Independent journalism and South Dakota’s collective intelligence are poorer this week, having lost smart writer Tom Lawrence:
Tom passed on August 21, a few months shy of seven years in partnership with me on this blog, which we founded in 2019. I’ll miss his writing and eagle-eyed editing. Rest in peace, Tom [John Tsitrian, “R.I.P. Tom Lawrence, Co-Founder of The South Dakota Standard,” South Dakota Standard, 2026.08.22].
U.S. Senate candidate Brian Bengs honors Lawrence’s public service:
I met Tom Lawrence through his work. He covered my campaign with the clear-eyed skepticism that is the hallmark of a great journalist. Any regular reader of his pieces would certainly agree that he was a thoughtful and deeply decent person. Tom’s passing is a loss to all who believe that public life is better because of the presence of serious observers able to hold all to account. I will remember him with respect and affection for his outsize influence in our state [Brian Bengs, campaign FB post, 2026.08.23].
Former legislator Nancy Turbak Berry seconds Bengs’s sentiment:
Every journalist with the integrity, skill, and commitment Tom had makes the world a better place, as he did. Long live the First Amendment and the honorable memory of those who lived it! [Nancy Turbak Berry, comment, under Bengs, 2026.08.23]
You can review Tom Lawrence’s fully oeuvre on South Dakota Standard, including his last five essays from July 2026, via this author link. Lawrence’s July 3 post on the semiquincentennial expresses the level-headed patriotism and clear-eyed optimism that fueled his journalism:
The Fourth of July is always an entertaining time with good summer food, games for kids and a concert, topped by an impressive fireworks show at dark. It’s an American tradition that we enjoy each summer, with hot weather, cool drinks and lots of smiles and sandals evident.
Tradition is a vital part of the health of a community, a state and a nation. We observe dates and honor the people who made an impact on all of them. It’s proper and appropriate that we continue to do so.
While we are marking our semiquincentennial — the term for a 250th anniversary — we need to learn more about our history while examining how we can continue to improve our nation and move past this current highly partisan, often fractious period. This is not how our nation should act.
We can and must do better.
We have at more difficult times, including a bloody and drawn-out Civil War that killed, wounded or injured 1.5 million people. We have endured many other wars, taking so many lives and impacting almost all Americans.
We have engaged in struggles to ensure equal rights for all people. That continues today.
We have suffered under depressions, recessions and economic downturns. We have also enjoyed extended boom periods as the USA grew into the mightiest economic power on the globe. That title has been challenged and we must find methods to keep our economy strong and growing.
The recent pandemic, which is blamed for more than 1.1 million deaths in the nation, was an example of a great challenge for our country. It caused grave concerns, sparked still-simmering debate over the source and cause, and raised havoc with our medical, educational and economic systems. But we were able to get it under control, as we did with earlier health problems. More still need to be conquered.
I believe all of those hurdles can and will be overcome.
I am inspired by many comments on America’s goals.
Barack Obama made it clear during his 2008 campaign for president.
“That is why, for me, patriotism is always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people. Instead, it is also loyalty to America’s ideals — ideals for which anyone can sacrifice, or defend, or give their last full measure of devotion,” Obama said. “I believe it is this loyalty that allows a country teeming with different races and ethnicities, religions and customs, to come together as one.”
We can live up to the promise made more than two centuries ago and reiterated in recent years. It is up to all 342 million Americans to share that spirit so well expressed by Ben Franklin.
A republic? It’s up to us to keep it [Tom Lawrence, “America Remains Great—and It’s Up to Us to Keep It That Way,” South Dakota Standard, 2026.07.03].
In a 2022 column for The N’West Iowa Review, Lawrence summarized his career in journalism, which began with a 1978 Bob Dylan album review in the SDSU Collegian:
I looked, and amazingly enough, there it was on an inside page. They had misspelled my last name in the byline — Laurence — but that was a minor concern. They had published it!
I went to The Collegian office and was told by arts editor Roger Thompson — still remember his name — that he liked it and was willing to give me a chance.
That led to regular assignments, and soon, a promotion to section editor, and then a senior staff writer position.
I wrote a regular column that developed a fairly large following and raised worthy points and not a little hell.
That’s exactly what a journalist is supposed to do, by the way.
I wrote for a few other papers during the next few months, including The Register and The Public Opinion, and realized this is what I wanted to do.
