Governor Rhoden’s Weekly Column: Taking Action to Keep South Dakota Safe

Taking Action to Keep South Dakota Safe
By: Gov. Larry Rhoden
August 15, 2025  

I can’t sit still for long. Maybe it’s because I grew up on a ranch, where there was always something that needed doing. I’m at my most relaxed when I’m doing work with my hands, and it’s helped me out in public service. Sometimes, you just need to be willing to take action.

Recently, a couple South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers took action to keep our people safe. They didn’t wait to act – they saw what needed doing, then stepped up and did it.

One trooper took heroic action when she saw that a driver was driving on the wrong side of the Interstate near Sturgis. She sped off down the Interstate (on the right side of the road), got ahead of the vehicle, crossed the median, and pulled out in front of the vehicle. She was rearended, which was all part of the plan. Then, when the vehicle tried to pass her, she performed a tactical maneuver to force it onto the median where the driver was arrested for drunk driving.

Another trooper pulled over a speeding vehicle driving through Sturgis. What started as a routine traffic stop turned into the largest meth bust in the history of the Highway Patrol. The driver was a 42-year-old Mexican national driving cross-country with more than 200 pounds of meth in his vehicle – that’s a street value of over $12 million!

That criminal is already in immigration proceedings, and after due process, ICE will get him out of our country so that he won’t continue to traffic meth to Americans. This instance really underscored the need for Operation: Prairie Thunder, my public safety initiative that includes increased collaboration with ICE to get illegal alien criminals out of our country. A couple days later, I called the trooper who caught the perp, and he was nothing but humble.

We recently took one other action to advance Operation: Prairie Thunder, as well. The Board of Pardons and Paroles decided to parole ten criminal illegal aliens to ICE custody, individuals that my office and the Department of Corrections had helped identify as criminals who it would be appropriate to send back to their home country. South Dakota taxpayers shouldn’t be paying to house these criminals in our prisons – not when they shouldn’t be in our country to begin with.

That’s what you can count on from me and my administration: when necessary, we will take action to keep South Dakota strong, safe, and free.

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19 thoughts on “Governor Rhoden’s Weekly Column: Taking Action to Keep South Dakota Safe”

  1. the tale of the drunk driver shoved into the median touched me deeply. what a fine analogy for today’s entire top-to-bottom republican party under trump – impaired and speeding in the wrong direction.
    our three woozy drivers in congress rubber stamped the worst cabinet in history, the worst ever. we went from a practice of having the best and brightest in charge of the country, to this current ruinous charade which has made us both the laughingstock of the world, and possibly the most dangerous and erratic country on earth under this regime.
    to make matters worse we get a weekly lecture from thune about what a great boon to mankind their indifference and abdication has been.
    i used to eagerly and happily vote for all three of our congress members. no more. no sir.

        1. Ya, you haven’t been watching the news lately but that’s ok, we understand your limited brain power won’t allow you to see past your TDS. But you just keep making wrong statements as you have so many times already. Say, would you like to review a couple?

          1. Let’s save some, the really good ones, for later. Let’s just review the above word vomit you posted:

            “republican party under trump – impaired and speeding in the wrong direction.”
            -Have you seen the stock market? Have you seen the rate of inflation? Have you seen the amount of money that will be invested in the USA by international corporations? Have you seen the drop in crime just since President Trump took office? Have you seen the border numbers that Stumbles and Kackles claimed they could do nothing about? Have you seen the peace deals that have been brokered by the Trump Administration? Not to mention what was begun yesterday in Alaska (again, beginning to fix and stop a war that Stumbles allowed to happen, “not if it’s a minor incursion.”

            “the worst cabinet in history, the worst ever. we went from a practice of having the best and brightest in charge of the country, to this current ruinous charade which has made us both the laughingstock of the world, and possibly the most dangerous and erratic country on earth under this regime.”
            -Please explain how the USA is more erratic and dangerous than North Korea, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, or even Russia (remember they started that war when Stumbles was in charge, or was it the auto-pen?).

            “ indifference and abdication”
            -Describes the prior clown show under Stumbles and Kackles perfectly.

            “i used to eagerly and happily vote for all three of our congress members. no more. no sir.”
            -I bet all three are trembling with fear and regret.

              1. Avoidance and deflection, what a surprise. Then why don’t you address the points, deflection king?

                1. duhhhhh you didn’t make any points. there’s no point to lie-based provocative contradiction. bye sweetie stay in the pedo closet.

                  1. Obviously, your reading comprehension hasn’t improved so let’s try again. Address the post made at 12:48…oh, that’s right you can’t.

                    And please tell us what the “lie” is, exactly. Or are you scared to be proven wrong again?

                    “Pedo closet?” A personal attack based using a false accusation…the hallmark sign of one who has nothing to back his BS.

                    What a surprise.

  2. Why does Gov Roden use that near-Nazi SS insignia for his Operation Prairie Thunder logo on the sunglasses of the buffalo? So crude – – – and I hope it was unintedned.

    1. it doesn’t look like it, because the SS logo is a pair of S figures, each made by joining two identical parallelograms next to each other, one higher than the other. The thunderbolts were each made by aligning a trapezoid next to and higher than a triangle.
      I realize that some trapezoids can look a lot like parallelograms until you study them closely, but you should be able to tell the difference between a parallelogram and a triangle.

      1. Nice try Mister Rogers. If you google Waffen SS insignia and go to images you’ll get a whole page of the Waffen SS logo. The two shapes side by side in that image are incredibly close to the separate lightning bolts in each lens of the angry Uber cow’s sunglasses. The ONLY differences are the pointy bottom, and the separation of the lenses. Intentional or not, it’s the graphic arts equivalent of “Don’t Jerk and Drive” or “Meth – We’re On It.” Our capacity for consistency is actually commendable.

        1. All someone needed to do was 1. be sensitive to the potential for mistaken impressions, and 2. Make a traditional lightning bolt with 3 or 4 zigzags to it.

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