Join SDPB on a sojourn around South Dakota with a starting point in Lemmon. This intriguing Perkins County town is home to Lemmon Petrified Wood Park, metal art sculptor John Lopez, and the Boss Cowman Rodeo and Celebration.
Venture to Hartford to meet farmer and artist Adam Prunty. Prunty is a fifth-generation farmer as well as an artist/illustrator. After a day of combining corn and tending 300 head of cattle, Prunty heads indoors in the evenings for his second career as a successful commercial artist. “I’m a night owl, so that helps,” says Prunty. “When I get done with farming, sometimes I’ll work on the computer until late at night.”
Go down on the Bainbridge family farm near Ethan. This fall marks the family operation’s 101st harvest. As their combines roll across fields of corn, the family says their farm is much more than a family business, it’s a legacy.
And hit the links with Lance Christensen Jr. A senior at Little Wound School in Kyle, Christensen is one of the best golfers in South Dakota. Although the nearest golf course is a 45-minute drive away from his home, Christensen is following in the successful steps of his father and coach, Lance Christensen Sr., and grandfather, Hilario Mendoza, from whom he inherited his love and prowess for the game. “My grandfather couldn’t golf in the clubhouses,” says Christensen. “He was an amazing golfer who never got to play professionally.”
Christensen says people tend to be surprised he’s a golfer rather than a track runner or basketball player. “A lot of people don’t understand how special it really is and how many different ways there are to play the game,” says Christensen. “And how many days you spend out there on the golf course that are so extremely special with the sunsets and the birds chirping in the wind and the fresh cut grass and all that type of stuff. And how competitive and hard it really is and how much you really have to focus.”
Dakota Life Greetings from Lemmon premieres Thursday, Nov. 5, at 8pm (7 MT) on SDPB1. Rebroadcasts Sunday, Nov. 8, at 1pm (noon MT).