The anatomy of a financial crisis rarely starts with a single, massive catastrophe. More often, it’s the quiet pile-up of everyday setbacks. A flat tire, an unexpected repair, a surprise medical bill — suddenly, the monthly utility payment gets pushed off.

Shannon Truax, Admin Operations Manager for the Rapid City Public Works Department, sees this reality firsthand.

“Most of the time, it’s the small things that pile up faster than people can recover from,” Truax shared, noting how a few extra groceries can mean a utility bill gets paid late, triggering fees and impossible choices. “Once that snowball starts rolling, it can be incredibly hard to stop.”

That’s the driving force behind Bowls of Hope, a community soup supper fundraiser now in its second year, taking place next Tuesday, May 19, at the Dahl Arts Center. Organized by the Public Works Department in partnership with St. Vincent de Paul, the free-will donation event aims to tackle that financial snowball with a simple, comforting community staple: a hot bowl of soup. The two previous events raised $2,900 in combined donations, helping local families stay connected to essential services.

The community is already stepping up to the stove. Neighbors are registering to bring crockpots filled with a wide variety of soups, ensuring the menu will feature something for almost everyone, including vegetarian, dairy-free, and gluten-free options.

But the real meat of the event is the financial leverage. One hundred percent of the donations collected will be distributed through St. Vincent de Paul, going directly toward assisting Rapid City families with essential utility costs.

To double the impact, the Rapid City Council voted to draw up to $10,000 from its contingency fund to match public contributions dollar-for-dollar. Truax said she hopes the community will help maximize that match.

Families in need of utility assistance can reach St. Vincent de Paul directly to learn how to access support.

For Truax and the Public Works team, the supper is a chance to prove that a community’s safety net is woven through everyday acts of neighborly support.

“I truly believe generosity doesn’t have to be big to be meaningful,” Truax said. “When a community comes together, even small donations and simple acts of kindness can make a real difference in helping our neighbors through difficult moments.”

EVENT DETAILS:

What: Bowls of Hope Soup Supper Fundraiser
When: Tuesday, May 19, 2026 | 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Where: Dahl Arts Center, 713 7th St, Rapid City, SD
Cost: Free admission; free-will donations are the primary source of funding.
How to Help: Reserve free tickets on Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bowls-of-hope-2026-tickets-1988508256725.

Community members can also register to bring a crockpot of soup using the QR code on the event flyer.

The post The Snowball Effect: How a Bowl of Soup Can Help Your Neighbors in Rapid City appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

There’s a rock in Memorial Park that spins.

Not metaphorically. Rockspinner 6 — an 11-foot-tall, 9,000-pound slab of granite from Stone Mountain, Georgia — is mounted on a bearing-filled base and will actually rotate if you push it. It took three people and a crane to place it on the Promenade at Memorial Park. Sculptor Zachary Coffin has shown versions of it at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and Maker Faire San Francisco. Ours is the one that ended up in downtown Rapid City, and I think thats straight up awesome and a flex for the city.

So when I spotted graffiti on it yesterday, I filed a report through the city’s new graffiti reporting form at forms.rcgov.org/graffiti. The form is part of a new city initiative launched this spring, with a goal of removing reported graffiti within 24 hours. As it turns out, they mean it.

By the time I walked back through Memorial Park today, it was gone.

I ran into a parks/ public works crew member most likely responsible for the cleanup. He told me they like to get to it immediately — because fast removal sends a message. The graffiti is gone before anyone has a chance to decide it belongs there.

I thanked him and I genuinely meant it.

Rapid City’s got a lot of complicated things going on. But today, at least, Rockspinner 6 spins clean.

To report graffiti in Rapid City, visit forms.rcgov.org/graffiti.

The post When A 9,000 Pound Spinning Boulder gets Tagged, Rapid City Shows Up appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

On Monday afternoon in Sioux Falls, a police officer followed a woman into what turned out to be an ambush. A man waiting around the corner shot him multiple times. Both suspects — Darren Richards and Loretta Bettelyoun — were on state-supervised parole at the time of the attack. The officer survived. Barely.

Both suspects are Rapid City natives.

By Tuesday, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken was calling South Dakota’s parole system “broken.” Police Chief Jon Thum and Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead agreed. Milstead noted that at that moment, 114 of the 400 people sitting in his county jail were on parole holds. Thum told reporters he felt like a broken record — that law enforcement had been repeating this warning about repeat offenders for years without being heard.

By Thursday, Governor Larry Rhoden had announced a new round of emergency directives: an enhanced compliance unit, five new parole agent positions, stiffer sanctions for repeat violators, and a near-doubling of revocations in the first week of implementation.

Credit where it’s due. Those are concrete steps.

But the question worth asking — the one a press release won’t answer — is how South Dakota got here in the first place.