I had planned to teach history and coach, but newspapers had captured my heart.
They still have it, almost 44 years since that first, misspelled byline.
Since those happy days as a student journalist who learned while he worked, I have written for and edited numerous newspapers.
I have worked for papers in South Dakota, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wyoming and Iowa, including writing and editing for the Iowa Information newspapers 2015-18.
It’s been a roller-coaster ride at times, with dizzying highs and deadening lows. I have broken some big stories, attended far too many meetings that almost put me to sleep, and met hundreds of fascinating people. It didn’t make me rich, at least financially, but I acquired a wealth of stories and memories.
It’s a worthy career, doing important and meaningful work. We inform and enlighten the public, tell stories that deserve attention, and sometimes get to entertain readers as well. It’s been a privilege to do this for so long [Tom Lawrence, “Lawrence: Working for Newspapers Was His Happy Fate in Life,” The N’West Iowa Review, 2022.10.11].
According to the obituary posted by Heritage Funeral Home, Lawrence turned 68 last Thursday. He died the next day from pancreatic cancer. Heritage Funeral Home in Sioux Falls will host the celebration of life visitation this Thursday, August 27, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Tom’s passing is a major journalistic loss for South Dakota and our region. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most painful cancers to endure. I remember the outstanding George McGovern series he wrote while working at the Mitchell Daily Republic where my grandfather worked his entire career. Tom is probably visiting with George McGovern now among others. Rest in Peace Tom!
This is a huge loss. There were few people more enthusiastic about good journalism in this state than Tom Lawrence. He is missed.
A swell fellow, indeed.
Tom was the biggest South Dakota politics geek I ever knew. Besides being an excellent journalist and very funny guy.
The late veteran South Dakota reporter and columnist, Tom Lawrence agreed with this interested party that it’s time to erase another war criminal’s name from South Dakota maps.
A state park, a peak, a county and a town in the Black Hills, a county and national forest in Montana are named after a murderer. During the Battle of Greasy Grass on the banks of the Little Bighorn River in Montana George Custer attacked the encampment where the elderly, women and children were hidden and during the Washita Massacre he held a similar contingent as hostages and human shields.
George Custer, Phil Sheridan, George Crook and William Harney all committed crimes against humanity yet their names still besmirch numerous government and geographical features. Crook City near Whitewood and Crook’s Tower, one of the 7000 footers in the Black Hills, were named after a war criminal.
Revisionist history turned the Wounded Knee Massacre into a battle now Senator Mike Rounds said he won’t vote for the Senate companion to the Remove the Stain Act that would rescind Medals of Honor for twenty war criminals responsible for the slaughter of children, women and men in 1890 at Wounded Knee in occupied South Dakota. But he and the South Dakota Republican Party are hardly the only racists in the colonized American West.
After successes by tribal nations renaming geographical features in Alaska and South Dakota Yellowstone National Park could see at least two name changes. Hayden Valley memorializes Ferdinand V. Hayden who advocated for the extermination of tribal people and Mount Doane is named for Lieutenant Gustavus Doane who led a massacre of the Piikani, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Senator Lisa Murkowski and the US Park Service succeeded in what Alaskans asked of Congress after urging the body to approve a name change for North America’s highest peak to Denali, an Athabascan name meaning “the high one.”
Senators Cynthia Lummis and co-sponsor John Barrasso have introduced a bill to permanently cancel Indigenous culture by blocking the name Bear’s Lodge or Mahto Tipila from Devils Tower National Monument in the Wyoming Black Hills.
Custer spent precious little time in our state, and when he did he was breaking the law and hunting the people who called this land home. He was an Ohio native who attended school in Michigan and roamed the nation as a soldier. The current leadership of South Dakota would surely protest, saying this would erase history. That’s wrong, of course. Custer would still exist in the books and legends — he just wouldn’t be honored in South Dakota. It took 50 years to rename Black Elk Peak. Why not get started with the crusade to erase the name Custer from our map? [column, Tom Lawrence]
https://www.aberdeennews.com/story/opinion/columns/2021/03/15/lawrence-time-to-remove-custers-name-from-south-dakota-map/43735885/
Well said, Larry.
Tom was an outstanding Journalist who always challenged you and your answers with more thought-provoking questions. Tom will be greatly missed. Frank