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Robert F. Karolevitz was born on April 26, 1922, at Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, South Dakota. He began his writing career in high school as editor of the school newspaper and yearbook and contributed a sports column to the Yankton Public Opinion. After graduating from Yankton High School in 1940, he studied printing and journalism at South Dakota State College. During World War II, he served with the U.S. Army Infantry in Japan and the Philippines, rising to the rank of captain. As division historian for the 25th Infantry, he authored his first book, The 25th Infantry Division and World War II, published in 1946.

Following his military service, Karolevitz earned a B.S. in Printing and Rural Journalism from South Dakota State College in 1948 and later completed a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Oregon. Recalled to active duty during the Korean War, he served as a public-information officer and feature writer for the U.S. Eighth Army, contributing articles and organizing homecoming events for returning soldiers.

In the 1950s and 60s, Karolevitz and his wife, Phyllis, lived in Seattle, Washington, where he worked in public relations, advertising, and political ghostwriting. He gained recognition as a popular historian with the publication of Newspapering in the Old West (1965), for which he received a Sigma Delta Chi excellence award. After nearly two decades in Washington, the Karolevitz family returned to South Dakota, where he continued his writing career, producing a prolific body of work focused on regional history and culture.

Karolevitz authored nearly forty books, including Where Your Heart Is: The Story of Harvey Dunn, which won the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Wrangler Award; Challenge: The South Dakota Story, written for the South Dakota Division of Elementary and Secondary Education and honored by Augustana College's Center for Western Studies; and Flight of Eagles, co-authored with Ross Fenn, which earned the Polish Gold Merit Cross. His newspaper columns, Writer at Large and The Way It Was, appeared in various South Dakota publications and were later compiled into books such as Tears in My Horseradish and Toulouse the Goose.

Deeply involved in civic and historical institutions, Karolevitz served on numerous boards, including the South Dakota Hall of Fame, South Dakota State Historical Society, and Sacred Heart Hospital. He was instrumental in the establishment of the South Dakota State Historical Society Press and served as president of the South Dakota State University Alumni Association. Over his career, he received numerous honors for his literary and public service contributions, including the South Dakota Hall of Fame induction (1973), Distinguished Citizen of the Year (1981), and the Bishop Dudley Media Award (2004).

Karolevitz’s legacy reflects his lifelong dedication to documenting and promoting the history, people, and culture of South Dakota and the American Midwest.

Robert Floyd Kerr was born on April 12, 1850, in Sugar Grove, Indiana. He attended Wabash College and later DePauw University, graduating in 1877. After teaching in Indiana for two years, Kerr traveled to Hirosaki, Japan, in 1879, where he taught English and mathematics. He returned to the United States in 1880 and taught throughout the Midwest before settling in Brookings, Dakota Territory, in 1885.

At Dakota Agricultural College (now South Dakota State University), Kerr served as professor of political economy and Principal of the Preparatory Department. He was dismissed from the college in 1892 and spent several years in Illinois before returning to Brookings in 1898. Upon his return, he was appointed Librarian and again served as Principal of the Preparatory Department.

In addition to his academic roles, Kerr managed the men's dormitory, served as steward and manager of the student boarding club, and advised the Dakota Agricultural Cadets, the campus military organization. He was also active in civic life in Brookings, helping to found the Forum, a local men’s association, and participating in the Masons.

In 1905, Kerr was appointed Private Secretary to South Dakota Governor Samuel H. Elrod. He later served in the South Dakota Legislature in 1911 and 1913. In his later years, Kerr remained in Brookings, edited a farm paper, and remained engaged in community affairs. He died on October 16, 1921.

Professor Frank Klock was born in 1950 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Raymond and Zeta (Babe) Klock. He graduated from South Dakota State University in 1973 with a degree in photojournalism. Following graduation, Klock worked as a sports editor, writer, and photojournalist for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. He later joined the faculty at South Dakota State University as a professor of photography. During his tenure, he taught Basic Photography, Photojournalism, and Advanced Photography. He also served as advisor to the Journalism Club and acted as a photo judge for the South Dakota Newspaper Association and other organizations.

John Howard Kramer was born on November 12, 1902, in Canning, South Dakota. He was raised in Pierre and graduated from Pierre High School in 1920. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Dakota in 1924, followed by a master's degree from the University of Iowa in 1930 and a doctorate from Colorado State University in 1943. On July 17, 1926, he married Lenette Dunlap in Vermillion, South Dakota. The couple had two children, John and Miriam.