The Numbers Tell the Story

South Dakota’s recidivism rate for its 2021 adult cohort hit 50 percent — the highest recorded in at least 18 years.

For Native Americans, who make up 35 percent of the male prison population and 61 percent of the female population despite being roughly 10 percent of the state’s general population, the rate is 59 percent. For Native women specifically, 67 percent returned to prison within three years.

This is not a new crisis. It is a neglected one.

In 2013, under Governor Dennis Daugaard, South Dakota enacted sweeping sentencing reform through Senate Bill 70.

The results were measurable: parole revocations dropped 41 percent, average parole caseloads fell 18 percent, and the state saved more than $34 million by 2015. The system, by the numbers, was improving.

Then it stopped improving.

The Noem Years

Kristi Noem took office in 2019 and announced she would modernize South Dakota’s correctional system. What followed was a different kind of modernization.

Over two years, Noem bypassed the Board of Pardons and Paroles — the oversight body that reviews clemency applications — and granted commutations to 20 people without board review. Her two immediate predecessors had not done this.

In at least one documented case, she overruled a board denial, skipped notifying victims’ families, and may have violated her own executive order establishing the review process.

Her corrections secretary, Kellie Wasko, was eventually forced out after legislators lost confidence in the department’s leadership. Rhoden replaced her with Nick Lamb after taking office.

Noem’s plan to build a new men’s prison south of Sioux Falls was rejected by the Legislature. Rhoden had to start over with a new site and a new plan.

By the time Noem left for Washington in January 2025 to join the Trump administration, South Dakota’s recidivism rate was at an 18-year high, DOC leadership had been upended, and the prison infrastructure plan was in disarray.

Rhoden inherited all of it.

Two Cities, Two Different Situations

Here is something worth understanding about the geography of this crisis: Sioux Falls has been sounding this alarm longer, and it already has the infrastructure to show for it.

The Sioux Falls Area Joint Fugitive Task Force — a multi-agency body focused on violent crimes and outstanding warrants — has operated for years, bringing together the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office, the Sioux Falls Police Department, and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. That collaborative didn’t emerge from a press release. It was built over time, out of sustained pressure from law enforcement leaders who kept showing up and kept getting ignored.

Pennington County’s Parolee Accountability Task Force, by contrast, was announced approximately 36 hours before early and absentee voting started for the June 2nd municipal election, with Sheriff Mueller and State’s Attorney Roetzel named in the press release.

After the Sioux Falls shooting, Mueller and Hedrick issued a joint statement noting that additional data from the Pennington County task force would be released later this week. Chief Thum, meanwhile, called for the statewide conversation to be a priority — and then added a telling qualifier: after the election season.

Who Is Paying For This?

Governor Rhoden’s directives are real. The five new agents are real. The doubled revocation rate in week one is real. These are not nothing.

But the announcement is notably quiet on how the new positions will be funded. The administration noted it will continue working with lawmakers on “additional reforms and funding” — future tense.

The broader Smarter Supervision Initiative, announced less than a month ago, is partly contingent on an $892,000 Bureau of Justice grant application that has not yet been awarded.

Chief Thum said it plainly this week: fixing this is going to cost money. That conversation with the Legislature is apparently still ahead.

South Dakota lawmakers acknowledged this week that they passed only two bills specifically addressing parole in the last legislative session. That number is worth sitting with.

What Accountability Actually Looks Like

A near-murder of a police officer by two parolees — both of whom had active “attempt to locate” warrants issued — is not a system working. It is a system that absorbed years of deferred attention and is now paying the bill.

The suspects are from Rapid City. The crisis is statewide. The reforms are being announced in an election year, by candidates competing to be the one who finally fixes it.

The question for Rapid City, for Pennington County, and for the citizens of South Dakota is straightforward: now that the bill has come due, will the people making the announcements still be making them in January?

The post South Dakota’s Parole Crisis Didn’t Start Monday appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

On April 16, with the majority of its members not in attendance, the Rapid City Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Technical and Citizens Committee unanimously approved a 267-page study recommending that the RCP&E railyard be relocated to Box Elder. The mayor of Box Elder was not present. Neither was the City of Box Elder’s planning department.

The vote was 1-0 in practical terms — a quorum of the reduced room, moving a recommendation that will now advance to the MPO’s Executive Policy Committee when it meets June 11.

The Railyard Relocation and Railway Configuration Study

Here is what the study they approved actually says:

1.The railroad picked the site, not the data.

2.The study’s own scoring framework ranked Piedmont first. Box Elder came in second.

3.The project team recommended Box Elder anyway, stating explicitly in the report that the site “would work best from the perspective of RCP&E.”

4. Four RCP&E employees sat on the study’s advisory team.

5.The preferred site has the worst environmental profile of any candidate.

6.The Box Elder site contains 161 percent more wetlands than the existing downtown yard and sits adjacent to Box Elder Creek, which the study identifies as a “regulatory floodway” subject to significant seasonal flooding.

