- This is a production of SDPB.

- My name is Jackie Hendry.

I fell in love with South Dakota in the backseat of my parents' SUV.

Almost 20 years ago.

That family vacation turned into a college degree, an internship and a career that takes me all across the state.

Now I'm looking at the industry that's introduced millions of other visitors to the place I get to call home.

And there's only one place to start.

The ripples of the Sturgis motorcycle rally.

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.

- The city of Sturgis hosts the largest motorcycle rally in the world, but you probably knew that already.

What began as a street race by a local motorcycle dealer in the late thirties has evolved into a South Dakota tradition unlike anything else.

For better or for worse.

- If I had to pick one place on the whole planet that I would put a pin in a globe to say, this is the center of Earth's motorcycle culture.

I would put that pin right here at the intersection of Junction and Main Street where the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum's located.

- Craig Bailey is president of the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame.

He rode from Minnesota to attend his first Sturgis motorcycle rally in 1979, back when many rally goers camped in the city park, - It got kind of progressively more wild where there were things happening on the stage that really probably weren't appropriate for sure to the city fathers.

And eventually it got to the point where some of the clubs would get 'em a little more rowdy.

They started burning the outhouses That didn't help anybody at all.

I believe that the rally was very close to ending.

It was not sustainable with that level of chaos.

- In 1981, the rally barely survived a city referendum, but a savior emerged in the form of private businessman Rob Woodruff, who invited bikers to the Buffalo Chip campground a few miles outside of town.

Today, the Buffalo Chip hosts, races, exhibits, and big time music acts, along with hundreds of campers.

Governor Kristi Noem credits Woodruff for making the rally what it is today.

Craig Bailey believes the Buffalo chip saved the rally.

- It took the pressure off the city fathers to shut down the rally and allowed that to become a sustainable event.

Of course, adding concerts and and all of the camping really made a difference, in my opinion, in the history of Sturgis, allowing it to continue and actually getting bigger, better, more controlled, more of an economic development benefit and more of a worldwide phenomenon.

And the Sturgis rally is a phenomenon.

- South Dakota's longtime Secretary of Tourism, Jim Hagen agrees.

Wholeheartedly - We like to say a lot of people like to imitate it, but it'll never be copied.

It's an original when you look at events in the state that are truly global in nature, and I would say the Sturgis Motorcycle rally was really our first global event, drawing people from all over the, all over the planet, - Repeat rally goers have made a decades long tradition of coming to Sturgis every August.

This is Brian Cervenka's 32nd consecutive rally.

I asked what he remembers from that first visit.

- Oh my God, I did everything that year.

Yeah, yeah.

I got my, I got my ear pierced.

I bought my first leather jacket.

Nice one.

I did almost everything but get arrested that year.

That was the year I officially came a biker - And he didn't look back.

He even earned recognition from a biker magazine about a decade after his first Sturgis rally.

- Well, back in 2004, my 1200 84 Gold Wing, I put 468,000 on it and I sent it into Wing World Magazine and I made the front cover on it.

And so then the guys got a kick out of that and now like it was Biker of the Year for that year, and my posters hung up in the bathroom - Around that same time, Cervenka and some friends bought a house in Sturgis to convert it to a shower house and personal campsite.

- And y'all decided to go in together just to have that reliable place to stay for the - Rally.

Yep.

Yep.

It only - Gets used once a year.

- Rather than pay inflated hotel prices for the week or battle hundreds of thousands of other campers for a new spot every year, Cervenka and others from this Minnesota friend group just pitched their tents in the yard of their property.

It's convenient, but not always comfortable.

Repeat rally goers Jeff Langeberg and Diane Picha are here with Diane's daughter Jillisa Schoenbauer.

- It's gonna be what, a hundred and some odd degrees today?

Yeah.

Terrible.

But as soon as it gets dark, we've got a fan in our tent.

Seems silly, but that helps so much.

I mean, we slept just perfect last night.

It was our closest to a hotel we can get until we leave, right?

- Tenting is fun.

Yeah, - I brought a fan.

I would not say it was perfect.

It was hot - Because you're the first - Timer of this crew.

Yeah, - Yeah.

- Hence the hat.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So we've been coming for 30 years and this is the first year.

Brought my daughter, trying to get a new generation going here - My first time it rained every day, day and night.

So you either for your first time come out in a hundred degree heat.

Yes.

Or you come out and it downpours the whole time and then that's the experience.

The day you leave.

It's perfect weather.

So this week I'm gonna stay all week and I'll hit the nice weather at the end of the week.

- Jeff rides his motorcycle to the rally each year.

This year Diane and Jillisa came by car.

