Tag: Community
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When Words Become Weapons: Accusations, Accountability and the Cost of Getting it Wrong
On May 18, 2026, a federal jury in Nashville ordered YouTube personality Ryan Upchurch to pay $17.5 million to the father and grandfather of Kiely Rodni — a 16-year-old California girl who drowned in Prosser Creek Reservoir in August 2022. Her death was ruled accidental. No foul play. Multiple law enforcement agencies, the FBI, and…
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Rapid City Proactively Moves to Define Its Cement Plant Future
A century ago, South Dakota stepped in where private industry wouldn’t. With vast deposits of the raw materials needed for cement production sitting in the Black Hills and no private developer willing to build, Gov. Peter Norbeck championed a state-owned plant. Voters amended the state constitution to make it possible, and Dacotah Cement was born.…
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South Dakota Got Ahead of This. Here’s What it Means for Data Centers in Rapid City
Rapid City SD – Rapid City is about to get its first data center. The facility isn’t built yet. The land hasn’t closed. It hasn’t cleared city permits. But in February, Sequitor Edge — a Nebraska-based company founded in 2024 — announced plans to construct a 30,000-square-foot computing facility on a 10-acre site in the…
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The Snowball Effect: How a Bowl of Soup Can Help Your Neighbors in Rapid City
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…
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When A 9,000 Pound Spinning Boulder gets Tagged, Rapid City’s Public Works and Parks Departments Shows Up, Quick
Rapid City SD – 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…
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Where was the Box Elder Representation when the MPO Voted to Put a Railyard There?
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.…
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Urban Fishing is Easy and Accessible in Rapid City even if you’re not a Goose
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…
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The Season That Wasn’t: A Critical Analysis of the 2025-2026 Rapid City Rush
Rapid City SD- 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…
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Look Up: Rapid City Celebrates Dark Sky Week Through April 20th
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…