7.The report acknowledges this “could result in complex and time-consuming environmental permitting and mitigation requirements.”

Preliminary Cost Estimates

The cost estimates leave out a significant liability.

The study prices the railyard relocation at $22.4 million to $44.7 million, with a separate $9 million to $16 million for Pressler Junction wye improvements — a combined potential tab of up to $60.8 million.

On the same page as those figures, the report acknowledges that much of the downtown rail network runs on easements, and that “if a railroad only has an easement, the land often reverts to the landowner upon abandonment.”

No costs associated with those potential reversions appear anywhere in the financial tables.

The Executive Policy Committee takes up the study June 11.

Make Your Voice Heard: Legal and Finance Committee Meeting

​The Rapid City Legal and Finance Committee is scheduled to formally review—and potentially approve—the Draft Railyard Relocation Study this week. Because the agenda explicitly lists this as an item for “Approval,” this is the critical juncture where public feedback is required before the financial framework is pushed to the full City Council.

• ​When: Wednesday, April 29, 2026, at 12:30 PM (Typical committee start time; check final published agenda for exact schedule)
• ​Where: City Council Chambers (2nd Floor), City/School Administration Center, 300 6th Street, Rapid City.
• ​The Target Item: Agenda Item 26TP019 (Approve the Railyard Relocation and Railway Configuration Study Draft Report).
• ​How to Participate: Meetings are open to the public. If you wish to speak on the record regarding the unbudgeted 5th Amendment liabilities, the Box Elder relocation, or the “Zombie Easements,” arrive early to sign in for the “General Public Comment” section.
• ​Watch Live: For those unable to attend in person, the meeting will be streamed live on the Rapid City government website.

How To Find This Report to Read in your Leisure Time

The post Where was the Box Elder Representation when the MPO Voted to Put a Railyard There? appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

​If you stand on the sidewalk outside Red Wing Shoes on West Main and look south across the street, you’ll see the historic spine of Rapid City: a maze of old industrial brick, an active freight line, and a whole lot of untouchable dirt. It’s a neighborhood where 19th-century railroad laws still dictate 21st-century reality.

​At 7:00 AM this morning, those laws caught up with a developer.

​Already $40,000 deep into a boutique coffee concept on the 1100 block of West Main, he was staring down a municipal math problem he couldn’t solve: 64 seats, minimal parking, and a massive adjacent dirt lot legally controlled by the railroad.

The Rapid City Planning Commission practically handed him a gift-wrapped zoning loophole to save the project, but he pushed back, determined to fight the physical and legal constraints of the tracks.

​Watching someone try to out-brand a freight train is a masterclass in development hubris. But his zoning headache isn’t just a local business dispute—it’s a blaring warning siren for Rapid City taxpayers.

​The invisible borders of the railroad right-of-way that just trapped a coffee shop are the exact same hurdles waiting for the city’s proposed multi-million-dollar Innovation District. And if we aren’t careful, we are about to make a very expensive mistake.

The Invisible Fortress

To the modern eye, the dirt adjacent to a railroad track looks like wasted space just waiting to be paved or developed. But when the predecessors of the RCPE (Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern) laid those tracks in the 1880s, the federal government and local charters didn’t just give them the five feet of gravel under the steel.

​They granted Rights-of-Way (ROW) that often extend 50 to 100 feet outward in both directions. This means there is an invisible federal fortress cutting right through Rapid City, governed entirely by the Surface Transportation Board.

​If the city wants to build tech labs, housing, or pedestrian bridges inside that corridor for the Innovation District, they are going to run into the 19th-century ledger. When they do, they will face four distinct legal realities:

1. The Clean Win: Fee Simple

If the city is lucky, the railroad bought the original parcels outright. This is called “Fee Simple.” The railroad owns the dirt forever, and the city can simply try to buy it from them at fair market value.

2.The Trap: Right-of-Way Easements

Most of the time, the railroad didn’t buy the dirt. A 19th-century landowner just signed an easement—a permanent permission slip to use the land strictly for railway purposes. The city cannot simply buy this land from the railroad, because the railroad doesn’t own it.

3. The Nightmare: Reversionary Rights & Ghost Heirs

If the city gets the railroad to “abandon” an easement so they can build a fiber-optic network or a lab, that permission slip vanishes. Legally, the land instantly reverts back to the original owner. Since it’s been 130 years, that land snaps back to the “ghost heirs”—great-great-grandchildren scattered across the country who have no idea they just inherited a slice of Rapid City. Clearing these titles requires a “Quiet Title Action”—hiring forensic genealogists and fighting years of expensive legal battles, all funded by the taxpayer.

4. The “Get Out of Jail Free” Card: Railbanking

There is one massive federal loophole the city can use to bypass the ghost heirs: The National Trails System Act. If the city and the railroad agree to transfer the unused corridor specifically for a public trail (like a bike path), it is considered “railbanked” for future use rather than legally “abandoned.” The easement remains intact, the ghost heirs get nothing, and the city gets to use the land.

