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Rapid City Journal

Rapid City Journal •

Hunt for dark matter steps up as tank goes down under Lead

Last week, a xenon tank measuring about 5 feet wide and 5 feet tall rode an elevator 4,850 feet below ground to the cavern that will house the experiment in the former Homestake gold mine, now called the Sanford Underground Research Facility.Filling the tank with 10 metric tons of liquid xenon is one of the last major tasks to complete before the five-year experiment, named LUX-Zeplin or "LZ" for short, begins next year (“LUX” is an acronym for “large underground xenon” and “Zeplin” is a mercifu...
Rapid City Journal •

Privacy cloaks some sales-tax evaders

The path to the hearing examiner’s ruling started in November, when the Journal began trying to determine whether Ward Astin, of Hermosa, had ever satisfied a 2009 court order directing him to pay $60,000 of restitution to the state Department of Revenue.

A judge filed the 2009 order after Astin pleaded no contest in response to a charge that he failed to obtain a sales-tax license for his company, Arrow Associates. Court documents said the company engaged in sales-taxable services, including c
Rapid City Journal •

Elected official wanted $100,000 of taxpayer money to sue newspaper

“When you’ve got a bully on the beach, sometimes you’ve got to go pop them on the nose before you get things squared away, and that’s kind of how I look at the Rapid City Journal situation,” Gjovik said during the meeting.

The board had a 25-item agenda Tuesday and met for 5½ hours — beginning at 6 p.m. and ending at 11:30 — in the Community Room at the West River Electric Association building in eastern Rapid City. Around 11 p.m., a representative of West River Electric stepped in to ask when
Rapid City Journal •

Eight Over Seven: South Dakota's highest points

From Nicholas Black Elk to George Armstrong Custer, and for scores of lesser-known people before and since, the highest points of the Black Hills have long exerted a magnetic attraction.

Maybe it’s the surrounding treeless plains that make the urge to scale the alpine heights more inescapable.

And maybe it’s those same flatter expanses that make the view from atop a Black Hills summit so spectacular. The Great Plains, so empty and immense, are never more awe-inspiring than when seen from a Black Hills peak on a clear day.
Rapid City Journal •

Noem's running mate violated campaign finance law

Rhoden’s violation of the law was first alleged Thursday by the campaign of Noem’s opponent, Billie Sutton, in a news release. Secretary of State Shantel Krebs, who oversees South Dakota's elections, subsequently confirmed to the Rapid City Journal that Rhoden had violated the law by filing his statement of organization late.

Krebs said her office sent Rhoden a letter June 25, which was the day the office received certification of Rhoden’s candidacy from the South Dakota Republican Party (he ha
Rapid City Journal •

Actual rally death tally: at least 9

Mangan said alcohol is under investigation as a factor in some of the accidents, but he declined to say which ones, citing the ongoing nature of the investigations. The Highway Patrol noted in every instance whether the person killed was wearing a helmet, but did not say whether the use or lack of a helmet was a determining factor in the person’s death.

Later that same day, Aug. 2, according to the South Dakota Highway Patrol, James Bradley, 54, and Deanna Bradley, 45, of Parker, Ariz., were we
Rapid City Journal •

Legion Lake Fire among 41 caused by power lines since 2013

Power lines have caused 41 wildfires that have burned 57,151 acres in the Black Hills since 2013, according to statistics from the South Dakota Wildland Fire Division.

The year 2013 was when Black Hills Energy undertook a five-year, $14.8 million project to clean out the right-of-way corridors along its electrical distribution network in the Black Hills. Full information about the ownership of the power lines that caused the 41 fires was not immediately available, and there are other entities b
Rapid City Journal •

58,334 out-of-state vehicles registered in South Dakota

Aldis Barsketis, an American expatriate, thought it was odd when he started noticing a lot of South Dakota license plates in Mexico.

He wondered, “Could there be that many South Dakota people living here?” So he started asking around.

As it turned out, South Dakotans were not flocking to Mexico. The plates belonged to expats from all over the United States who had discovered how easy and cheap it is to register vehicles online or through the mail in the Mount Rushmore State.
Rapid City Journal •

Trump, Putin ... and Erickson?

