By Alan Van Ormer
Tribune editor

When Chris Daugaard was a Dell Rapids High School senior, he was late for school and had to get a tardy slip. He told the school that he had no excuse and that he was late.
For Darwin Daugaard, a distant relative and a math and science teacher in the school district, that action said more than any words could.
“They are dead honest,” he said of the Daugaard family. “Seeing that come from a high school senior was impressive. Dennis is as honest as they can get.”
Dennis Daugaard recently announced that he was running to be the next governor of South Dakota. And people in Dell Rapids and around the state know first-hand what the man and his family are like.
“He is very personable. He is down to earth and easy to talk to,” said Darwin Daugaard, who lives across the section from Dennis and his family east of Baltic. “He understands if you have a problem or an issue. He also understands that not everyone has to agree.”
Gov. Mike Rounds characterizes Daugaard as a man with integrity, compassion and absolute honesty. “You can talk very frankly with him and he will share his thoughts,” Rounds said. “He sees the greater good that has to be done. He doesn’t play the partisan politics that you sometimes see during the legislative session.”
Larry Schildhauer and Paul Wildermuth both went to school with Daugaard and neither questioned his character.
Schildhauer remembers him as always one of the smartest guys in the class, while Wildermuth said he was an all-around good guy.
“He is an honest person who tells it like it is,” Wildermuth said. “His upbringing will help him. He knew the value of a dollar.”
Schildhauer said Daugaard did not have an attitude that he was better than anybody else. “Look at all the accomplishments he has done on his own,” he said. “He is just a common guy, a hard worker who didn’t think he was better than anyone else. What you see is what you get.”
Dell Rapids has always been special to Daugaard.
“Dell Rapids has always been home,” he said.
Daugaard grew up in a diversified farm operation, which included hogs, cattle and chickens. His job growing up was to collect the eggs, wash the eggs, put them in a bucket in the basement, where they were then taken to Harry’s Produce in Dell Rapids to be sold.
He was born in 1953 and between 1959 and 1966 he attended Corothers District 36, which was a one-room school house two miles from his home. He was the only child in his age group. When they closed the school and it was consolidated with Dell Rapids, Daugaard started attending school at Dell Rapids.
It was at the Legion Hall where he met his future wife, Linda, during an eighth grade dance. He was involved in the band, chorus, played football, ran track, was involved in the play and was the student body president.
“The school has always had a tremendous influence on me,” Daugaard said. “They had a lot of great teachers.”
Those teachers included Lauren Carroll, whose teaching caused him to minor in math, and then there was Jim Boise, the band instructor. “He insisted on excellence and challenged us to strive for excellence,” he said.
After graduation, Daugaard headed to the University of South Dakota where he worked toward a major in government; in part, because he could get a scholarship.
When he was a senior in high school, the family shut down and his parents had to auction off the livestock and the equipment.
Daugaard had to do a variety of jobs to get through college; including janitor work during the winter and labor jobs during the summer.
After graduation in 1975, he started Law School at Northwestern University near Chicago. After graduation he worked in Chicago for a few years and then came back to South Dakota in 1981.
He and Linda, who was a South Dakota State University graduate, were married and they moved back to the family farm to raise their three children, Laura and Sara, who both graduated from Dell Rapids St. Mary and Chris, who graduated from Dell Rapids High School.
At that time, Daugaard also passed the Bar exam and started working in banking at the National Bank of South Dakota.
In 1990, he moved to the Children’s Home Society where he ran the fundraising operations until 2002 when he became the executive director.
Children’s Home Society (CHS) provides a home, school, and therapy for children, primarily ages 4-13, with emotional and behavioral problems. The majority of children have a history of abuse and neglect. CHS also provides emergency shelter services and counseling for women and children who are victims of domestic abuse.
“It has been a real worthy mission, something you can feel good about,” he said. “I know I have had an impact.”
Then came the recruitment into politics.
In the early 1990s, the Republican Party was looking for candidates and selected Daugaard as a possible candidate. So in 1996, he ran for the State Senate and won.
“The people in Dell Rapids were very supportive,” he recalls. “They were very helpful. They signed petitions and donated to the campaign,”
That is where he met now-Governor Mike Rounds, who was also a State Senator at the time. In 2000, Rounds was forced into term limits and then in 2002, he won the primary.
It was Father’s Day and the Daugaards were at church.
For some reason, two cars were in town and since it was Father’s Day, the family decided that Dennis could decide what to do. They decided to watch a video.
While Dennis went to get a video, Linda drove home. When he got home, she told him that Mike Rounds had called.
She told him that Rounds wanted to get some advice about something. Daugaard figured it had something to do with the Children’s Home.
He called Rounds back and Rounds said “I don’t want your advice. I want to know would you like to be my running mate?” Daugaard recalls. “I just about dropped the phone. I was so surprised.”
After talking to my family and members of the Children’s Home, I called him back that evening and told him it was a definite yes.
Gov. Rounds said he has a great deal of respect for Daugaard and is someone he could trust.
“We think a lot alike,” Rounds said. “If something happened to me, I thought who would I want for governor and Denny Daugaard’s name came up in my mind immediately.
Rounds added that he believed when selecting him that he would be a very good governor.
“He has done nothing to disappoint me,” he said. “He has been very good to bounce ideas off of and ask advice. He has been nothing but very helpful. It is a people job and he is very good at that. He has a lot of compassion.”
And now almost eight years later, Daugaard is trying to become the state’s next governor.
Darwin Daugaard said people who know Dennis would support him. “He is in it for heart,” he said. “He wants to do what is best for the majority of the people.”
One of his concerns is what a slowed-down national economy has done to the State budget and what the impact will be in the future. “The new governor elected in 2010 will come to Pierre and will almost certainly have a deficit,” he said. “The stimulus money will all be gone. We can’t use that to plug the deficit. Some hard decisions will have to be made.”
Along with budget concerns, Daugaard said job development and economic growth are other issues. “Thousands of people have lost their jobs,” he said. “We need to get the economy going again and get some more jobs restored.”
And the way he believes it can be done is by being disciplined against easy solutions. “An obvious solution is to raise taxes to cover the deficit,” he said. “The problem with that is it is a short-term solution. It is a longer-term permanent solution to a short-term problem. Once we come out of the recession the taxes won’t get cut. Historically, that doesn’t happen. What happens is the increased revenue will find a home.”
What Daugaard also says will help if he becomes governor is his work ethic. “I’m accustomed to hard work. I’m accustomed to long hours,” he said. “I’m prepared in that sense. That is part of farm life. That is part of my Dell Rapids experience.”
Darwin Daugaard said key issues that will impact Dell Rapids are education and farming. “He will be very cautious and sincere when making choices on these two issues,” he said. “It not only affects him, but also affects his friends and his family.”