PDFs VS. Pavement

The Innovation District is aimed directly at the corridor between Downtown and the School of Mines—an area defined by this exact railway infrastructure.

​Right now, the city is in the “PDF Phase” of planning, looking at beautiful, glossy renderings of tech hubs built over “underutilized” industrial zones. But the maps that will actually govern this project aren’t sitting on an iPad; they are locked in dusty county ledgers.

SDSMT and the Railroad

​The irony of the Innovation District is that it is trying to connect downtown Rapid City to the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology—a campus founded in 1885 as the engineering “brains” of the Black Hills. Exactly one year later, in 1886, the railroad arrived as the industrial “brawn” to haul the ore. For 140 years, the tracks and the campus grew up together as twin engines of Rapid City’s survival.

​But today, the 19th-century infrastructure that originally put Rapid City on the map is the exact legal fortress threatening to stall its 21st-century future.

The State’s Million Dollar Gamble

It’s one thing to stall a private business venture. It is entirely another to stall a state-backed economic initiative. With Governor Larry Rhoden and the state funneling millions into Rapid City’s infrastructure and innovation future, the pressure to break ground is immense.

​But if those state funds are being allocated based on glossy “PDF phase” planning—without clearing the 130-year-old railroad titles first—we aren’t just gambling with local pothole budgets. We are setting up a scenario where millions of state taxpayer dollars get deadlocked by a 19th-century permission slip.

The Sentinel’s Call to Action: Demand the Pavement Map

We cannot build Rapid City’s future by ignoring its physical past. Before the City Council approves another budget line item or signs off on state grants for the Innovation District, taxpayers and local officials need to ask three very specific questions:

1. ​Where is the Title Map? We need public transparency on which parcels in the proposed Innovation District are owned “Fee Simple” and which are encumbered by 19th-century Railroad Easements.
2. ​Who is paying for the Quiet Titles? If the city plans to build over old easements, is there a dedicated fund to handle the forensic genealogy, legal fees, and payouts for the “ghost heirs,” or will that blindside the municipal budget?
3. ​What is the Railbanking Strategy? Is the city actively negotiating with the RCPE and the federal Surface Transportation Board to preserve these corridors under the National Trails System Act, or are they just crossing their fingers?

​The next time you walk down West Main, look past the storefronts like Red Wing and Ernie November, and look at the iron tracks cutting through the dirt. They aren’t just history; they are a legal fortress. The developer at the 1100 block of West Main just invested $40,000 to learn that lesson. Let’s make sure Rapid City doesn’t pay millions to learn the same one.

The post The Tracks to Innovation Run Deeper Than Imagined in Rapid City appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

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This guy wasn’t worried about a fishing license. But you might want one soon.

Canada geese have claimed Memorial Pond for now — but with South Dakota’s Free Fishing Weekend coming May 15-17, the anglers won’t be far behind.

Rapid City has several solid urban fishing spots that don’t require a long drive or a boat — and according to the state’s most recent stocking report, the fish are already there.

Where to Fish in Rapid City

Memorial Pond— Right in the heart of the city, walkable and accessible. 400 adult rainbow trout were stocked here on April 8.

Jackson Street ponds — Family-friendly, stocked with trout, bass, bluegill, and catfish. 273 rainbow trout added April 8.

Outdoor Campus West Display pond— 191 rainbow trout stocked April 8, right on site where free fishing classes are offered.

Rapid Creek— Flows directly through the city with some of the best urban trout fishing in the region. Founders Park is a popular access point.

Section 3 received 150 rainbow trout and Section 6 received 250 rainbow trout, both on April 8.

Canyon Lake — On the west side of town, a classic “put and take” lake stocked with rainbow and brown trout.

The SD Game, Fish & Parks updates its stocking report every 14 days at GFP.sd.gov, so you can always check what’s been added recently before you head out.

Free Fishing on these specific weekends

Planning ahead? Mark these dates.
South Dakota offers several license-free fishing days throughout the year:

Free Fishing Weekend: May 15-17 — No fishing license or state park entrance fee required for anyone, statewide.

Mother’s Day (May 10) — Traditionally a free fishing day in South Dakota.

Father’s Day (June 21) — Another annual license-free fishing opportunity.

All other regulations — daily limits and length requirements — remain in effect on free fishing days.

Licensing and Cost

Outside of those dates, licenses are required for anyone 18 and older. They’re easy to purchase online at GoOutdoorsSouthDakota.com, through the GFP mobile app, or at retail locations around the city.

2026 Rapid City Resident license costs:
1-Day: $10
Annual: $31
Senior (65+): $17
Annual licenses also require a $10 Habitat Stamp.

