’d just buy my own material and make my own product and do that.”
Furthermore, Bachand’s viewpoint on skiing illustrates a combination of challenges and optimism. He endorses the idea that it will always remain subject to varying circumstances, similar to any other sport.
Thus, it becomes a question of whether one would bear all the hurdles they will have to go through to practice it, including the weather, high-cost materials and the sport’s learning curve in general. Unfortunately, the entire ecosystem requires major financial investments at first and might inhibit aficionados who feel prepared to begin their alpine adventures.
“If you want to get into skiing I mean you have to make a big financial investment right off the bat, unfortunately,” Bachand said.
Despite all the obstacles, Bachand remains optimistic about the future of skiing and its development. He anticipates that as long as resorts are accessible, provide communities with a convenient environment allowing them to practice their passion and scrutinize sustainability plans for the long run, skiing will keep growing and attracting more adventurers.
“I think it's gonna get better,” Bachand said. “I think things are gonna keep improving”.
photography by Nathan Feller
story by Austin Graft
The Cowboy Era in America ended in the 1890’s with the major growth of the railroads and the increased privatization of land. The cowboys as we knew them will never again be fully realized, but the lifestyle didn’t just end 130 years ago; it evolved. Though the time of the gunslingers and interstate cattle-drives is over, the cattleman’s way of life carries on through ranchers large and small. These ranches pit themselves against the dynamic modern world, but even the truest holdouts must change as time goes on.
Established in 1878, the Pitchfork Ranch in northwestern Wyoming has seen the rise and fall of the times, and now approaches the end of yet another era. In late 2023, the roughly 100,000 acre ranch was listed for sale with a 67 million dollar price tag. The current owners, the Baker family, have retired from the cattle business.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” said Ranch Manager and Listing Agent Ben Anson. “[The ranch] is pretty unique in that all the acreage is contiguous… we can [push cattle] straight from deeded ground to our mountain, do it all in a day. Then they’re on 35,000 acres on our big forest permit for the summer, which is a lot of country to cover.”
Mr. Anson has worked for Pitchfork since 2016, starting as a simple ranch hand and eventually graduating to second-incommand, taking charge of the 1,300 cows that reside there.
At the time of the interviews, calving season had just begun at Pitchfork. Mr. Anson and a couple ranch hands had corralled the second-year heifers. They were administering vaccinations and deworming doses to prepare the heifers for giving birth. Heifers (females that have not yet had their first calf) are generally accepted as a pain. They require more attention and face higher chances of complications during birth.
Pitchfork Ranch ‘calves out’, meaning that the hands get the cows and heifers sorted into specific pastures and take a ‘let them be’ sort of approach. The cattle still get checked and cared for, but this style of calving keeps the mothers calm and prevents the ranch hands from having to be awake at odd hours of the night to constantly watch the herd.
These more natural ways of doing things have kept the ranch firmly rooted in tradition and ‘the old ways,' further cementing its already respectable position in the cattle business.
Further, the Pitchfork Ranch has built a reputation as ‘stewards of the land.' The ranch is protected by conservation easements and has made efforts with the surrounding communities to continue to preserve the Greybull River Valley in which the acreage lies. The ranch even works with surrounding operations to keep neighborly relations in a good place.
“There’s three oil fields that have access through the ranch,” Anson said. “The road is private but with a public easement… [as part of] the easement with the Forest Service the oil fields [keep the road clear].”
Pitchfork Ranch is located in the Absaroka Mountains, a subrange of the famous Rocky Mountains that stretch across the North American continent. Hunting is incredibly prevalent in these mountains, and are an important part of the ranch’s continued preservation efforts.
“It’s all on a hunting management area, we save a couple meadows right next to the house, to try to keep hunters away from the house," Anson said. "The guys here can hunt those meadows if they have a whitetail tag or something, but everything else is pretty open to the public.”
The Absarokas fall under the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, an area known for having the largest population of Grizzly Bears in
the contiguous United States. Grizzly Bears are currently protected as a ‘threatened species’, meaning one cannot harm or harass the bears except in cases of self-defense. The Pitchfork Ranch deals with these bears regularly; nearly every surrounding drainage has been territorially claimed by boars and sows alike.
