- This is a production of SDPD.

- The tourism industry is strong in South Dakota.

Visitation numbers and visitors spending have continued to rise in recent years.

But even some of the state's most well-known attractions are subject to national concerns from workforce and housing availability to the potential impact of tariffs.

Current and former leaders of three West River attractions discuss what they expect for the busy season.

That's just beginning.

That's tonight's South Dakota Focus.

- South Dakota Focus is made possible with help from our members.

Thank you.

And by Black Hills State University and Cody, Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park.

- Mount Rushmore is the cornerstone of South Dakota's tourism industry, but it's managed by the Federal National Park Service.

The same is true of Badlands National Park.

Both attract more than a million visitors a year and you'd be hard pressed to drive to either attraction without seeing a sign for the locally run wall drug.

Sarah Hustead is the fourth generation leader and Vice President of Wall Drug, which started with her great grandparents in 1931.

Mike Pflaum is former superintendent of Badlands National Park.

He's now a special advisor for the Badlands National Park Conservancy and President Elect of the Association of National Park Rangers.

And Dan Wenk served as superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial from 1985 to 2001.

He now serves on the Mount Rushmore Society Board of Directors.

We sat for coffee at Wall Drug to talk about how these three major attractions prepare for the busy season.

So why don't we kind of start, Sarah with you and just a, a little bit of your own history in getting into the family business at Wal Drug and some of what you're looking forward to in this upcoming tourism season.

That's really just getting started.

- Absolutely.

Well, I started off when I was 14 bussing tables and then worked my way up to the soda fountain and then the office.

And then I went to school in Minnesota and got the opportunity.

We have a rule that you have to be asked back into the business.

So I needed to graduate from college and then came back in 2012.

So I'm going into my 13th season and really excited for it.

We had a pretty good year last year and we're excited for what this season is going to bring.

- So not taken for granted that you're going into the family business.

It was kind of a conversation.

- Yes.

Yeah.

That you, and then we had to go out and kind of get our chops and before coming back, so to bring something back into the business.

- Great.

Mike, why don't you share with us kind of what initially brought you to the Badlands and why it's still such an important place for you.

- Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here.

Badlands National Park in my distant memory is the first national park I ever visited as a 6-year-old kid from Southern Minnesota.

And that memory of going to the first overlook and going, wow, you know, I'm not in Kansas anymore.

It stuck with me for my entire life.

And throughout my career in the National Park Service, I frequently would visit Badlands, coming and going from my home in from my old home in Minnesota to my new homes, wherever they were in Yellowstone Park or the Black Hills.

And so I was always drawn back to the Badlands.

It's a spectacular park for so many reasons.

Landscape, geology, wildlife history and much more.

Yeah.

- Dan, what about you?

What's your first experience that you remember with Mount Rushmore?

- I started my career as a design landscape architect with the National Park Service.

And I was sent to the Black Hills to do some, some work in terms of design of employee housing back in about 1973 or 74.

And that was my first experience with seeing the, the four presidents other than from 30,000 feet as you fly across the, the Midwest.

And was lucky enough to be asked to come back as in 1985 as the superintendent.

- So Sarah, I, I hear that while drug really has to ramp up staffing during the tourism, the peak tourism season, about how early does that process start?

- It actually starts, we start in October, the year before because the process to acquire the H2B visas is quite lengthy.

And so we say goodbye to our seasonal employees around October and then by end of October we're already working on getting people lined up for the next season.

And we go from, we have 60 to 70 full-time employees and year round and then we add 120 employees during the season.

So it's a big ramp up.

We'll be picking up our first ones May 3rd.

Ideally they'd come more like April one.

But the Visas process have been very - Slow.

Yeah.

So say a bit more about these H2B visas for folks who aren't familiar with that.

- Right.

So the H2B Visa is a six month work visa and they are, we really count on those workers.

We're getting about 13 this year and you go into a lottery system and in January you'll figure out if you're approved and you'll get like A, B, C, D groups and then, then you're kind of, if you get like an F you're not getting your employees till later.

Oh and A is better.

- Right.

How have you seen that process shift in, in your time in, in your position with Wal Drug?

- It has, it has gotten tougher, tougher to get them through.

And since it is a lottery system, it's kind of, it's luck of the draw and it seems like we're having more trouble after they've been approved to get those visas at the embassies is taking a, just everything's taking a little bit longer as we go.