Out-of-state visitors can fish for $26 (1-day), $45 (3-day), or $80 for the full year.

Kids under 18 — resident or not — fish free all year, no license required.

Never fished before and don’t have gear? The SDGFP Outdoor Campus West at 4130 Adventure Trail offers free hands-on classes including Fishing 101 and Fly Fishing 101.

Dakota Angler & Outfitter on Jackson Boulevard runs guided trips and posts current Rapid Creek fishing reports at flyfishsd.com.

And if you’re heading to Memorial Pond — locals say the trout are so thick this time of year you could practically catch them by hand.

South Dakota’s Park Rx Program

One more thing worth knowing: South Dakota’s Park Rx program allows doctors and health care providers to write an actual prescription for time outdoors, redeemable for a free 1-day state park pass or a discounted annual pass.

Research backs it up — even light outdoor activity reduces stress, improves mood, and supports cognitive health. Fishing at a city pond counts.

Spring is a great time to get out. The water is clear, the fish are stocked, and apparently the geese are very friendly, but please don’t feed them it’s against the law.

Current stocking reports, licenses, and more information available at GFP.sd.gov

The post Urban Fishing is Easy and Accessible in Rapid City even if you’re not a Goose appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

A Rapid City Sentinel Editorial

Editor’s Note: DawnSherine Bernard is the founder and publisher of The Rapid City Sentinel. She covered the 2025-26 Rapid City Rush season directly and is named in the events described in Section 4 of this editorial. All documentation referenced herein is retained by the author.

The Corporate Promises

They came to Rapid City with a blueprint and a guarantee.
When Dave Smith was introduced as the new head coach and general manager of the Rapid City Rush, he didn’t come alone. Flanking him were Emma Setzer, Chief Financial Officer of Spire Holdings, and Jared Reid, President of the Rapid City Rush. The message was deliberate and clear. This wasn’t a handshake deal with a shadow operation. This was institutional. Funded. Serious.
The language that followed was unambiguous. This wasn’t a rebuild. This wasn’t a transition year. This was the beginning of something — a Kelly Cup contender, a team built to win, a front office finally ready to deliver on what Rush fans had been waiting for. The CFO and the President stood at the podium. The coach shook hands and talked about culture and compete level and what he was going to build in western South Dakota.

The Monument would be loud again. The roster would be deep. The team would bring fear to their opponents and the pride in wearing the jersey would be what every ECHL player would strive for.

Rapid City believed it. Season ticket holders signed up. Sponsors wrote checks. Fans who had watched years of mediocrity decided this time was different because they were told, in no uncertain terms, that it was.
It wasn’t.
What followed was one of the most chaotic, revealing, and ultimately damning seasons in Rush franchise history — not because the team lost, but because of everything that happened off the ice while they were losing.

A roster gutted by mismanagement before the puck even dropped on the new year.

A front office more focused on controlling what Rapid City could read than on building a winning team.

And a local media outlet that — when it mattered most — chose the franchise over the fans who trusted it.
This is the story of the season that wasn’t. And of everything that was buried to keep you from knowing about it.

The Unraveling

The cracks appeared before most people were looking for them. The first one appeared December 1st.

BILLY CONSTANTINOU
Billy Constantinou had been a Rush fixture for three years — a road warrior who had found a home in Rapid City and earned the trust of his teammates and the affection of the fan base.

In October, the organization rewarded that trust by naming him to the team’s leadership group. It was a public designation. A statement of confidence. Fans celebrated it.
Thirty days later, on December 1st, the Rush released him from his Standard Player Contract. No explanation was offered. No reason was given publicly. According to people close to him, Constantinou was blindsided. His mother took to the Rush fan page — not to defend the organization’s decision, because there was no decision to defend, only a silence — but to defend her son against the speculation that silence had created. She asked people to stop talking about her kid. The fans, who had every reason to be angry, were livid.
The Rush never explained why a player they had just publicly honored with a leadership role was gone thirty days later. They still haven’t. Billy Constantinou is still playing hockey. The organization that discarded him without a word has never been asked to account for it.

It was the first move in a season that would be defined by exactly this — decisions made without explanation, people treated as expendable, and a front office that confused silence with accountability.

In early December, while the Rush were still playing games and fans were still showing up, the organization was already coming apart at the seams further. The roster Dave Smith had assembled leaned heavily on his connections at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute — his own pipeline, his own guys, players who owed their professional opportunity to the man behind the bench. On paper it looked like loyalty. In practice it was fragility.

On December 8th, this reporter published “The Status Quo Face Off: PHPA’s Legal Counter Move Checkmates the ECHL” in the Rapid City Post — an examination of the unfair labor practice charges the Professional Hockey Players’ Association had filed with the National Labor Relations Board against the ECHL.