Kramer dedicated over 50 years to education in South Dakota. He began his career as a debate coach and teacher at Madison High School from 1924 to 1927, later serving as superintendent of public schools in various South Dakota communities for 18 years. In 1945, he transitioned to higher education, becoming president of Southern State College in Springfield, a position he held until 1954. From 1954 to 1956, he was professor and head of the Education Department as well as Director of Summer School at South Dakota State University. He then served as president of Northern State College from 1956 to 1968 before returning to SDSU as a professor of education. He was later named president emeritus of Northern State College and professor emeritus at South Dakota State University.

Frank Charles William Kuehn was born on September 4, 1884, in LeMars, Iowa. His family moved to Dakota Territory when he was just seven months old, settling on a claim in Jackson Township, Sanborn County, on March 1, 1885. The family lived in a sod shanty, surrounded by Kuehn's extended family, including his grandfather and the siblings of his parents, Elizabeth and Frank Theodore Kuehn. In March 1903, the family relocated to Huron, South Dakota, where Kuehn would live for the next 67 years. On June 3, 1914, Kuehn married Amelia Johanna Wagner, and together they had three daughters: Jeannette, Lois, and Margaret. Amelia passed away in October 1950 due to a heart attack, and Kuehn remarried Florence Dokken Hanson on August 15, 1954.

From a young age, Kuehn was determined to become an architect. He enrolled in the International Correspondence Schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and in 1907 began working for Huron architect George Issenhuth. He continued working for Issenhuth through 1909 while furthering his studies. On September 9, 1909, Kuehn opened his own architectural office in Huron, SD, and quickly established himself as a school architect with a design for a two-story brick school in Frankfort, SD. This building, a notable example of Prairie-School Style architecture, marked the beginning of his 41-year relationship with the South Dakota Department of Public Instruction.

In 1918, to supplement his income during a decline in building projects due to World War I, Kuehn began selling insurance. He continued this work alongside his architecture throughout his life. In the early 1920s, Kuehn designed homes and notable downtown Huron buildings, and began producing county maps for South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota. In the 1930s, he founded the Huron Blueprint Co., which provided services during the Great Depression. He also worked for the Home Owners Loan Corporation, inspecting homes for financing. During the 1940s, Kuehn’s Standard Rural School Plans gained recognition beyond South Dakota.

In the 1950s, Kuehn shifted his focus almost exclusively to his expanding county map business. By the 1960s, he had broadened his maps to include highway maps for Minnesota counties and compiled books combining maps from South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota, which sold well. Kuehn passed away in 1970 following an illness. Over the course of his career, he designed numerous projects, many of which are detailed in the 1984 publication F.C.W. Kuehn Prairie Architect, written by his daughters, which documents his life and architectural contributions.

Dr. Lee earned a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Maryland in 1975, followed by an M.A. in Journalism from South Dakota State University in 1976. She later completed a Ph.D. in Sociology, with a minor in Asian Studies, at South Dakota State University in 1998.

Before beginning her academic career, Dr. Lee worked for five years as a newspaper reporter in the Washington, D.C. area, covering issues ranging from urban hunger to teen pregnancy. Over the course of 25 years at SDSU, she has held a variety of teaching and administrative positions, most recently serving as diversity coordinator for the College of Engineering. She is also the co-founder and coordinator of the SDSU–Flandreau Indian School Success Academy, an intensive college preparatory program for American Indian high school students.

Dr. Lee has engaged in international scholarship as an exchange professor and visiting scholar at Yunnan Normal University in the People’s Republic of China. She is the author of Ethnicity, Education and Empowerment: How Minority Students in Southwest China Construct Identities and Ethnicity Matters: Rethinking How Black, Hispanic and Indian Students Prepare for and Succeed in College.

James K. ""Tex"" Lewis was born on October 24, 1924, in Waco, Texas. He earned a B.S. in Animal Science from Colorado State University in 1948 and an M.S. in Animal Science from Montana State College in 1951, later pursuing graduate studies in range management at Texas A&M University.