These days, a significant portion of rally goers bring their motorcycles on trailers.

- It's always the joke when we leave.

We're from Minnesota, so over by Mankato, and when we take off, it's like, alright, we're hitting 90.

It's gonna be the trailer race.

Used to be bikes now its a trailer race.

- It's a sentiment shared by longtime visitors, Lori and Lloyd Schoenbauer.

This is their first rally with a new three wheel vehicle.

- We typically ride our Gold Wing, we drive, we don't trailer.

We're sort of at a point in our life where we're transitioning free retirement practice, retirement, I guess you could say.

And this year we got a slingshot.

We wanna make sure that, you know, we're being safe, but yet we still want that experience of having the wind blow through your hair and experiencing the elements, et cetera.

We've kind of seen a lot of transition with Sturgis, like when we were coming here in the nineties, it was like very heavily focused like on the downtown area.

And now the rally is really dispersed with all of the campgrounds and stuff.

But I think it's like really important just like with any sort of sport or you know, passion, just to make sure that like we kind of have that next generation that wants to like continue on the legend, if you will.

- A recent study commissioned by the city of Sturgis, from Texas A&M University found the average rally goer is just over 50 years old.

In order to maintain a steady stream of other decades long repeat visitors, the rally needs to attract today's 20 and 30 year olds.

Tourism secretary, Jim Hagen, says that's why his department launched a campaign to entice younger audiences with live concerts and other elements of the 84 year strong tradition, the OG HD campaign.

- OG standing for original gangster.

If you wanna use some hip terms there.

- Whether you ride or rage, get ready to Kid Rock and Jelly Roll your top live at Buffalo Chip, the biggest, baddest rally on the planet just got bigger, better, and louder.

Sturgis.

- The campaign is also one that is broad.

So whether you're a biker or a non biker, or you ride a Harley or an Indian motorcycle, whether you're male, female, red, yellow, black, white, it doesn't matter.

We're really trying to divert, diversify this audience and, and, and just showcase other aspects of the rally that are fun.

You may not ride a motorcycle, but from concerts to doing your own scenic drives in a car, whatever, there's just so much to Experience - And I'm glad you brought that up because I was gonna ask about kind of that average age trending upward, and then depending on who I ask, it's either, oh, I don't even wanna be around the first couple weeks of August.

Or people say, ah, it used to be better.

It used to be wilder or something like that.

- I think the last study that the city of Sturgis did, we, we started to see the average age is around 50.

And with the campaigns that we've run the last two years now, this has been interesting.

97% of the bookings, the advanced bookings that we see are from people 49 years and younger, 49 years old and younger.

So a really starting to trend to a younger audience, which is great because we want to build that next generation of bikers and the excitement and, and listen, there is no better place on the planet to ride a motorcycle than in this state.

- Last year, rally attendance for the 25 to 44-year-old age group increased by 3%.

That's according to Deb Holland, director of communication and outreach for the city of Sturgis.

She suspects this year's inaugural Sturgis Tourist trophy race in partnership with American Flat Track.

And AMA pro racing could attract a new generation of bike enthusiast.

She thinks they'll follow the emerging trend of affordable, versatile adventure bikes.

- You know, my son is 35 and and it's for him to afford a, a new Harley, but, but he might be able to get in on a different bike.

It's catering to that new audience.

And I think that the, the race will bring in a new audience and, and it'll, you know, if you're not changing and improving, you're dying.

- But this new race was almost dead on arrival.

Race organizers initially asked the city of Sturgis to put $650,000 towards safety barriers and other protective measures.

- At the same time, the city was undergoing some budget cuts.

You know, we were tightening our belt and, and that just didn't sit well with residents.

And so the residents brought it to a vote and said, how can you spend 650,000, but you're not gonna fix my street?

- Sturgis residents brought the matter to a vote and rejected the investment.

- And so AMA came back and said, okay, how about we shoulder the cost?

Would that be more amenable to the residents of Sturgis?

And so they passed the resolution and, and said, yes, we are gonna host this race.

AMA is gonna cover the cost.

- Representatives for the race, expressed their enthusiasm for the partnership during one of the rallies, daily press conferences.

- This whole thing, like I said, is gonna create a spectacle we're trying to build up the second weekend.

Yeah, I would just add to that the whole idea behind Sturgis DT is to bring racing back to the rally.

Right?

This, the, the Sturgis motorcycle rally started with flat track racing a long, long time ago, and we're very excited to bring it back to the city streets.

- A rain delay offered one last speed bump on race day.

But Deb Holland is optimistic about the chance of a new tradition.

- This is kind of their trial run because they really wanna go full out in for the 85th.