“You can’t do anything with the bears — they are a pain,” Anson said. “They get worse and worse every year. I take a dog with me everywhere I go. My dogs are pretty used to being around bears, a lot of times they’ll take off and I won’t even see the bear, they take care of them for me so that’s pretty nice. I tell everybody to take a dog with them… the Game and Fish wants you to take bear spray but a dog works better.”
Despite concerns with bears, wolves and cougars, running cattle on the mountain has not been affected by the carnivores. Typically predators will not go after such herd-oriented animals unless facing the most desperate of situations.
The cattle don’t even bother other residents of the Absarokas; deer and elk have become accustomed to the ranch over the past century. Herds of elk migrate through the ranch every year to and from Yellowstone, and can be seen grazing the same pastures as the cattle in the fall.
These elements of the ranch; the organization of the operation, healthy relations with neighbors and wildlife and continued conservation efforts; make the property an enticing one to buyers.
“[We’ve gotten calls] from all over the place,” Anson said. “From out of the country too. I think people who have that money want a place to park it, the economy’s at an all time high and who knows when that's going to fall apart.”
Along with Mr. Anson, every other employee of the ranch has their own hopes and worries about the eventual sale of Pitchfork. Sarah Sperry has lived on Pitchfork Ranch for 5 years, working alongside her husband Kyl, one of the ranch hands.
“We really enjoy the owners that have [Pitchfork Ranch] now, they’ve been so good to us that it’s sad in a way, they’ve been so good to my family and everything," Sperry said. "So that part is a bit disheartening but we understand why they have to [sell the ranch].”
Though this isn’t the first time the ownership of Pitchfork Ranch has changed hands, it’s a rare enough occurrence to attract large amounts of attention. The ranch was founded by Otto Franc Von Lichtenstein in 1878 then later sold to LG Phelps. The ranch then stayed in the Phelps family for 95 years.
“I’m guessing whoever [the Baker family] sells it to, they’ll do a good job,” Sperry said. “I don’t know what they’ll do with it but kinda waiting to see. If they keep [the current employees] great, if not, it just happens.”
Ranch life is something only a lucky few get to experience, and fewer still get the opportunity to turn it into a lifelong occupation. It takes hard work and isn’t for everyone, but to those it suits it can be one of the most rewarding lifestyles possible. There’s something so pure in the simple acts of care and respect it takes to be successful with livestock, and all the while living up to the responsibilities inherent with the land.
Those whose only exposure to ranch living is through media or television shows like Yellowstone may not grasp the sense of fulfillment so many ranch and farm hands experience from a ‘menial’ life. While real life doesn’t pit biker gangs against cowboys and cattle wars are a thing of the past, hands find excitement in the first steps a calf takes, the first sprouts in a bean field. Ranch life is incredibly grounding, and while it does isolate you, it also opens one up to the roots of the land, even unknowingly.
The great stories of John Colter and Jim Bridger in the Absaroka mountains feel so much more real because the mountains are still there, untouched by time. In the same way also the old tales of cowpunchers and Vaqueros ring true because there are places like the Pitchfork Ranch keeping the traditions and way of life around.
“I like [the ranch],” Sperry said. “I like living out this far. With the kids — it gives them the ranch living experience, they get to have their horses and cows, we get to go fishing, all sorts of stuff. It’s a beautiful place to live for sure. It’s just a good spot, all in all. It’s beautiful, I don’t have to go on a trip to see pretty mountains, go fish or anything like that. The mountain cabin is probably one of our favorite spots as a family, the kids like it up there.”
The 5 employees that keep Pitchfork Ranch operable may not know how this impending sale will turn out for them. Logically one can reason that they’ll continue working the ranch just as they have in the past and in the present. Change is not necessarily a bad thing, the world depends on growth. Every ranch on the planet has adapted to the modern climate, but the fact that one can still go out and live the life of a time gone by makes the everyday a little less hectic, and a little more constant.
Majors & Minors
Majors
Mulitmedia Journalism
Photography
Graphic Design
Minors
Mulitmedia Journalism
Photography
Graphic Design
Business Communications
Speech
Black Hills State University
