The board of directors of The Associated Press has elected William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and CEO of the privately held newspaper publisher MediaNews Group Inc., to be its next chairman.  Singleton becomes vice chairman of the AP immediately and is expected to succeed Burl Osborne, publisher emeritus of The Dallas Morning News, as chairman at the AP's annual meeting next May. Osborne will have completed five years as chairman.

Dirk Lammers, who won an APME enterprise award and Loeb award for last year’s story on Small Business Administration 9/11 loans going to businesses nowhere New York or Washington,  stayed on top of developments in July.  Lammers wrote for a national audience that the SBA’s internal watchdog told Congress the agency failed to ensure that businesses receiving government-backed terrorism relief loans were actually hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks. 

Mary Clare Jalonick, who covers South Dakota developments in Washington, set off a firestorm of reaction when she attended a gathering at the National Press Club that featured remarks by conservative Sen. John Thune, who became the darling of national Republicans in 2004 for defeating then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. During the event, Thune told Jalonick and other reporters that if he were running this year, he would distance himself from President Bush and his agenda. Jalonick's fast-file scored hits on dozens of newspaper online sites around the world. After a bit, a backtracking Thune, a leading contender to head the National Republican Senatorial Committee, went on Fox News Channel to claim the AP story mischaracterized his remarks. A Bush administration official, appearing on Meet the Press, tried to make the same contentions but could not answer host Tim Russert, who pointed out that The Hill had reported basically the same story.

Sioux Falls Newsman Carson Walker wrote the first story on a national fund drive planned by the family carving the Crazy Horse Memorial in the southern Black Hills. The goal is to work toward the granite mountain carving's completion and expand cultural and educational programs at the memorial. The story moved nationally, accompanied by photos from Chicago photographer Mike Green.

The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which draws hundreds of thousands of bikers to the Black Hills each August, also disrupts American Indians at Bear Butte, a sacred parcel of land near Sturgis. Walker did some digging and found that three tribes have spent $1.3 million over the last two decades to buy 2.6 square miles of land around the Butte to blunt development. Still, Indians gathered before the start of the rally to protest biker bars and other development around the usually serene Bear Butte. The story ran nationally.

The abortion ban story played out on a remote South Dakota American Indian reservation in July. Cecelia Fire Thunder, ousted in June as the Oglala Sioux Tribe's president after proposing an abortion clinic on her reservation, told Carson Walker she would argue before a tribal judge that she should be reinstated because the tribal council violated the rules. But the same judge who reinstated Fire Thunder then ruled she was out again--one day after being reinstated.  Walker kept state and national members abreast of the goings-on.

Member Contributions         

The Black Hills Pioneer contributed an on-cycle story on a closely watched political hassle.  The information was from a just-concluded news conference during which a Republican legislator announced he had decided not to run as a Democrat in an effort to regain the state Senate seat he lost  to an anti-abortion candidate.

KOTA-AM’s Bob Garcia of Rapid City and KBHB’s Gary Matthews of Sturgis provided regular and timely updates during a late-July wildire northwest of Rapid City. 

The Rapid City Journal provided timely and compelling photos of the Eastridge wildfire.

The Aberdeen American News supplied members with photo coverage of the state prep all-star games. 

JULY Contributions