The charges were serious. The PHPA alleged the league had unilaterally continued scheduling practices that violated player health and safety, failed to compensate players for mandatory community appearances, refused to provide financial information required for good faith bargaining, and — most critically — that member clubs had attempted to intimidate and retaliate against players engaged in union activities.
The article named Spire Hockey explicitly. It named Mark Walter. It explained the legal strategy the PHPA was using and what it meant for the league’s ownership groups going forward.

Within days of that publication, the organizational rot that the article had only begun to describe accelerated into full view. Smith’s RPI pipeline — the inner circle he had built the roster around — began to dissolve almost overnight. Players who had personal loyalty to the coach saw the writing on the wall and were gone before the ECHL strike even formally hit at the end of December. When the strike arrived, the Rush roster was already in shreds.

ADAM BERG
Then came the Adam Berg incident — a moment so transparently cynical it deserves its own examination. On Wednesday, December 10th, Smith claimed Berg off waivers from the Utah Grizzlies. Twenty-four hours later, on Thursday, December 11th, Berg was released back onto waivers. One day. Claimed and discarded in a single news cycle — a textbook “block and drop” move that agents and players recognize immediately. You claim a player to keep him out of a competitor’s lineup, or to satisfy a roster requirement for exactly 24 hours, then discard him the moment the immediate need passes. It burns bridges. It wastes a career. And it tells you everything about how this front office viewed the human beings on its roster.

BRADY KEEPER
January brought Brady Keeper — a veteran acquired December 29, 2025 from the South Carolina Stingrays, where he had also been on team suspension. He made his ECHL debut with the Rush on January 2, 2026, logging over 24 minutes in his first professional game in nearly two years.
His tenure showed flashes of real impact — on January 9 he recorded a Gordie Howe Hat Trick (goal, assist, and a fight) against the Indy Fuel, returned from a brief family leave to play at Cincinnati on January 16, and scored a power-play goal on January 23 in a loss to the Utah Grizzlies.
Then, on January 24, 2026, he was placed on Team Suspension and removed from the active roster — and has not appeared in any game recaps or roster updates since.

Alleged Sponsor Misappropriation
At the “Peaches” game — a promotional event designed to project fun and community engagement — a member of the Rush on ice personality staff allegedly helped herself to sponsor gifts intended for the event, redirecting them for her own birthday celebration. She pitted her husband and brother in a roll eating contest to win her “birthday dinner” from this popular local steak chain which is famous for its rolls. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. Sponsors write checks and provide gifts in good faith, trusting that their investment goes toward the fans and the community events they agreed to support. What allegedly happened at this game was a betrayal of that trust — and of every local business that keeps this franchise financially afloat.

Coaches Corner Allegations
And then there was the Coaches Corner.
Held at a local tavern and billed as an opportunity for season ticket holders and fans to engage directly with the coaching staff, Coaches Corner is exactly the kind of event a franchise runs when it wants fans to feel valued and heard.

When one season ticket holder stood up and asked a question about scoring — perhaps the most fundamental concern any hockey fan can raise — head coach Dave Smith’s response was immediate and public.
“If you’re going to ask a shit burger question,” Smith told the room, “you’re going to get a shit burger answer.”
The comment was reported by multiple people on the Rush fan page. It spread through the Rapid City hockey community within hours.
What has not surfaced — and what is worth asking about openly — is video. In 2025, in a room full of season ticket holders armed with smartphones, at an event the franchise itself organized, not a single recording of that exchange has been made publicly available. Given everything else documented in this report, the absence is notable.

The pattern of conduct didn’t stop at the coaching staff or the events office.

Public Apologies. In February, during a three-game regular season series against the Worcester Railers, Rush PR director Cory Berberian made remarks directed at an on-ice official and his family that were serious enough to trigger a direct response from the league. The ECHL mandated a public apology. It did not come immediately — it came the next time that referee appeared in Rapid City, broadcast live on Mixlr and FloHockey for anyone following the team. It was not a voluntary act of contrition from within the organization. It was a requirement handed down from the outside because the organization had demonstrated it would not hold itself accountable.

Coach insulting paying fans at a sanctioned team event. An on ice personality allegedly redirecting sponsor gifts. A PR director compelled by the league to publicly apologize to a referee and his family. At every level of this organization, the same pattern: conduct that crossed a line, silence or deflection from leadership, and accountability only when forced from the outside.

By late December the ECHL strike had arrived to finish what mismanagement had started. The Rush entered the new year with a roster that bore almost no resemblance to what had been promised in the summer. The RPI guys were gone. Billy was gone. The team was statistically out of playoff contention before February arrived.
The season that was supposed to end with a Kelly Cup run was already over. The only question left was what else would be revealed before the final buzzer.

The Escapes and Extractions From The Red Alert

In Rapid City this season, success didn’t look like a Kelly Cup. It looked like a phone call from a different area code.

While the organization was consuming itself, the players and management staff who saw it coming found their way out. Their departures tell the story of this season as clearly as any scoreboard.

