Seth Tupper-SD Searchlight
RAPID CITY — South Dakota’s governor, who’s in the midst of an election campaign, awarded another grant Tuesday from an economic development fund he controls.
Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden announced a $4 million Future Fund award for Western Dakota Technical College in Rapid City. The college will use the money to move a gunsmithing school from Colorado and incorporate it into Western Dakota’s offerings for students.
Rhoden, who attended Western Dakota decades ago but didn’t graduate, made the announcement at the college.
“It’s fitting to me that South Dakota would be home for a school like this,” Rhoden said. “South Dakota is the most Second Amendment-friendly state in the nation.”
Last week, Rhoden granted $6 million from the Future Fund to establish a South Dakota Defense Institute in Rapid City that will help companies in the state earn federal military contracts. That grant brought the unobligated balance of the Future Fund down to $13 million, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development said at the time.
A similar spurt of Future Fund grants from Rhoden last year sparked criticism from the three Republicans who are running for his job. Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden called the grants an “attempt to buy votes,” state House Speaker Jon Hansen said the Future Fund was “funding the governor’s political future,” and U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson said although Future Fund grants are an important economic development tool, “they aren’t meant to help someone’s campaign.” Meanwhile, Johnson has pledged that if he’s elected, he’ll use $2 million from the Future Fund to create a new local business startup initiative.
Upon being reminded of that criticism Tuesday by South Dakota Searchlight, Rhoden called it “ridiculous” and said he’s awarding Future Fund grants to projects and ideas that will improve the state’s economy and workforce.
“I am doing my job,” Rhoden said. “If you look at the opportunities that I have as a governor, as far as an appropriate use for Future Funds, this is picture perfect.”
The state gets money for the Future Fund by charging a fee to employers. They pay the fee when they submit payroll taxes that support unemployment benefits.
The late Republican Gov. George Mickelson convinced lawmakers to create the fund in 1987. They placed it under the governor’s exclusive control to enable quick responses to economic opportunities.
State law says only that the fund “must be used for purposes related to research and economic development for the state,” but that’s about to change. Lawmakers approved new restrictions earlier this year, in response to past uses of the fund by Rhoden’s predecessor, former Gov. Kristi Noem. Rhoden was elevated from lieutenant governor after Noem resigned in January 2025 to become secretary of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
Noem’s controversial uses of the Future Fund included a fireworks show at Mount Rushmore, the construction of a state-owned shooting range near Rapid City that legislators refused to fund, a rodeo in Sioux Falls where Noem carried the American flag into the arena on horseback, and a workforce recruitment advertising campaign that featured Noem as the star.
Rhoden signed the legislative Future Fund reforms into law last month, but they won’t take effect until July 1 — after the June 2 primary election pitting Rhoden against three opponents for the Republican nomination.
The reforms add legal definitions for acceptable uses of the fund, mandate more reporting to legislators about awards, specify the information required of applicants, direct the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to formulate rules for the fund’s use, and require the office to make recommendations to the governor about potential awards.
The latest grant from Rhoden will help move the equipment, faculty and curriculum of the Colorado School of Trades, which operates solely as a gunsmithing school, to Western Dakota Tech.
The president of the Colorado school, Ryan Lishner, said Tuesday that gun policies in Colorado “are starting to impede what firearms dealers and firearms manufacturers can do, and that’s getting to where it’s impacting our educational process.” He views South Dakota as willing to support the gunsmithing program “at a much higher level than Colorado was going to do.”
The Colorado school can accommodate up to 20 faculty members and 140 students. After completing the 14-month program, students go on to professions ranging from self-employed gunsmiths to employees of major firearms manufacturers.
“Western Dakota Tech is going to have the ability to grow that program to a much higher level,” Lishner said.