Sioux Falls Kiwanis

06/11/2026

An outstanding meeting yesterday as Susanne Huizing spoke to the club with a very passionate presentation. Susanne is the Director of Student Success and Co-Curricular Assessment at Southeast Technical College. With over 3100 students they have a 99% placement rate and currently they have 400 open positions and 83% of these students stay in state! As their degrees are accomplished in two years, there is not a lot of free time for part time jobs and taking care of their families which is where Susanne and her team come in to play helping these students where ever they can.

06/05/2026

A great day to be a Kiwanian. Thank you Austin, Rick, Andrew and his friend. Keith from CHS in on the right.

06/04/2026

Yesterday we had the privilege of listening to Dr. Joshua Duncan. Along with him he had his Dad and three other associates. Dr. Duncan spoke of the services they provide which includes individuals, couples and family as well as talking about "unlearning unhealthy attitudes" which we could all learn to do in our lives.

05/27/2026

Our speaker today was Brett Kollars who is the Interim Director of Parks and Recreation in the City of Sioux Falls. He gave us a run down of the parks in Sioux Falls plus the 5 new parks being built along with the new Lien Park to Great Bear bike trail. He finished by updating us with the progress of the new Kiwanis Shelter that will be built next year in Sherman Park.

05/20/2026

Our main speaker today was Mardella Prokop who is the Director of Access and Workforce Opportunity for Southeast Technical College. She gave a great talk explaining how she provides pathways for students for entrance fees and funding. She also had an interesting story how she's working with McCrossan Boys Ranch on bee keeping.

05/20/2026

We awarded six $1,000 scholarships today at Kiwanis. We started out hearing from Jamie Weyh from the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation who took time to explain about the scholarships and how they will be sent to the college of choice for the students.

Afterwards John Quello made the presentations to the six students. We had Dawson from Sioux Falls Christian, Brenna from O'Gorman High School, Madilyn from Sioux Falls Lutheran, Mason from Lincoln High School, Kennedy from Roosevelt and Hannah from Washington High School.

Congratulations to this years winners!

05/13/2026

We finished out the school year today with three students speaking as the others were busy with test schedules. We had Mason with Lincoln High School, Emma with Washington High School and Gabe with Sioux Falls Christian High School. Listening to the students is always the highlight of our month and we wish all of them well with their futures!

05/06/2026

Today we listened to Christine Erickson as she explained her vision for Sioux Falls as she runs for Mayor with the election on June 2nd. She covered such items as growth, prison reform, safety, affordable housing and property taxes. It's a large responsibility being mayor of a city the size of Sioux Falls but she assured us she is up to the challenge.

04/30/2026

Congratulations Damien!

Damien Deen received a $10,000 prize for second place in the Poetry Out Loud recitation competition presented by the National Endowment for the Arts.

04/29/2026

It was Minnehaha County Law Enforcement Day at Kiwanis today as we had Josh Phillips (L) who is the Captain of Investigations, Mike Milstead (C) who is the current Sheriff of Minnehaha County and Jeff Gromer (R) who is the Chief Deputy. Sheriff Milstead who is retiring gave a run down of his long career in law enforcement citing the recidivism rate of offenders along with the need for the new prison. Josh Phillips is currently running for Sheriff and we wish him well in his upcoming election.