ARSENII SERGEEV Arsenii Sergeev’s exit may be the most damning of all. Originally drafted by the Calgary Flames in the seventh round of the 2021 NHL Draft, Sergeev turned pro after leading Penn State to its first-ever Frozen Four appearance — posting a .919 save percentage and 2.54 GAA with four shutouts in 33 starts. The Flames signed him to a two-year NHL entry-level contract at $866,250 AAV. The Athletic ranked him as the top goaltending prospect in the entire Calgary system. They sent him to Rapid City for development.
Named an ECHL All-Star, he was nevertheless being buried — limited playing time, a toxic culture, coaching systems that failed to deploy one of the most promising young goaltenders in the minors. On December 13th, Calgary had seen enough and recalled him directly to the AHL — nearly two weeks before the ECHL strike authorization was even issued on December 18th, and 13 days before the strike officially commenced on December 26th. Calgary wasn’t waiting around.
In his AHL debut on December 21st, he faced 52 shots, stopping 52 of 53 in a 2-1 victory over the San Diego Gulls — setting a new Calgary Wranglers franchise record for saves in a single game. He has not returned to Rapid City.
The Flames entrusted their top goaltending prospect to this organization. The Rush failed him. The talent was never the problem. The organization was.

UPDATE: Arsenii Sergeev played his first NHL game with the Calgary Flames on April 17, 2026. He secured the 3-1 win against the L.A. Kings.

ARVILS BERGMANIS
Arvils Bergmanis read the writing on the wall in December — early enough that he was already gone before the full weight of the collapse landed. He returned to Sweden. For a professional hockey player to leave North American hockey mid-season and go home is not a casual decision. It is a statement about what he found when he got to Rapid City and what he decided he was not willing to endure.

GEORGIA VEATCH
Georgia Veatch earned what can only be described as a golden ticket — a move to the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise as Manager of Partner Sales. In a season defined by dysfunction, getting an upward promotion to a higher level organization wasn’t just a career win. It was an escape.

UPDATE: The Pittsburgh Penguins begin their Stanley Cup journey on April 18, 2026 against the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round.

BLAKE BENNETT
Blake Bennett waited longer. His extraction came in March, a trade to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and a placement to the Wheeling Nailers finally arrived after a season spent watching the organization around him deteriorate. Bennett’s talent was never the problem. The culture was. Scoring a hat- trick in his first game with the Nailers was the icing on his extraction cake. No more screaming into to the Red Alert Void.

UPDATE: The Wheeling Nailers placed first in the North Division for the 2026 Kelly Cup Playoff run.

This is the ledger of who made it out alive. It reframes what winning meant in Rapid City this year. The players who thrived weren’t the ones who bought into the promise made at that summer press conference. They were the ones who recognized the reality early enough to find a way out of it.

RUSH NATION
The fans who stayed, who kept showing up to The Monument, who kept renewing their season tickets and asking honest questions at Coaches Corners — they deserved better than what this organization gave them. They deserved the truth about what was happening. And they deserved a local press that would tell it to them.
They got neither.

The Silenced Story

While all of this was unfolding, Rapid City had a local news outlet that was supposed to be covering it.
The Rapid City Post was, at the time, the publication where this reporter contributed sports coverage. On December 7th, 2025, Managing Editor Chris Hornick received a submitted article titled “The Status Quo Face Off: PHPA’s Legal Counter Move Checkmates the ECHL.” The full text of that article is attached to this editorial as submitted. Readers are invited to read it and draw their own conclusions about why it was removed.

Hornick’s initial response was collegial. He asked whether the story would be ongoing and suggested holding it for a slower news week. This reporter responded that the legal situation was unlikely to resolve quickly, mentioned upcoming FOIA research that could enhance the piece, and agreed that January timing made sense. The exchange was professional. The working relationship appeared intact.
On December 8th, Hornick published the article earlier than either party had anticipated — a miscommunication about timing. This reporter thanked him. He asked for a follow-up piece by December 26th for a January 3rd publication date. Hornick responded: “Sounds great.”
The article went live.

Scott McNaughton, Director of Communications for the Professional Hockey Players’ Association, read it that same morning and attempted to share it with a colleague.
By the time he tried, it was gone.

McNaughton emailed this reporter directly: “I read your article in the Rapid City Post this morning and was hoping to share it with a colleague, but I see now that the story is no longer available online. Do you happen to have a PDF copy that I could share?”
This reporter had not been notified that anything had changed. The response to McNaughton was honest: “I do now. My editor didn’t tell me there was any issue so I’m not sure what happened.”

Two days later, on December 12th, Managing Editor Chris Hornick sent an email that provided the answer. The relevant passage, in his own words:
“After some comments from Rush management. I’m working on looking over spelling/formatting of your stories more closely.”
The email went on to list minor formatting corrections — clock notations, player name spellings.

