Tony Venhuizen writes on his blog about yesterday’s loss of one of South Dakota’s legislative icons, former Republican House member Jan Nicolay:
The sad news comes that Jan Nicolay, a longtime Sioux Falls educator and state legislator, died this morning, aged 82.
As this blog wrote in 2018, Nicolay was a trailblazer for women in South Dakota politics. First elected to the State House in 1982, it was in 1987 that she became the first woman to co-chair the powerful Joint Appropriations Committee, serving as House chair for ten years from 1987-96. (For six of those years, from 1987-92, Nicolay co-chaired the committee with my grandfather, Senate Chair Henry A. Poppen.)
and..
Nicolay’s legacy in the State Legislature continues to this day. The Joint Appropriations Committee is a world apart from the rest of the legislature, and there is a long history of committee chairs training the next generation of leaders. Among Nicolay’s proteges was J. E. “Jim” Putnam of Armour, who would serve in both houses as appropriations chair or vice chair for sixteen consecutive years from 1995-2010. Putnam, in turn, mentored Jean Hunhoff of Yankton, who today serves as Senate Appropriations Chair and is the longest-serving woman in the history of the State Legislature, and Deb Peters of Hartford, who chaired the senate committee for four years. Nicolay, Hunhoff, and Peters are the only women to chair the appropriations committee in either house.
She was one tough customer…people had to have their facts straight before they challenged her. She backed down the toughest, including Bill Janklow.