Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight – Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden has a backup in case he breaks another gavel. In fact, he’s got four.
Rhoden is known for his literal heavy handedness on the podium during legislative sessions — he broke his second gavel in as many years in December ahead of Gov. Kristi Noem’s budget address. He broke the first — a gift from Noem — ahead of the 2022 budget address.
“Two years in a row,” Rhoden said to the legislators gathered on the House floor in December. “There’s something about the House.”
Between his efforts to fix his homemade gavel — crafted from a black walnut tree on his ranch — and build a new gavel, along with gavels gifted to him in the last week, he should have enough to get him through the rest of his second term as lieutenant governor.
House Speaker Hugh Bartels surprised Rhoden with a new gavel on Tuesday before Noem was introduced for her State of the State address: a (perhaps indestructible?) aluminum gavel, which Rhoden called a “Thor’s hammer-type gavel.”
Lake Area Technical College President Tiffany Sanderson had surprised Rhoden the night before with an alumni-made hickory gavel, which Rhoden said has a “big old honkin’ head.” A plaque on the back of the gavel’s accompanying striker plate reads “Warranty void if broken by Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden.”
“I told them they were hedging their bets writing that on there,” Rhoden laughed.
The lieutenant governor said he enjoyed the gifts and a bit of fun.
“I was just tickled pink,” he said. “Obviously I like woodwork and metalwork. To get quality gifts like that just made my week.”
Rhoden repaired the gavel he broke in December, gluing it back together and wrapping hay bale wire around it. But after his son inquired about it, he passed it on as a Christmas gift.
So, Rhoden crafted a replacement gavel. It’s the same wood chopped from a black walnut tree on his ranch near Union Center — a piece of his childhood and a reminder of his family values. He plans to switch between the replacement and the hickory gavel during the legislative session.
The aluminum gavel? That’s for display.
So is the last gavel in his roster — or, rather, club.
That gavel is “super sized,” with a handle almost 2 feet long and a 6-inch-wide head. Rhoden built it as a joke ahead of the State of the State address.
“I got thinking it’d be cute to build a great big gavel,” Rhoden said, adding that it takes two hands to swing. “That way I could have a little fun in the Capitol when I got back.”