DECEMBER 5, 2023, UPDATE:
It was a good move by South Dakota Speaker of the House Hugh Bartels of Watertown to not allow Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden to use a newly made gavel for the state’s House of Representatives.
The old gavel broke creating a light-hearted moment prompting some teasing from Bartels as Rhoden began a joint session of the South Dakota Legislature, just ahead of Governor Kristi Noem’s 2023 Budget Address.
Noem started her speech by joking that she was adding $50 to her state budget proposal to pay for the broken gavel.
District 24 Representative and House Republican Party Leader Will Mortenson of Pierre continued with the humor of the situation. Being a lawyer by trade, Mortenson says he knows exactly what to do.
Luckily enough, Bartels has a brand new gavel to use when the legislative session starts in January (Jan. 9, 2024). A Lake Area Technical College graduate built a new gavel head, fixed up the original handle and created a new sound block to complete the set.
While a lot of serious conversations will be had during South Dakota’s 2024 Legislative Session, Rhoden will most likely get quite a bit of razzing from Bartels and others about breaking a gavel two years in a row.
(News partner KWAT also contributed information for this story.)
Courtesy photo.
DECEMBER 5, 2023:
The Lake Area Technical College Foundation recently facilitated the creation of a new wooden gavel and sound block for the South Dakota House of Representatives. District 5 Representative and Speaker of the House, Hugh Bartels of Watertown, had conveyed last summer to Lake Area Tech President Tiffany Sanderson that the House gavel was in poor condition.
With the old, cracked gavel in hand, the LATC Foundation reached out to Riley Mohr, a 2014 LATC Building Trades Technology program graduate. When asked if he’d be interested in creating a new gavel and sound block for the House, Riley accepted the challenge.
Riley, owner of the Woods Edge Shop in Watertown, built a new gavel head using the original as the pattern. He spared the handle, which only needed a little refurbishing. Once the head and handle were fashioned together, the finishing touch was affixing to the head the gavel’s original gold band, engraved with “South Dakota House of Representatives.” After completing the gavel, Riley crafted a new sound block to complete the set.
The Lake Area Technical College Foundation recently presented the gavel and sound block to Speaker Bartels, who presides over the House of Representatives, at the Woods Edge Shop. The state will hear its ring when the gavel calls the 99th South Dakota Legislative Session to order on January 9, 2024.
(Story and photo courtesy of news partner KWAT.)
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