But it, it's still exciting and I think it's gonna draw a new crowd to the last week into the rally.

- That crowd typically wanes in the final days of the week long rally.

But as any local will tell you, the weeks leading up to the rally bring a noticeable uptick in motorcycle traffic.

Unfortunately, that can translate to an uptick in accidents in a post on Facebook, The South Dakota Highway Patrol reported responding to 12 motorcycle crashes with injuries including four fatalities in the days before the official start of the rally.

As for the official rally dates this year, highway patrol reported three fatal accidents compared to five last year.

State and local law enforcement partner to handle the drastic increase of visitors during rally season.

Among them is Sturgis Police Chief Geody VanDewater.

This is his ninth rally as chief.

He says, this time of year comes with an increase in certain violations.

- So when people come here, they come here for the party.

Right.

Everybody wants to come here and have a good time.

And a lot of that consists of drinking.

So a lot of alcohol violations.

- Sometimes it's as simple as an open container violation.

Other times it's a DUI, highway patrol reports an increase of those this year.

And some rally goers bring more than alcohol to the party.

Felony drug arrests were up slightly this year compared to last.

- We will see anything that Chicago, New York, these big cities are seeing.

But on a smaller footprints, drugs, domestics, like I said, you get, you get a bunch of people together and they're drinking it will and it's hot, very hot.

And so yeah, sometimes tempers get short and people don't always get along.

- The massive influx of visitors also puts the rally under scrutiny for potential sex trafficking.

- And you know that that's kind of a touchy situation.

And I don't mean any offense to anybody because that is a, a sick crime and it needs to be handled and addressed.

We take every report of that serious, but in reality, we don't see a lot of it.

- VanDewater says he relies heavily on partnerships with state and federal authorities who are able to be more proactive in investigating these crimes.

Prostitution stings consistently yield arrests during rally season.

- There's always success of course.

And so we get a local person and that local person's Black Hills area, you know.

It's not, it's not Joe Blow coming in from Oregon or California or Wyoming or wherever.

It's someone from around the area, which is really interesting.

It's good and bad.

At least we know there's not a lot of ulterior motives of people coming in from outside.

But it also is concerning because we have that issue locally.

Yeah.

You know, and like I said, we'll see things on a same, on a smaller scale that these big cities see.

So is there human trafficking?

Very well could be.

We're doing our due diligence to make sure that we're combating it, keeping them, keeping it away, or making sure it's not happening as much as we can.

- This year, federal and local authorities arrested seven men following a sting during the rally.

The charges include enticement of a minor using the internet and attempted commercial sex trafficking of a minor.

All seven men are from nearby South Dakota communities.

In a 2019 South Dakota Law Review article titled Beyond the Cages Sex Trafficking in South Dakota, the authors say, while the rally certainly draws out individuals looking to purchase sex, the issue does not vanish.

After rally festivities conclude, the article goes on to highlight Native Americans as an at-risk group for sex trafficking, both in South Dakota and across the nation.

Sex trafficking is just one layer of the broader crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people.

Or MMIP.

A variety of factors put indigenous people, especially women at risk for murder, domestic violence and other violent crimes.

These cases often go unsolved due in part to jurisdictional or financial limitations.

The Medicine Wheel ride is an advocacy group centered on the biker community as an avenue for raising awareness of the issue across the country.

Lorna Cuney a Oglala Lakota woman from Pine Ridge is one of the co-founders.

- Well, the Medicine Ride started from several women.

You know, I'm just a very small piece in that story.

We are a collective of women who came together and shared stories of experiences with MMIP, missing and murdered indigenous people and also domestic violence, you know, and that's what started the conversation.

And, and we just came together and said, what can we do to help?

How can we, you know, bring resources to families?

The first year we decided to do a ride throughout the United States in the shape of a medicine wheel.

That year we only started with seven riders, and then it has grown from there.

And the next year we said, let's take it to Sturgis because you know, I'm, I'm local, I'm from here.

And what better way to, you know, to bring awareness.

- Prairie Rose Seminole is from the three affiliated tribes of North Dakota.

She's lost relatives to the MMIP crisis and is herself a survivor of domestic violence.

She says The medicine wheel ride is an opportunity to tell the story of the MMIP issue by focusing on practical help for families rather than exploiting their trauma.

She co-directed a documentary short film called We Ride For Her.

- The film follows one individual and how the Medicine Wheel Ride helps her and her family during the search of their loved one.

And really how these incredible women move their grief into advocacy, into action.

And when we can tell a story that allows people to feel that they could be a part of it too.