And then we also utilize the J1 Visa program, which is for students and that is a three month work visa and that program is much easier and has been going really well for us.

- Great.

That's good to hear.

Before we move on, I wanna ask if there are, you know, particular countries that we're predominantly seeing folks coming to well drug from and, and what kinds of supports there are for those folks who are coming to a new place and to work.

- Right, absolutely.

We bring a lot of kids from the J1 visas from Thailand and we try to diversify.

So Kazakhstan, Mongolia.

So we, it's really fun every summer 'cause you're in a tiny town and it's just a melting pot and learning so much about different cultures every year is really awesome.

And then we also utilize a lot of Jamaicans.

- Wonderful.

- Come to, - Yeah, Mike and Dan, you might be able to kind of compare and contrast your experiences.

'cause I imagine the needs differ depending on, you know, which parks.

So maybe Mike, if you would wanna start kind of how at Badlands you, you would traditionally beef up for the peak season?

- Yes, and you know, Badlands, like most national Parks has a, a core group of permanent employees who are the managers, the supervisors take care of administration of the park.

And then every year we would hire as many seasonal employees as the budget allowed, as housing allowed for in order, do everything from fee collection to emergency services, to operating the visitor center desk, to doing visitor programs and maintaining facilities and much more.

So in many cases it was the seasonal employees who would be the face of the park, if you will, the core of the work group as far as visitors would see.

And so we would start, as Sarah said, shortly after the previous season had ended, we would begin planning and budgeting and preparing recruitment notices that hopefully would go out by early winter and then by January or February at the latest, we'd be deep into the, the hiring process to get people on board by April or May or June.

- Dan, is that a pretty similar experience at Mount Rushmore?

- Exactly, and I think, I think the only thing I'd add is that I think a lot of parks are very fortunate to have long-term seasons.

We relied on people who would come back year after year.

They would know the park, they would know the stories, they would know the educational side of what they were going to do.

And they'd also understand what they needed to do and how they were gonna contribute to the efficiency and the, the things that people have come to experience and to love about national parks.

- And I'm sure folks who are watching this are, are aware of the, the large layoffs that happened around Valentine's Day with the National Park Service and have heard a lot about some of the uncertainty for the upcoming season and how things have changed.

What do we know today that we didn't know on Valentine's Day?

How, how much are we able to bring people up to speed from what you're hearing in your circles?

- Well, I think what we know is that we will have a seasonal workforce.

I think at about that time we were not sure that, that the park service would be able to hire the seasonals.

What we don't know is how that's going to translate until in, in the visitor season, because many of the seasonal employees were those long time seasonal employees who came back year after year when they, when the uncertainty arose in terms of would they have a job and if they had a job, would it last?

Many very high qualified people decided to do something else in the, in the past, I'd say five plus or minus years, it's been very hard to find the seasonal workforce parks need to operate.

There's the people who wanted to work within parks.

It was very competitive.

You oftentimes didn't know if you had a full force until really late in the season.

And I think we won't know that until we get into mid-May and going forward.

- And I would say because of the confusion over if we can hire, when we can hire things got going a little bit late, I do believe that there will be a strong cadre of seasonal employees in the parks this summer and that most visitors will not see any noticeable impacts.

I think the other thing that has happened since the firings of Valentine's Day, some of those people have been hired back, others chose not to come back.

I think the administration is appealing all of that.

And now many permanent employees, many senior managers and others have accepted early retirements or taken a resignation.

And so there's an impact on that part also.

Again, I don't think that's going to be a noticeable impact for the summer, but I think it has ramifications for the long-term management of our national parks.

- Sarah, and of course Wal Drug is a family private business, not not looking at those federal layoffs, but because these attractions are so close together and pretty closely related, I wonder if like, how you've been watching that, if that's been anything of concern to Wall Drug or if there are really other things that you're more focused on.

- Right.

I'm certainly, it, it's a concern and, and like they were saying, we're getting employees much later in the season than like, I, I'm bringing some people in in July, which is very unusual.

So we'll be running a pretty lean crew through May and June, but we, we, we can do that we're, I ran one season with a staff of 120, so we know we can do it, but it will be tough.

- Yeah.

And you see millions of visitors come through in a typical summer.

- Right.

Yeah.

- I wanna circle back to, because these attractions rely so much on, on seasonal workers coming from other communities into small towns like wall and and surrounding areas.

