diversity

Lah Soe speaks before the start of a Miss Knaw pageant at Huron in July 2023. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Bridge generation: Children of southeast Asian refugees carve out niche in Huron

BY: - September 15, 2023

HURON — Until age 6, Kler Hae roamed the highlands of southern Thailand after school with his friends, hunting birds with slingshots and stones. If they got lucky, they’d bring home dinner. Now he’s a real estate agent in Huron, an eastern South Dakota town of about 14,000.  At age 12, Pywe Der moved to […]

The "World's Largest Pheasant" greets visitors to Huron. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Desperation and renewal: How Huron embraced new Americans and thrived

BY: - September 15, 2023

That Huron came to be a major hub of Karen culture in the Midwest was at least partially a side effect of desperation. What began as desperation for workers morphed into desperation for a school system struggling to manage its migrant population and the community’s response to it.  Today, about a decade after the dust settled […]

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, left, tours the Manitou Madison manufacturing plant on June 26, 2023, with plant manager Jeff Minnaert. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

Leaning into pay and diversity, manufacturer expands amid workforce shortage

BY: - June 27, 2023

MADISON — A manufacturer conducting a $60 million expansion in South Dakota says it’s attacking a workforce shortage by raising pay and embracing diversity. Manitou is a manufacturer of construction equipment based out of France. It is expanding its operations in Madison and Yankton and will add about 125 jobs between the two sites. Currently, 510 […]

The Lincoln County Courthouse in Canton, SD, as seen on Oct. 28, 2022.

Circuit court bench in SD struggles to diversify

BY: - November 1, 2022

Just under half the people in state prisons in South Dakota are people of color, but none of the judges who sent them there are.  The general election on Nov. 8 won’t change that. Circuit judges in South Dakota, who preside over the felony criminal cases that can send a defendant to prison, come up […]