I mean, Sturgis draws hundreds of thousands of people every year and for us to claim space here in a sacred area like Bear Butte, But through that patriarchal dominant culture of a ride, like it allows us as women and survivors to just bring more awareness, but also just to carry our loved ones with us.

- Registration fees, donations and other proceeds go towards mutual aid for families seeking justice for their loved ones.

In the days leading up to this ride, Lorna Cuney had ridden more than 2000 miles from California stopping along the way to raise awareness for the nationwide issue.

- I mean, I have my young daughter sitting here with me and to be able to make a difference in our community.

'cause this is, you know, my community, you know, this is, you know, Prairie Rose's community.

This is, you know, so it's important that we bring here because we know there are things that happen here that aren't always talked about.

- This isn't just about a native issue.

This is an issue that people need to get a part of and it's gonna take all of us to end the crisis of violence and the crisis of missing word indigenous relatives.

- The Sturgis motorcycle rally is a longstanding, lucrative tradition, but what it brings to the state in dollars, it costs residents in normalcy for a few weeks every summer.

Whether or not it's worth it depends on who you ask.

Deb Holland with the City of Sturgis tells us about a survey of residents feelings about the city's role in the rally.

- At that time, the city said they made $300,000 on the rally and the citizens said, that is not enough for what we put up with.

We're, we're looking for a million dollars.

We need to, to see some return on having to, I don't wanna say put up with, but having to be here when everyone else is here.

- That led to a more concerted effort between city and state authorities to ensure vendors were paying their share of sales taxes.

Between that revenue and the increased role of rally sponsorships, the city is able to construct community resources like the Harley-Davidson Rally Point, which features music and other events year round.

- Citizens just need to know that it's not something that just goes into the general fund and isn't seen again.

It's returned in the form of capital improvements in our community.

- Last year, the city of Sturgis collected just under $660,000 in rally related sales tax.

That's second only to the 75th Sturgis motorcycle rally, in 2015.

The rally ripples beyond Sturgis and throughout the hills in Small Town Nemo.

A half hour drive from Sturgis through Vanocker Canyon.

The volunteer fire department has fed bikers for more than 20 years.

In that time, they've served more than 70,000 visitors at their annual biker breakfast.

- This is actually our biggest fundraiser.

Probably two-thirds to three-fourths of our budget is raised during this time we get very little help from the state or from the counties because we're not a tax district.

So we've continued to just use the biker breakfast as our main fund drive.

- Patsy and Jerry Hood estimate they made about $25,000 in one week of serving breakfast last year.

Jerry, the former fire chief, organizes the feed.

- I'm usually over here about five o'clock and cook off anywhere from 60 to 120 pounds of sausage.

Then we clean the grills and start cooking pancakes - In 2022.

The Hoods say they sold 3,726 breakfasts that translated to 375 pounds of dry pancake mix more than a thousand pounds of scrambled eggs, 4,000 biscuits, 93 gallons of gravy.

That kind of work takes a team.

- We got volunteers from the community that would do the serving so the fire department can do the cooking and also be able to go on calls, 'cause we usually average three to six calls during that week, wrecks or emergency illness or whatever.

- But the breakfast has become its own tradition with its own repeat patrons year after year, - During the 75th, I think they went all the way across our property and wound back and down around here, and they must have had an hour and a half to two hours.

Yeah, - About an hour - In the sun and they waited.

That's tells me that we're doing something right.

- The recent study from Texas A&M University determined the 10 day Sturgis motorcycle rally resulted in $784 million of economic impact in South Dakota.

Tourism Secretary Jim Hagen emphasizes the statewide ripples of that single event.

- It's a huge impact and not just in the Black Hills.

I think that's what a lot of folks might overlook sometimes in the state is we've got bikers coming in from every corner of this state down in the southeast, the northeast, central South Dakota.

They're coming in from all different state highways and county highways, things like that.

Our major interstates.

And we have communities throughout the state, whether it be a Sioux Falls and Yankton and Mitchell, others that are actually creating events to welcome those bikers - Outside of rally season.

Places like Nemo are pretty quiet.

Jerry and Patsy Hood like it that way.

But they see the benefit of tourism in preserving that way of life.

- You know, places around Nemo, a lot of 'em benefit from the rally.

- We didn't have tourism at Nemo.

The guest ranch wouldn't be here.

The Mercantile couldn't make it without, I mean before the bikes come in and after they're gone.

ATVs side by sides, UTVs heavy usage around here.

The Forest Service trails, without the word getting out about a beautiful place to come visit.

This place would be a ghost town.

- The Sturgis Motorcycle rally is the largest single tourism event in the state, but it's far from the only draw.

We'll learn more about developing the tourism industries appeal to families and scientists next time.