How, how big of a role did you play as really leadership or do you play as leadership in helping folks find housing get settled into the community?

How does that relationship with these attract staff and the broader communities in South Dakota work?

- Well, I'll start out, housing is a perennial issue in many national parks.

And I'm gonna say certainly it is at Badlands, there's not enough housing for the number of seasonal employees that we usually are able to hire.

So we fill up the park housing and then people accept positions without housing available and they're left to look for housing and specific to bad lands, you know, it's Wall maybe Kadoka, maybe Philip, maybe in a very limited way Interior.

And all of those markets have a small number of seasonal rentals available.

And so ultimately what happens at Badlands is we will get people who either accept jobs and then later decline because they can't find housing or decline right at the start.

So housing is a major issue.

Fortunately the National Park Service has a core of housing to get us through, you know, with with with a core number of folks.

- One of the things I'd say is in my introduction, you said I came here in 1985, the number of visitors, you know, in the infrastructure within the National Parks has not changed commensurate with the number of visitors who, who come to the parks.

And so housing is a major issue in terms of people accepting jobs and being able to afford the housing that is, is available.

I think I would use Mount Rushmore as an example from the time I got there till today, I would say the seasonal workforce is probably almost tripled in size.

And so it, it is a significant problem that, you know, we search and try to reach agreements with groups and organizations that outside of the park can provide, we can have contracts with to provide housing for employees because to pay for seasonal employees is not commensurate with, with finding a one or two bedroom apartment.

And so it's very difficult unless we provide assistance.

- And, and I'd just like to add even the employees who are housed in the park pay rent, it's not a free housing situation.

They pay rent based on a comparability study by within surrounding communities.

And when you think about the South Dakota parks, we're talking a lot about Badlands in Mount Rushmore, but Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Minuteman Missile, Missouri River, all face, very similar issues.

And then I would ask us to think a little bit bigger because of, you know, the, the great American road trip phenomenon where people who come to these parks are very often going to a number of other parks in a multi-state area.

So you can extend that out to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Theodore Roosevelt, Rocky Mountain, Fort Laramie, Scott's Bluff, you know, 15 to 30 parks within a day's drive.

- Interesting.

Yeah.

Sarah, how do you see that kind of translate in a small place like Wall bringing in, you know, students and, and other piece of workers and folks like that too?

- So we, we house all our seasonal employees and then we, I would say we are like, you struggle with the housing, I'm somewhat swimming in bad lands wake.

If they can't house someone, maybe I'll get the employee said, said to say, 'cause we, we can field quite a bit of housing.

We own a trailer court in town and then we've acquired quite a few houses around town and the management that goes into housing all the employees is pretty extensive.

- Yeah.

So not quite the same, you know, struggle to, to find housing for folks is what I'm, what I'm getting from that.

It, - It's a struggle, but we're always trying to add more houses and to even for our year-round people, we've found that it's a really good recruitment tool and it's just pretty impossible for them to find rentals around wall.

So - Yeah.

Sarah, we've talked about kind of the, the international workforce that while drug brings in for the peak season, but share with us a bit the, the local impact and, and the local workforce and how you're, you work with, with South Dakota communities.

- Absolutely.

We're lucky to, we used to employ the seasonal staff almost all with American College students and now we're going into the season I think we have three, which is a lot.

So we've gone into seasons with, with none.

And then we also utilize, we call them snowbirds or we're campers and we have a campsite, snowbird lane we call it.

And we're lucky to get those, those people in as well.

And then as far as local, we have some high school students working as well that we're very fortunate to get.

- Yeah.

What, when did that shift seem to happen from American College students to looking internationally - Kind of gradually and, and then like go back 20 years we were running with more like, you know, maybe 25 and as as internships became more important, we saw less and less college students applying.

- So we've, we've talked kind of broadly about, you know, staffing for this current season.

I'm wondering if there are any other challenges or any other things that we're looking at as we enter kind of the 2025 peak season that maybe the average South Dakotan might not have thought about or for things that might support the tourism industry.

Sarah, I can start with you - For sure.

We're seeing a lot of our, our supplies and food costs go up quite a bit already and we're getting notices from our suppliers with like our retail items that they're upping the prices in anticipation of coming tariffs.

And so that's something that's definitely on our mind and we're hoping it kind of blows over and if not, we'll we'll try and adjust.

Of course.