The formatting notes were the vehicle. The explanation was the story. Rush management had contacted the managing editor of the Rapid City Post about a reporter’s coverage.

The article about the players’ union’s legal action against the ECHL — an article that named the Rush’s ownership structure and its billionaire backer — was no longer available online.
This reporter forwarded the Hornick email to McNaughton at the PHPA the same day under the subject line “What happened,” with a single additional statement:
“I will no longer be contributing to the Rapid City Post in a journalistic way.”

Four days later, on December 16th, this reporter contacted Caroline Hendrie, Executive Director of the Society of Professional Journalists, to report what had occurred. The communication described the situation plainly: “I am not sure if what happened to me as a freelance reporter with the Post is business as usual or if I was a victim of a coerced editor. I do know the Post has continued to use my byline though I have stopped writing for them.”

The Cold Hard Truth

On April 18th, the Rapid City Rush will play their final game of the season. The rescheduled Tahoe game — itself a symbol of a season that couldn’t even unfold on its own terms — closes the book on a year that began with a press conference full of promises and ends with a roster full of strangers, a fan base full of questions, and a front office that has never been asked to answer for any of it.

This piece is the ask.

What happened in Rapid City this season was not bad luck. It was not the ECHL strike, though the strike exposed it. It was not a thin roster, though the roster was gutted by the decisions that preceded it.

What happened was a systematic failure of leadership at every level of this organization — and a systematic effort to ensure that the people most affected by it, the fans who bought the tickets and the players who signed the contracts, would never get a full accounting.

And when a reporter documented the legal and labor context that explained all of it — when a story was written that named the ownership structure, identified the financial backing, and gave Rapid City fans the information they needed to understand what was happening to their team — Rush management called the managing editor of the local paper. The story disappeared. The reporter was not told. The players’ union noticed before the journalist did.

The people of Rapid City deserved better. They deserved a team that honored the promises made at that summer press conference. They deserved a front office that treated players, sponsors, referees, and fans with basic professional respect. They deserved a local press that would tell them the truth when the truth was inconvenient for the powerful.

The Rapid City Sentinel is telling it now.

The season that wasn’t is over. The record of what it was — and who was responsible — is not going anywhere.

The Rapid City Sentinel covered the 2025-26 Rush season from the July press conference until Dec 11th 2025 for The Rapid City Post. The suppressed article, “The Status Quo Face Off: PHPA’s Legal Counter Move Checkmates the ECHL,” is preserved in the Wayback Machine archive and attached in full below. All email correspondence referenced in this report is retained by the author.

Scan Here To Hear the July 9th Press Conference :

STATUS QUO FACEOFF AS PRESERVED ON NEWSBREAK

https://share.newsbreak.com/i0hu3412

NOTICE OF PUBLICATION TO HOMESLICE AND SPIRE MOTORSPORTS

There has been no reply from Spire Motorsports as of publishing.

The post The Season That Wasn’t: A Critical Analysis of the 2025-2026 Rapid City Rush appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

There is something worth stepping outside for this week.

The Proclamation

Mayor Jason Salamun has officially proclaimed April 13-20 as Dark Sky Week in Rapid City, joining the International Dark Sky Association’s global celebration of the night sky and the growing movement to reduce light pollution in communities across the country.

The proclamation is more than ceremonial. Rapid City sits at the center of one of the most extraordinary natural dark sky regions in the United States. Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Custer State Park, the Black Hills National Forest, the Hidden Valley Observatory, and the Badlands Observatory are all within reach — and all of them depend on the absence of artificial light to offer what tourists and residents drive hundreds of miles to see.

Rapid City’s light pollution

The problem is that Rapid City’s own skyglow is already visible from those places. Light pollution grows at an average rate of two to six percent per year across the United States, and the skyglow from an urban area doesn’t stop at the city limits. It bleeds outward, softening the darkness that makes the Milky Way visible above the Badlands formations and washing out the star fields that draw visitors to the Black Hills every summer.

Dark Sky Week is a simple ask. Turn off unnecessary outdoor lights. Participate in the community lights-out effort each evening this week. Take a drive to the Badlands after dark and remember what the sky actually looks like without competition.

Lakota Tradition
For the Lakota, the night sky has never been a backdrop — it has been a calendar, a map, a spiritual guide, and a record of origin. The stars overhead this week are the same ones that oriented generations of people across this land long before a single electric light existed on the northern plains.

Annual Event
Rapid City has marked Dark Sky Week annually since 2016. This year’s proclamation was signed by Mayor Salamun alongside members of the South Dakota chapter of the International Dark Sky Association and the Rapid City Sustainability Committee.

The week runs through Sunday, April 20th. The sky is free. Go Check it Out.

The post Look Up: Rapid City Celebrates Dark Sky Week Through April 20th appeared first on THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL.

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