Title: content director / investigative reporter
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 307 Posts
As Sturgis Rally attendance slows, planners try to build for the future
STURGIS, S.D. – Jayda Hammer is precisely the type of person that Sturgis Motorcycle Rally managers are targeting as they try to develop the next generation of rally attendees to keep the event rolling for another 50 years or more.
Hammer is a 19-year-old woman from Aberdeen whose extended family
Carbon dioxide pipeline proposals in South Dakota: What you need to know
For more than a year, a highly divisive debate has raged in South Dakota over two proposed carbon dioxide pipelines that would capture the toxic gas from ethanol plants and carry it to North Dakota and Illinois for disposal underground.
The stakes are extremely high on both sides of the
Gov. Noem’s claims of transparency called into question
For more than 40 years, South Dakota journalist Kevin Woster has produced material for the state’s two largest newspapers, its largest TV station and for South Dakota Public Broadcasting, where he remains a writer and commentator.
Now semi-retired, Woster continues to report on a variety of statewide topics. And
Jail reform effort gives inmates skills and county budgets a break
RAPID CITY, S.D. – A new education program for jail inmates in Pennington County aims to break the cycle of repeated incarceration among people who are addicted, have mental health challenges or lack the skills to function in society.
Pennington County Sheriff Brian Mueller recently announced the coming launch of
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