Getting entangled in the Trump-Russia investigations would be a strange twist of fate for most South Dakotans, but not Paul Erickson.

For him, it might have been predictable.

In a Dec. 3 news story, The New York Times identified Erickson as a potential connection between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. On Jan. 25, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee addressed a letter to Erickson asking him to submit documents and schedule an interview as part of the committee's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Rapid City Journal •

'Preppers' converge on Igloo for chance at a doomsday shelter

They came from Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Indiana and New York, all for the chance to put $5,000 down on one of the hundreds of concrete bunkers in a cow pasture on the remote southern edge of the Black Hills.

Kenneth Young drove his Mercedes Benz from Rockaway Beach in Queens. When he stepped out of his car on the deserted grounds of the former Black Hills Army Depot, his iPhone and cigars fell in the mud.
Rapid City Journal •

Weak SD carnival safety laws written largely by industry and lawmaker who owns amusement parks

South Dakota laws that are supposed to make amusement rides safer do little more than make operators safer from lawsuits, a Journal review has found.

Most of the laws on the books resulted from 2014 legislation that started as a safety crusade but was overtaken by a lawmaker who owns amusement parks — state Rep. Al Novstrup, R-Aberdeen — and by his industry colleagues.
Rapid City Journal •

After clobbering by clown, rodeo runner faces criminal charge

A Quinn man who was violently tackled last week by a 275-pound rodeo clown could now get clothes-lined by the long arm of the law.

Edward Mashburn, 35, climbed into the ring not once but twice on the evening of Aug. 25 for some clothed streaking during a performance of the outdoor Range Days Rodeo at the Central States Fair in Rapid City.

Mashburn’s second dash was abruptly halted by a blindside hit from the clown, Justin “Rumpshaker” Rumford, who sprinted across the ring, lowered his shoulder and delivered a crushing blow that contorted Mashburn’s body into a backward "C" as he was pile-driven into the dirt.
Rapid City Journal •

SD's forgotten national monument: A cautionary tale for the Park Service centennial

There is a place between Hot Springs and Edgemont that might be attracting tourists off the highway this summer if things had gone differently decades ago.

A visitor center was once envisioned there, maybe in the shape of a pineapple or beehive, to resemble the dozens or possibly even hundreds of dinosaur-age plant fossils that were once visible at the site.

But the place was spoiled by fossil collectors who exploited it and federal bureaucrats who neglected it.
Rapid City Journal •

Son of FLDS 'Prophet' peels back curtain on secretive Black Hills compound

Roy Jeffs spent his childhood and early adulthood under the spell of that voice while being moved from one stronghold or hideout to another. At a secretive compound tucked into the southern Black Hills about 15 miles southwest of Pringle, Roy saw underage girls with babies that seemed to be their own; men illegally poaching wildlife for food; and a pervading sense of paranoia that included a guard tower equipped with surveillance cameras.

Two years ago, at the age of 21, Roy ran from the FLDS. He’s still running a mental and emotional race against his past, and he may never fully escape the echoes from his subconscious.
Rapid City Journal •

National Forest protection plan picks away at amateur miners

The Botanical Areas contain unique biology, including rare plants. The Research Natural Areas, as described by Monks, are “little pockets of pristine ecology that act as a library of unmanipulated habitat, with the idea that they’re going to be places where researchers can go and see what the habitat would look like had humans not gotten here.”The Forest Service has applied to the Bureau of Land Management, which administers mining rights on federal lands, to further protect the areas with a ban...
Rapid City Journal •

Radioactive Legacy: Edgemont-area uranium mining

Four decades after its uranium mining boom ended, the town of Edgemont in southwestern South Dakota remains scarred by abandoned mines, millions of pounds of buried radioactive waste, and persistent human health concerns.

The story of that boom and bust, and the role of a large corporation that mined the land and then disappeared, has been largely forgotten. But its relevance has returned as federal officials consider a clean-up plan, and as a new type of uranium mining operation for roughly the same area awaits permitting.
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