As a professor of Animal Sciences at South Dakota State University, Lewis specialized in range management and range livestock nutrition. His research at the Cottonwood and Antelope Range Field Stations focused on grazing systems, supplementation trials, range improvements, and biometric analyses of grassland ecosystems. He was honored with several awards, including the Special Appreciation Award (1975), the Trail Boss Award (1980), and the Outstanding Achievement Award (1984) from the Society for Range Management.

Lewis retired from SDSU in 1985, leaving a lasting impact on the field of range science. His legacy continues through the long-term data he collected, which remains a valuable resource for contemporary research in sustainable rangeland and livestock management. Current studies analyzing stocking rates, forage productivity, and ecological sustainability continue to build on the foundational work Lewis conducted across South Dakota’s rangelands.

Henry Langford Loucks was born on May 24, 1846, in Hull, Ontario, Canada, to William J. and Anna (York) Loucks. Educated in Canadian common schools, he married Florence Isabel McCraney on May 22, 1878, in Oakville, Ontario. They had seven children, four of whom—Perry, Anna, Elizabeth, and Daniel—survived to adulthood.

Loucks immigrated to the United States, operating mercantile businesses in Michigan and Missouri before settling on a government homestead near Clear Lake in Deuel County, Dakota Territory, in 1884. Arriving as the regional economic boom declined, he experienced firsthand the challenges facing farmers. In response, he organized a “farmer’s club,” which evolved into the Territorial Alliance and affiliated with the National Farmers’ Alliance in 1885. As its president, Loucks promoted cooperative ventures such as insurance and merchandising enterprises and founded The Dakota Ruralist, a newspaper that advanced his reform ideas for two decades.

Initially active in the Republican Party, Loucks and his associates sought to achieve reform from within. In 1890, he was nominated for governor at a joint convention of the Knights of Labor and the state Farmers’ Alliance. Although he lost the election, his efforts helped consolidate support for a new political movement—the Populist Party. He presided over its first national convention in 1892 and that same year became president of the National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union. A strong proponent of direct democracy, Loucks was instrumental in securing adoption of the initiative and referendum process in South Dakota in 1898.

Loucks wrote extensively on political and economic reform. His publications include The New Monetary System (1893), Government Ownership of Railroads and Telegraphs (1894), and The Great Conspiracy of the House of Morgan and How to Defeat It (1916). Though he lived for many years in Watertown, South Dakota, he died in Clear Lake on December 29, 1928.

Charles A. Lundquist was born on March 26, 1928, in Webster, South Dakota. He graduated early from high school in 1945 intending to enlist in the military but instead enrolled at South Dakota State University, earning a Bachelor of Science in engineering physics. He later received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Kansas in 1953, where he also met and married Patricia Richardson in 1951.

Lundquist began his career as an assistant professor of engineering at Pennsylvania State University, conducting research on homing torpedoes in the university’s Ordnance Research Laboratory. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1954, he completed basic training at Fort Bliss and was assigned to Redstone Arsenal, working in the Guided Missile Development Division while also teaching at Athens College. After completing his service, he became Chief of Physics and Astrophysics at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.

In 1960, he joined NASA’s newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center, contributing to early spaceflight projects including Explorer 1 under the leadership of Wernher von Braun. Two years later, Lundquist became assistant director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Scientific Research Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while also serving on NASA’s lunar exploration planning group—a position he attributed to the influence of astronomer Fred Lawrence Whipple.

Lundquist returned to the Marshall Space Flight Center in 1973 to serve as Director of the Space Sciences Laboratory following the death of Gerhard B. Heller. There, he played a key role in the Skylab and Space Shuttle programs until his retirement in 1981.

Following his NASA career, Lundquist joined the University of Alabama in Huntsville as Associate Vice President for Research and Director of the Interactive Projects Office. He conducted extensive oral history interviews with early American and German rocket scientists, culminating in the publication of his book Transplanted Rocket Pioneers. Although he officially retired in 2000, he continued his research and writing until his death in 2017.

Jack W. Marken was born on February 11, 1922, in Akron, Ohio, and died on November 17, 2005, in Brookings, South Dakota. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1942 to October 1945. Dr. Marken was recognized for rediscovering William Godwin’s novel Imogen: A Pastoral Romance. In 1968, he moved to Brookings to serve as head of the English Department at South Dakota State University, a position he held until 1978. He retired in 1986. In 1969, Marken met with SDSU President Hilton Briggs to advocate for greater support for American Indian students, which led to the establishment of the American Indian Studies minor. He also co-founded the South Dakota Committee on the Humanities in 1972.

