Title: Content Director
Contact: 605-937-9398 / bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org
Language spoken: English
Demographic expertise: South Dakota, including the Rapid City area, the Black Hills, rural towns and reservations
Topic expertise: agriculture, state government, education, rural issues, Indigenous people, poverty
Potential conflict of interest: Pfankuch serves on the board of the Oyate Prevention Coalition in Rapid City, which works to prevent substance abuse among Native American youth. He will recuse himself from reporting on the organization.
Biography: Pfankuch (pronounced FAN-cook) is Wisconsin native and former editor of the Rapid City Journal. He has worked for more than 30 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Wisconsin, Florida and South Dakota, including as reporter or editor at the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram and Capital Times in Wisconsin, and at the Florida Times-Union and Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida. He also is a syndicated writing coach who has presented at newspaper conferences across the country. Pfankuch has won more than four dozen state, regional and national journalism awards, including, while at News Watch, agricultural writer of the year from the North American Agricultural Journalists association in 2020, 2021 and 2023 as well as first-place reporting awards in the Great Plains Journalism Awards sponsored by the Tulsa Press Club and South Dakota NewsMedia Association. Pfankuch lives in Black Hawk.
Professional memberships: Investigative Reporters and Editors, North American Agricultural Journalists, South Dakota NewsMedia First Amendment Committee
Social platforms: X/Twitter; LinkedIn
Archive of work: South Dakota News Watch
Bart Pfankuch
Total 337 Posts
Indigenous artists in S.D. travel new paths to prosperity
WHITECLAY, NEB. – Within concrete walls that once housed a liquor store that fueled alcoholism and death among residents of the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, renowned Native American artist Evans Flammond Sr. deftly draws lines on a huge buffalo hide.
Sitting at a table in the building in this small
Native American leaders in South Dakota forge ahead with educational reforms
RAPID CITY, S.D. — Early mornings at the new Oceti Sakowin Community Academy are a joyous time for the roughly 28 kindergartners who attend and the two staff members who teach them.
Before classes begin, students join in a circle and sing the “Four Directions” song in Lakota, and students
Weekly newspapers in South Dakota bucking national news trend
One heartbreaking phone call in November 2021 sums up the depth of devotion Jill Meier and other weekly newspaper editors across South Dakota feel toward keeping their communities informed.
Meier took the call while working at the Brandon Valley Journal and learned that her 83-year-old mother had died at a
Weekly papers: How these South Dakota communities are keeping local news alive
As South Dakota News Watch prepares to host a panel discussion on recent trends in journalism and the importance of factual reporting at the Black Hills Playhouse in Custer State Park on Sunday, June 25, here are three stories of the people behind the pages who are keeping the tradition
Dangerous wild animals encroaching on South Dakota neighborhoods
SPEARFISH, S.D. – Holly Hansen doesn’t have hard data to prove that potentially dangerous wild animals are entering residential areas with greater frequency, but she does have some pretty strong anecdotal evidence.
In early May, a black bear entered her suburban Spearfish property and killed 16 ducks, chickens and
Camp Lejeune contamination leaves South Dakota Marines with cancer — and resentment
STURGIS, S.D. – When he left the U.S. Marine Corps in 1983, after spending six years at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Ronald Lawson was a strong, healthy man with a barrel chest, strong arms and a solid frame that carried his 220 pounds with ease.
He was a
Long-held rural values at odds in South Dakota gun range debate
RAPID CITY, S.D. – An effort to build a huge gun range and shooting complex north of Rapid City has created divisiveness and hard feelings between two of South Dakota’s most iconic populations.
The values run deep and histories stretch long among people in the two groups – those devoted