After 22 years of leading his flocks, Pastor Robert Anderson retired from the pulpit last Sunday.

Anderson preached at both Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Custer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Hill City since 1988. He also led services at the State Treatment and Rehabilitation (STAR) Academy for juveniles for over a dec

Most people would avoid anything with the words “gut check” in the name of the event. 

Not Richard Efird, though. He seeks them out.

The 56-year-old retired from the military and moved to Custer eight years ago. Always one to take on a challenge, he signed up for the Gut Check 212 ride, a 412-mile bike ride from the Wyoming border to the Minnesota border along U.S. Highway 212.

On Saturday, July 24, Clayton and Sally Chord opened their home and ranch west of Custer to the public for an open house featuring their Quarter Horses.

The Chords both grew up on ranches in western South Dakota.  For nearly 30 years, they have owned Cee Heart Quarter Horses, a foundation bred Quarter Horse program, as a continuation of Sally’s parents’ operation which began in 1958.  “My parents (Jack and Ellen Paulton) originally just loved horses. But then, as they had kids, they wanted to raise good youth horses that us kids could enjoy and be competitive on,” said Sally.  

Tammy Walker of Custer is officially Custer County’s biggest loser, and she couldn’t be happier about it.

The Custer County Chronicle’s Biggest Loser competition wrapped up last week. Walker lost 34-1/2 pounds, or 21.97 percent of her original total weight. 

There’s a new peak on the horizon, as the Mountainview Baptist Church has begun construction of its new church. The new church will house almost three times the space of their current building, and will be adequate for its immediate ministry needs. Plans to expand yet even further are also in the works in case  more room is needed in the future.

Laura Burden decided to take the skills she had developed from her career occupational therapy and start Laura’s Integrated Functional Therapy on 5th Street in Custer.

Burden had worked in Hot Springs for the last 15 years as an occupational therapist for all age groups, from children to the elderly. She eventually decided she wanted to see occupational therapy beyond the standard medical setting; she wanted to see it in a store, easily accessible to the public. In addition, she had also grown weary of the commute between Custer and Hot Springs.

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Reports of several sightings of two wolves in Custer County are being investigated, according to John Kanta, regional wildlife manager for the Game, Fish and Parks (GP&P) Department, Rapid City.

Kanta told members of Custer’s Rotary Club last Monday noon that he has asked state trapper Jack Alexander to verify if the wolves are here in the county. They have been reported to be seen west of Wind Cave National Park and south of Pringle.

Michael Burgraff, director of the Black Hills Playhouse through some of its most tumultuous moments, has resigned his position.

The resignation, effective as of last Tuesday, came after Burgraff accepted the position of executive director at the Spearfish Arts Center. Burgraff had served as the executive director of the Playhouse for the past two and a half years

Cozy Dorton walked into Custer Elementary just as she has thousands of time before. Something was different this time, though. As she passed the board that held photos of all the teachers and staff members employed by the school, she noticed her picture was missing.

“That’s when it really hit me,” she said. “This is for real.”

A Custer nurse was recently recognized by her peers and employer for her exemplary work in her field.

Jennifer Hart was recently awarded the Rapid City Regional Hospital Rising Star-Novice Award, given to individual who are new in the profession. Hart began work for Regional in 2008, and is a home care and hospice nurse.

LoRae Cox has always been an artist, but on a small scale.

Cox, of Custer, works at Baker’s Bakery and has done some drawing for the bakery, including drawing the girl who is on the menu at the bakery. That’s really as far as she had ever taken her art, until this year.

The Custer High School Art Club had added its own splash of color to this year’s Custer Stampede, creating a tabletop buffalo for this year’s auction.

The club, consisting of juniors and seniors, spent the better part of two months painting the buffalo, which they have named “Max,” a take off from artist Peter Max.

tampede, and it is proving to be a challenge.

Red Horse, who has been doing art for as long as he can remember, is a realistic oil painter by trade. However, he is using acryllic paint on the life-sized buffalo he is making for the Stampede, which has proved to have a learning curve for him.

Available only in the print version of the Custer County Chronicle. To subscribe, call 605-673-2217.

Antelope, deer, elk, grouse, pheasants — you name the species, you can hunt it somewhere in South Dakota.  But one animal for which there is no season in this state is the kangaroo. 

It behooves the avid hunter then to go where the 'roos are.  So that's what Custer native Zach McLain did. 

The Shady Rest Motel has new owners, but those owners aren’t new to the area.

The hotel, formerly owned by Joel and Kari Tucker, and Bill and Marie Tucker before them, was recently purchased by John and Ann Dvorak. The Dvorak family has spent the past 11 years in Oregon, but before that, were Black Hills residents.

A Hermosa get-together on Saturday should provide not only a great time, but help raise money for an important local cause as well.

“A Hermosa Saturday Night”  will begin at 6 p.m. at the Hermosa school gym. Entrance to the event is free, and there will be food, a magic show, cloggers and a silent auction. During this annual occurrence it is hoped residents will donate to the Hermosa Arts and History Association (HAHA), which will use the funds to continue renovating the original Hermosa schoolhouse into a museum.

Inspired by a Native North American legend, Marlize Loucks is creating “Buffalo Woman” for this year’s Custer Stampede art auction.

The piece, which Loucks has been working on for over a month, is made from scratchboard. Scratchboard is cardboard similar to poster board that has been coated on one side with a layer of hard white chalk.

Going on her fourth year of creating art for the Custer Stampede, Nancy Cambier is doing something different this year.

Back in the days of the Free Speech Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, the Weather Underground and dozens of causes for the socially misfit and downtrodden, the 1960s and early 1970s stand alone as a rallying point which nearly ignited a modern day total rebellion within the U. S. Slogans were “Question Authority,” “Make Love, Not War,” “Tune in and Drop Out” and “Don’t Trust Anyone Over 30.” Those are the printable ones.

Imagine someone taking a chunk of ancient Rome, with a splash of science fiction and a coming of age story and tossing it into a bag with 124 blank pages in it. After shaking the bag to and fro the handler opens the bag up and hands you  a completed novel. In a sense, that is what Custer graduate Cody Deatherage did upon writing his first book, “Tides of Fate: The Legendary Aroden:Book 1 Vindication.” 

One girl’s middle school dream became a reality last month when she twisted her way into the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, set for this February. Lacy Schnoor, Draper, Utah, earned her spot on the American aerial skiing team after landing a triple-twisting jump in Olympic Trials in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Schnoor said she had a 50-50 chance of landing it since she practiced the jump on the snow for the first time the day before the event.

Some family research on the South Dakota State Archives website led Paula Schaeper of Dallas, Texas, to the Custer County Chronicle, and more specifically, “Down Memory Lane.”