Steve R. Marquardt was born on September 7, 1943, in St. Paul, Minnesota. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Macalester College in Minnesota. He completed graduate study at the University of Minnesota, where he received master’s degrees in European history and library science and earned a doctorate in the history of modern France.

Marquardt’s professional career has been devoted to academic librarianship and library administration. He served as Original Monographic Cataloger at New Mexico State University Library in Las Cruces from 1973 to 1975 and concurrently held appointments as Acting University Archivist and Acting Director of the Rio Grande Historical Collections from 1973 to 1974. He later worked at Western Illinois University Library in Macomb, first as Acquisitions Librarian from 1976 to 1977 and then as Head Cataloger and OCLC Coordinator from 1977 to 1979.

From 1979 to 1981, Marquardt was Assistant Director for Resources and Technical Services at the Ohio University Library in Athens. He joined the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire as Director of Libraries in 1981 and served in that role until 1989. He then served as Director of University Libraries at Northern Illinois University from 1989 to 1990 before returning to the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire as Director of Libraries from 1990 to 1996. In 1996, he was appointed Dean of Libraries at South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota, a position he held thereafter.

Ethel Austin was born on July 14, 1893, in Storm Lake, Iowa, to George and Evaline Austin. Her family moved to Brookings, South Dakota, in 1902, where she completed grade school and high school. She graduated from South Dakota State College (SDSC) in 1916, later earning a second bachelor’s degree (1919) and a master’s degree (1923) from Columbia University. In 1955, SDSC awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science degree.

Martin began her career teaching high school in Faulkton, South Dakota (1916–1918), and later taught home economics and nutrition at several institutions, including Texas State College, the University of Illinois (1923–1924), the University of Chicago (1925–1929), and Northwestern University (1957–1959). From 1929 to 1951, she served as director of nutrition services for the National Dairy Council, where she launched its research program and nutrition education initiatives.

An accomplished author, Martin published numerous technical works and co-authored three university-level textbooks, including Nutrition in Action and Nutrition Education in Action. In 1949, she was the only woman delegate among ten U.S. representatives to the 11th International Dairy Congress in Stockholm. She also served on the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Advisory Committee (1950–1960) and held leadership roles in the Chicago Nutrition Association and Chicago Board of Health.

In retirement, Martin remained actively engaged in advancing nutrition education. She and her husband, Dr. Edward Moss Martin, established an endowment for the Ethel Austin Martin Chair of Human Nutrition at South Dakota State University to support visiting professorships and lectureships. Her goal was to promote a multidisciplinary understanding of nutrition.

Dr. Edward Martin, a civic reform advocate in Illinois, passed away in 1985. Ethel Austin Martin died on September 11, 1993, in Chicago at the age of 100. On her 99th birthday, she was named a Fellow of the Society for Nutrition Education.

Dr. John E. Miller was born on March 28, 1945, in Beloit, Kansas, to Channing and Mildred Miller. He received his B.A. in history from the University of Missouri, followed by an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. After completing his graduate studies, he spent one year as a visiting professor at the University of Tulsa. He grew up in multiple towns in Missouri and Illinois and served as a court reporter in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War in 1969 and 1970.

Dr. Miller taught recent American history for three decades. After a brief teaching appointment at the University of Tulsa, he joined the faculty at South Dakota State University in Brookings in 1974, where he remained until retirement. During his military service in Vietnam, he also taught classes. In retirement, he continued teaching through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

He authored, edited, and reviewed numerous books and scholarly articles, writing primarily on American history but also addressing politics, literature, creativity, and small-town life. His notable works include Looking for History on Highway 14, Small Town Dreams: Stories of Midwestern Boys Who Shaped America, three books on Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Democracy’s Troubles: Twelve Threats to the American Ideal and How We Can Overcome Them.

Beyond academia, John enjoyed golf, baseball, biking, and cheering for the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a frequent visitor of libraries and bookstores and often combined research trips with family visits and vacations. He was active in church, community, and professional organizations, serving on numerous committees. His scholarship earned several honors, including the South Dakota Board of Regents Research Award in 2000 and the Herbert Schell Governor’s Award for History in 2001.

Dr. John Edward Miller passed away suddenly at his home in Brookings, South Dakota, on May 1, 2020, at the age of 75.