Custer to be profiled on ‘Dakota Life’

By Ron Burtz

Some folks from Custer will be joining Big Bird and other denizens of Sesame Street next month as the community is profiled on the next edition of “Dakota Life” on South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB). Custer will be the latest of several towns statewide that have been featured recently under a new initiative by the long running SDPB original program and a special community sneak preview is planned for the Custer Beacon for Tuesday ahead of the first broadcast of the segment.
Director of programming and communications for SDPB, Fritz Miller, said “Dakota Life” has been around for 24 years and in the past has contained series of stories from a variety of different places.
“We generally tell stories of the people, places and things of South Dakota,” said Miller, noting that recently the show’s producers decided to do something a little different.
“That is,” he said, “take the show on the road and visit specific communities.”
Since September each episode has been dedicated to just one town and so far the show has profiled such communities as Flandreau, Mobridge, Milbank, Springfield and Murdo, which was January’s entry.
With regard to the selection process, “there wasn’t a whole lot of science that went into it,” said Miller. “We identified towns that we thought were interesting, that were spread across the state and have cool stories to tell.”
“Dakota Life” host Larry Rohrer was in town with videographer Paul Ebsen recently to conduct interviews for the “Greetings From Custer” program and to shoot scenes of Custer life, such as the Burning Beetle event earlier this month. Colleen Hennessy reported last Tuesday she had walked out of her house on 8th Street that morning to see them shooting video of her fiberglass buffalo herd in her front yard and in the empty lot across the street.
Bradley Van Osdel, director of entertainment content for the network, said the show will feature interviews with residents to focus on four main aspects of life in Custer.
“We interviewed Hank Fridell and Dave Thom for a story on the Burning Beetle event,” said Van Osdel, “and Joseph and Eliza Raney from Skogen Kitchen restaurant about the food scene in Custer.”
Van Osdel said the reason for talking with the Raneys was to discuss Custer’s emergence as a destination for fine dining. Two other areas of focus will be Big Rock Park and Wind Cave National Park and will feature interviews with Jim Frank and Hennessy as well as Tom Farrell, the chief of interpretation for Wind Cave.
 He said the 30-minute program will help give people across the state insight “into some of the enchanting secrets that Custer has that they may not be aware of.”
The local, sneak preview event at the Beacon is set for Tuesday, Feb. 1 and is free and open to the public.
The first broadcast of the program will take place at 7 p.m. (MST) on SDPB stations and will be rebroadcast eight more times throughout the month. The tentative rebroadcast dates and times are:
• Thursday, Feb. 3, 7 p.m.
• Saturday, Feb. 5, 4:30 a.m.
• Sunday, Feb. 6, 4 a.m. & 12 noon
• Wednesday, Feb. 9, 12 a.m.  
• Wednesday, Feb. 16, 10:30 p.m.
• Sunday, Feb. 20, 8:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, Feb. 23, 12 a.m.
The show will also be posted on the SDPB website, SDPB.org/DakotaLife and is typically available for viewing the day after the initial broadcast

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