- I will reiterate that I think the summer season in the national parks should be fine in general and that people won't notice too many impacts from all the changes.

I think a greater thing to keep an eye on for people who enjoy the value and importance of national parks is how things turn out after all the resignations, after some possible reorganization.

You know, how all that plays out in the long run.

You know, the National Park Services and Agency that's been around for, you know, well over a hundred years and has evolved into not perfect, but in my opinion, the best agency in the world at managing resources and stories and allowing for outstanding opportunities for park visitors.

I'm hopeful that that will continue.

But again, my concern is, is for how the Park Service lands on its feet after the impending changes.

- I would just add a couple quick things is, is I agree with Mike, I think the long-term consequences for some of the actions that are happening right now, we can't, we have to figure out a way not to allow the degradation of resources, whether they be natural resources or cultural resources.

And we have to have the staff and the ability to take care of and protect those.

And I worry that this is going to be a change in that, that ability.

The other thing that I would say is that we, we don't manage parks alone.

I mean we, we have other partners that work in our parks like concession facilities at, at most of the parks in South Dakota and or many of the parks.

I don't think it's most, but those, you know, we do have a program in those parks where we, we ask that they buy American.

So I'm not sure how much it will the, you know, pending tariffs, how much that'll affect the goods that are on the, on the shelves within national parks.

But I think they're gonna suffer the same things that Sarah was talking about in terms of increased cost and there's only one thing you can do with increased cost and that's pass it on to visitors.

- We're in our, our kind of closing moments of this conversation and so I wanna bring it to something all four of us have in common, which is we live in South Dakota.

So I wonder if we can just kind of close this with, I guess re reflecting on your experience as a resident of this place that relies so much on this industry that all three of you are intimately familiar with from kind of the behind the curtain aspect of, of the visitor experience.

But what does it mean to you to also be a resident of this place and, and why, you know, continuing this work in this area has been important to the three of you.

So whoever would like to start, - For me it's, well, South Dakota is one of the most, South Dakota is really one of the most friendly places I've ever been in terms of, you know, your neighbors, you know your neighbors, whether they be within a a mile radius of your house or within the state of South Dakota.

I mean, it's a very, it's a, it's a small, it's a small town in that regard.

But another, but another thing that is incredible to me in South Dakota is the public lands, the national forest, the national parks, the grasslands, the BLM lands.

We are, we are rich in natural resources in South Dakota.

And the opportunities that those resources provide are, are, make it a great place to live.

And I think, I think we do have in South Dakota more and more amenity migrants, people who are coming from other places to come to South Dakota because of the amenities that we have and the public lands are one big part of that.

- And I also treasure the public lands in South Dakota and the greater region I am, I drank the Kool-Aid early on in my national park service career, again about the importance and value of public lands and how each one of us owns a minute portion of those, but we're all free to go and explore.

And I am a, you know, sort of an explorer and adventurer and I get out there and I trapes around a lot, you know, all of our national parks in South Dakota.

And, you know, living in Rapid City puts me within striking distance of 15 to 30 other national parks within a day's drive in a, in a five state area.

And so that's a big part of it for me and affordable place to live where public land access is, is good.

- And Sarah, you're fourth generation, so how does that - Right?

- Yeah.

What does that mean for you?

- Well, this is, this is home and, and to be able to drive just eight miles south and drive through the bad lands on a whim and see the gorgeous scenery or head up to the hills, it's, I feel incredibly lucky to be in South Dakota and involved in, in the tourism industry.

And there's a huge sense of community in, in the industry where we're somewhat in competition, but across the state we're all trying to lift each other up.

And if, if I have a customer coming through and not stopping at the bad lands, I'm like, whoa, you, you can't come here and not, not go through the bad lands.

And and I hear that from other business owners that they're sending them my way.

And I think the sense of community that South Dakota has, like, like you were saying, it's, it's one big small town and it really feels like home and one big family in a lot of ways.

- Sarah Hustead, Mike PFlaum, Dan Wenk, thank you, all three of you for, for sharing this time with us.

- Thank you, thank you, thank you.

- We spent this season learning about some of the challenges that come with an industry that relies on visitors.

We also learned the ways communities can leverage those opportunities for their own growth.

Throughout it all, we met people who feel a sense of pride in sharing their corner of South Dakota with the rest of the world, even with potential challenges ahead, that pride will drive the state's tourism industry forward as South Dakota continues to grow.